Another zombie victim

[liv]

I made a summary post to my own journal and was chatting with various people about Zombies, Run! The conversation persuaded me that I might as well have a go with it rather than waiting until I've achieved a particular speed. So today I set myself up to run with the app.

I ended up running with the phone in my hand; it's just about light enough to do that, but not extremely comfortable. I think I need to acquire an old-fashioned bumbag (the 80s are retro enough to be in again, right?) or a small shoulder bag so I can carry it more or less on my hip. (I have a Galaxy Note, and I didn't think when I was lusting over the big screen that it would be too physically big to be usable as a device for measuring my runs.) The accelerometer seemed to work fine, but as far as I can tell there's no way to input a total distance so that it can convert the step count to an equivalent speed over the ground. So I felt a bit cheated of the detailed breakdown of how fast I was going at each stage of the run, and the possibility of speed-based achievements. But anyway, the treadmill gives me a speed so I can carry on using my own logs for that.

I enjoyed the story for S1 Mission 1. It was exciting without being terrifying to the point of distraction. I like how immersive it is, the way there's an in-story reason for why you have a voice in your ear giving instructions. And I'm definitely looking forward to the next ep, so that's a big plus.

I decided to turn on the zombie attacks because I think it's probably good for me to have a go at including some short sprints in my runs. Running on the treadmill, I set my base speed to 6.5 kph because I didn't think I could manage sprints over a base of 7 kph. I'm not quite sure how rmc28 worked out that you're supposed to speed up by 20% when the zombies chase you – it wasn't transparent to me at all, but anyway, 20% on 6.5 kph is 7.8 kph. I'm quite proud of myself because I succeeded in escaping the zombies for 2 of the 4 chases, and I think a third one I was just too slow pushing treadmill buttons, because I'm pretty certain I did run at 7.8 kph for a minute and was surprised to get a fail message.

By about 20 minutes in I was sort of exhausted from the sprints and the voice gave the alert of another zombie chase just as I was trying to slow down to get my breath back, and I got confused and fumbled the treadmill, and it was all a bit overwhelming. Which certainly added to the realism of the game, but I'm not sure is actually entirely positive.

I like the way that the mission length is a bit elastic, it's sort of roughly 30 minutes rather than 30 minutes to the second. That definitely helps with clock-watching! I enjoyed immersing myself in the scenario; instead of thinking, meh, I have another 13 minutes of this, I'm bored and I want to stop, I was more in the mindset of, if I can just keep up a steady pace a bit longer I'll make it back to the base. But I was definitely more tired than I have been on the last few runs, possibly because of the sprints and partly because of the adrenalin of sudden, unexpected zombie attacks. I mean, they're not actually too sudden, it does give you a reasonable amount of warning and the announcer voice is fairly calm, it's not as much "argh, panic!!!" as I was worried it might be. But still.

All in all I didn't quite manage to actually run the full 30 minutes. I covered 3.3 km during the workout, and I had at least 20 minutes of steady 6.5 kph with 7.8 kph sprints, even if the final stretch was a bit of a mess. And I think I shall get on well with Zombies, Run!

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[sporky_rat]

Which version of the app are you running?