"ZOMBIES, RUN!" or "Why do we not feel so fat?"

About a year ago, Six to Start and Naomi Alderman decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign to create a unique iPhone/Android application that combines a fitness tracking app with a unique audio-adventure video game. Developers described the game to be "about making the thrill of runing even better with a game and a story delivered through your headphones."

"Zombies, Run! is an ultra-immersive game for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android where you help rebuild civilisation after a zombie apocalypse. By going out and running in the real world, you can collect medicine, ammo, batteries, and spare parts that you can use to build up and expand your base - all while getting orders, clues, and story through your headphones." - Kickstarter

The game, titled "ZOMBIES, RUN!" received immense support within months of launching the funding campaign, and to date, has received 581% of its requested funds (June 23, 2012). More than 3,400 people have backed this project, and (according to Google Play on my Android phone) it has been downloaded over 5,000 times on Android phones alone.

So... what is it about this game that has garnered such attention? Obviously, people are pretty psyched about having an app that not only tracks your running/walking/biking progress (overweight moms, tech-savvy bodybuilders, and self-conscious teenage girls are all jumping on the tech+fitness bandwagon), but there's something else going on here. It's not just that the app lets you track your fitness progress, and it's not just that you get to allocate resources to your virtual base play a video game after you run. I argue that this app, aside from combining gaming with fitness, convinces the public of its "playablility" more than any fitness app ever before. Why? Because it's semi-immersive, and grabs at narrative structure like we haven't seen ever before.

This is kind of a big claim. There are several extremely popular tech+fitness games out there (Dance Central, Just Dance, Dance Dance Revolution, YourShape Fitness Evolved, WiiFit/Sports, Fruit Ninja Kinect, and the list goes on). But out of any of the games I just listed, did you feel attached, sympathetic, or angry towards any of the characters? Did you want to come back and play because you wanted to know what's next in the story? Did you truly become the protagonist? I doubt it.

ZOMBIES, RUN! is semi-immersive. I will define immersion as a decreased awareness of the physical self by being surrounded in an engrossing total environment. That is, ZOMBIES places the user in an environment where their own identity is lost, and replaced by someone elses' (the character "Runner Five"). As they run through their seemingly familiar neighborhood, a story unfolds through headphones that contradicts what they are seeing around them: "". This is something unheard of with tech+fitness games before now. In nearly all of the games listed above, your identity is solidified: you see your shadow representing you or a trainer in front of you on the screen.


I believe that users are drawn to this immersion because it further displaces the concept of fitness from gaming while simultaneously pushing the user to come back for more. The concept of objective self-awareness is hard at work, here. In short, private self-awareness refers to what we think about ourselves when we must reflect on our image (e.g.: seeing oneself in a mirror). Generally, when there is a perceived difference between "ideal" self and actual self, we react negatively (Phillips and Silvia, 2005). In several studies conducted to show the impact of exercising in a mirrored environment, it was found that sedentary people are less motivated to exercise in a mirrored environment, presumably because mirrors "evoke... negative affect[s] during exercises" (Song et. al, 3) due to high body image dissatisfaction. In many fitness video games, "most of them either include avatars to represent the players in the virtual exercise environments (e.g., Wii Fit) or enable them to see their virtual selves on the screen (e.g., EyeToy)" ( Song et. al, 5).


However, we don't see that in ZOMBIES. This game allows the user to ignore preconceptions about themselves and their self-image. Their body (or an idyllized form of their body) isn't getting projected on a screen. They have become Runner Five. In this pretend world, they not only are allowed to neglect viewing themselves in a negative light, but they are assigned a role that attributes positive qualities to their self-image. THIS is why I believe ZOMBIES, RUN has taken off and achieved such popularity in less than a year.


Sources:
1. Phillips, A.G., & Silvia, P.J. (2005). Self-awareness and the emotional consequences of self-discrepancies. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(5), 703-713.
2.Song, H., Peng, Wei, & Lee, Kwan (2009). Promoting exercise self-efficacy with an exergame: The effect of seeing oneself on screen among individuals with high vs. low body image dissatisfaction. Paper presented at the International Communication Association Annual Meeting.

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Note from the Writer: I have totally played this game. I have been using it rather obsessively for the last week. I love it dearly. Forgive me for sounding like I'm being paid to write this, but you should seriously check it out if you enjoy running, walking, jogging, or zombies. In the future, I will try not to sound as much like a scumbag advertising fiend. Forgive me!