Trying out Zombies, Run!

So I was looking for a way to get my kids to do a little more outdoor activity with me and had been hearing about and wanted to try the Zombies, Run! app for quite a long time.  This was the perfect opportunity to check it out with my boys the other night, and what I did was use my speakerphone on my iPhone and run with my iPhone in my hand so all 3 of us can hear it while walking, jogging and running.  I will tell you that having a Bluetooth speaker that you can hold in your hand is my next step, I am surprised they don’t make mini weights with Bluetooth speakers for runners who want to just jog while holding a weight/speaker!

For those of you who don’t know what Zombies, Run! is I will explain, this is an app/game for your Android or iOS device that you listen to while moving (running, jogging, walking)…etc.  You basically are listening to a story and the interaction of the story is recorded in your steps and distance for you.  The coolest thing is as you run and move around, you are “collecting” supplies and feeding things into the story and you can use that to level up your base even and more.

The story itself is quite immersive and is like listening to a radio broadcast, someone is trying to guide you to arrive at their base after a helicopter crash in the story I started.  As you run various events and updates happen throughout the story and you can’t wait to hear what is coming up next, especially when you hear that the Zombies are closing in on you and you have to pick up the pace.

16 minutes in I paused to take a snapshot

Now the steps counter is a bit wonky, and not totally accurate, this is because I am running with the phone in my hand and the waving of my arm while running triggers steps in an uneven pattern.  I guess this was mean’t to be on your hip or in a pocket or something, but I did find the step counter to be off.  I was moving at a bit of a slower pace because my 8 year old and 12 year old sons were running and jogging with me.

To add to the ambiance of the story, we ran at night, and both kids had little LED flashlights to become more immersed.  This provided a real sense of being “in the story” and they both enjoyed it.  It will be even better when I get a Bluetooth speaker shaped that I can hold in my hand which is on the way.

You get progress reports as you move through the story, from each transmission you hear, to what you find while running.

You also collect things for your base.

Now the app is designed for you also to run and listen to your music with the audio cutting in while listening to your normal music, if you don’t also have music there were large gaps of silence while walking and jogging.  My kids and I did wish that actions/events would happen more frequently instead of the long silence and you can remove some of the long silence by enabling Distance and Time Speech which is off by default.

The free mode is fantastic, I can only imagine how great the monthly subscription is at just $2.99 per month I can already tell it is totally worth it.

Zombies, Run! is one of the most fun apps I have ever used in a method to keep me interested in running when my same 104 track playlist becomes old and tired, it also was really good at motivating my kids to come along for a run with me so they could continue to hear the story.