Genre: Mobile, RPG, Fitness

Developer: Six to Start

Platforms: iPhone/iPod, Android, Windows Phone

Synopsis: You tie your shoes, put on your headphones, take your first steps outside. You’ve barely covered 100 yards when you hear them. They must be close. You can hear every guttural breath, every rattling groan – they’re everywhere. Zombies. There’s only one thing you can do: Run!

You’re Runner 5. Hundreds of lives are counting on you. You’ve got to help your base rebuild from the ruins of civilization by collecting critical supplies while avoiding roving zombie hordes. Can you save them and learn the truth about the zombie apocalypse?

Let’s face it: as a general rule exercise isn’t fun. It’s painful and exhausting, and usually when you find yourself in exercise’s  dominatrix-like embrace, you want to die. Okay, I admit that’s an exaggeration, but you DO have to strike a very special frame of mind to get any enjoyment from extreme physical exertion; and it’s a special mental discipline that only comes with time.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyFqZtKvya0[/youtube]

App developer Six to Start wants to help you get into that special frame of mind by making exercise fun with their new game Zombies, Run! While this app is marketed as a game, I’d call it more of an interactive story. In Zombies, Run! you find yourself in a role very much like the Walking Dead‘s Glenn; you’re a scavenger for the post apocalyptic Abel Township. Through a series of episodic missions, you unfold the story surrounding Abel, and it’s residents. While running you collect essentials for your camp to survive such as bandages, water, food, and medicines as well as some less essential items such as books and underwear (I’m not even kidding. I almost stopped in my tracks when the app told me I’d picked up a sports bra.) When you complete an episode you can distribute your findings throughout the camp to build it up. While out gathering these supplies you run into trouble and have to escape hordes of hungry zombies.

That’s the idea of this app, anyway. But how does it work in practice? At a price point of $7.99 it’s easily one of the more expensive apps your average user will ever come across. But is it worth the price? I took it for a test drive on Friday (literally) and here are my findings.

The Setup:

Before you can start collecting supplies for your camp, there are two things you need to set up first. Zombies, Run! works in conjunction with a Zombie Link profile you create on Zombies Run Game. This link tracks stats like calories burned, distance run, average pace and most of the good stuff avid runners would find on more serious apps like Runkeeper. After creating the account it’s a quick trick to sync the profile to your device so you can track your progress.

[Above: My stats after my first workout using Zombies, Run!]

Running in and of itself is boring. Running with a story is better, and running with a story AND music is best. Peppered throughout the story elements of Zombies, Run! is a custom music playlist that you can create through your device’s music player. Any old playlist will do, but personally I’m the kind of person that thinks participation is the only way to get the maximum enjoyment from a situation, so I created one from scratch and put some real thought into it to help set the mood. Armed with my sneakers, phone, and trusty post apocalyptic playlist, I was ready to give this app a go!

The Run:

The story elements of Zombies, Run! were quite enjoyable and with the right soundtrack, they’re amazing. I really want to emphasize how impressed I was with the voice acting in this first episode. While on your run, your main companion is communications controller Sam Yao. He occasionally asks you to pick up specific items that will be key to progressing the story in later missions, but mostly he just likes to talk to you. Sam’s a bit of a gabber, but listen closely because between dropping bits of information about your new post apocalyptic home, he’ll also tell you when danger is near. As I jogged down my street his chipper, British accented voice became strained, the dread evident as he spotted the first group of zombies heading my way. “They’re onto you, Runner 5– run. RUN!”  I honestly felt a chill crawl down my spine. As his voice faded out, and my playlist kicked in with “Save Yourself” by Stabbing Westward I grinned like an idiot as I ran for my life.

These evasive portions of Zombies, Run! are handled smartly by the developer. You don’t have to absolutely kill yourself to get away from the zombies chasing you. If you simply increase your pace marginally you’ll evade them after about 30 seconds. Wonderful forethought by the creators, as it makes the app accessible to both fitness enthusiasts and first time exercisers alike. If you want to walk the whole mission and spring into a light jog when the zombies show up, that’s fine. If you really want to push yourself, then it makes a regular run more interesting. I’m about three months getting into running myself, so I found it a great way to break out of my comfort pace and push myself. As I ran, the app occassionally piped in with the items I scavenged. These moments, along with the story elements fade out your playlist momentarily so it’s easy to understand what’s going on as you run. The first mission lasted about 30 minutes with only three zombie encounters to evade and by the end of it I had not only run further than I ever had before, I increased my average run time. Huzzah!

Voice acting and game elements aside, the story had me intrigued as well. I’m only going off of the first episode, mind you, but the mystery starts early. Along my run, one of the items I picked up was a CDC report that had the base medic positively drooling. “Protect that report with your life, Runner 5,” she told me. “It could be the key to everything!” The plot thickens, and I find myself definitely intrigued. To help you keep all the story elements straight, the app features a codex section which tracks the people you meet, the places you go, and the things you find.

While I really enjoyed the app, I did find some minor flaws. The time between when your controller tells you to run for your life and when the app tells you the zombies are closing in varies. In both encounters I found myself kicking it into high gear before the zombies were “in range.” It wasn’t that big of a deal, but I could see this causing people who aren’t as used to exercise running out of gas early, causing them to fall prey to their zombie pursuers. Honestly, I don’t know what happens if they catch you. I was too busy trying to keep my brains on the inside. When passing out my supplies to my camp I found myself confused as to where some things should go. If you don’t put your items in the right location (bandages for the hospital, books for the recreational area, etc.) the experience points used to upgrade these facilities is greatly wasted. Some of the items obviously belong in certain places, but others aren’t so easily categorized. Some clarification in these ambiguous situations would be nice.

This app is still pretty new. While it awesomely connects with both Facebook and Twitter so you can share your mad survival skills with your friends, that’s the extent of its social sharing. Hopefully they’ll add some more sharing options like Fitocracy and Foursquare in the future. It would also be fantastic if users could sync the app to their Runkeeper accounts.

I’d also like to take a moment to brag on the developers on keeping the app fresh with design tweaks here and there. As I said, this is still a relatively new app, but they’ve been fantastic about taking feedback to heart and fixing the minor issues users have found with the product. Not only are they providing unique content with well written and performed dialogue, they’re listening to their users and improving the user experience, which instills even more confidence that the $8 pricepoint is an investment rather than a waste. And they’re not done. The app launched with 23 missions, and the devs promise that there are plenty more to come.

I can’t wait to see how Six to Start will improve this project in the future, but I’m hooked. With suprisingly well performed voice acting and a storyline that I found mysterious and compelling, Zombies, Run! is definitely a gem and worth every penny of its $7.99 pricetag. It’ll get you off the couch, and make you a lean, mean zombie outbreak surviving machine!!!

I Give Zombies, Run! Four Out of Five Stars.