----- Update 1 -----
So I'm afraid I return full of sweat and with sour news; the zombies wouldn't chase me (I must smell like them). As I mentioned in the first part of my review, location services must be turned on in order for the 'Zombie Chases' option to be enabled. I turned on the location services tongiht, then went to the Zombies, Run! settings and turned the chase mode on. After giving a brief 'don't get run over by cars' and windows-vista reminiscent 'are you sure?' prompts, I thought I was ready to go.
At this point, I am on Mission 5; with my iPhone in my elastic arm band (and invariably upside down from my perspective) I set off! The story audio ends and my music playlist starts up. A few minutes later, the first song ends and I have yet to cross any zombies. I turn my head in an awkward position to read my screen right-side-up and I noticed it is still recording my run in steps; the Accelerometer must still be on! I stop the mission and bring back up the mission menu. Sure enough the Accelerometer is on - GPS is required for the 'Zombie Chases' to work and it still has to be turned on manually even after Location Services and Zombie Chases are turned on.
I flipped GPS on, made sure zombie chases was set, the GPS option told me it got a fix on my position, and then I restarted the mission (though you can always choose to begin missions from the latest story audio you made it to). I never ran into (or heard I suppose) zombies outside of the ambient audio during story line parts. I'm not sure what gives, but when I finished my run, mission stats told me I never ran into any. If I were a real survivor, I'd be counting my blessings.
Some things to consider. I'm not terribly overweight, but I'm definitely out of shape. With the GPS mode on, your 'Pace' is shown in the upper right. Unfortunately my pace only showed up very infrequently; most of the time it only displayed a rather depressing dash. But if I ran just quick enough (which is not very fast), a number would appear briefly!
I think this means I needed to be running/jogging a certain speed in order for my pace to register. From what I read of the program, it uses your pace to determine how much faster you need to go to outrun pursuing zombies. By that token, I suppose it may be the case that if the program can't pick up on your pace it may just never make zombies chase you.
Le sigh.
I'll give it another go sometime this week and try this out again on another mission in case it was just something special about Mission 5. I can't say I've seen a place to voice my support issues with the game, but I'm email the crap out of anyone I can find to get an answer, but only after I give the program the benefit of the doubt and a second try.
Before I go, I do have one more minor complaint. It's been a bit irritating that the Steven Hawkings-esque 'You picked up a Bottle of Water' voice is barely audible over my music. I tried lowering my music volume via the iPhone Now Playing music menu, however lowers the story audio and computerized voice with it! It may be a limitation of the iPhone, but if at all possible those options should be separated out. Not that I ran into any zombies to test the issue, but I could easily see it being hard to hear the shambling, disease eating bastards on my tail.
Sad pandas in zombie town tonight, but we'll see what my next run brings to the table... er... road.
----- Original Post -----
Greetings folks!
James here, joining you today to share a 'first thoughts' review of the highly anticipated (for me) Zombies, Run! app. It is currently available only for iOS devices, but estimated to be available for Android this spring. I'm using a iPhone 3GS so I'm sure the 4 series will handle the game a bit better.
The app first starts up with a very quick tutorial basically letting you know that you basically play (aka exercise) as long as you want using headphones to listen to the story. During non-story audio bits, music randomly plays from what's available on your phone (or from a playlist of your choice). If you are being chased by zombies, you have to speed up. Items are automatically collected (or lost) as you run that can be used outside of missions to beef up Abel Township (your new survivor home).
Before you can play, you have to sign in via an account you create at the Zombies, Run! site (they provided a link to me via email a few days early for KickStarting the project).
Though the tutorial sounds simplistic enough, I recommend reading the 'Instructions' from the 'Settings' tab; there are a number of features contained there that the tutorial doesn't cover. Some of the main points include:
- Accelerometer (no zombie chases; default on my phone) vs GPS
- full missions are typically 25-30 minutes long with about 5 story sections in each
- story clips happen between songs; longer songs may be paused and resumed for story bits
- zombie chases require you to speed up for one minute; if zombies catch up to you, ya lose an item
Here's a screenshot of the GUI about ten and half minutes into the first mission using the Accelerometer:
The steps were not a perfect indication of the number of steps I was taking at the time, but it was fairly consistent at least. I have no earthly clue what the times listed next to the story/items mean. It is not when they items were grabbed or going to be picked up nor was that an indication for parts of the story (that I could tell).
The audio clips for the story were pretty good. The voice acting was believable and the sound effects/ambiance weren't bad either. Quickly after the first clip was over, my music kicked in (Porcupine Tree's The Blind House, in case you were interested). As I was walking to the music though, I kept hearing faint vocals in the background. I thought maybe I was missing some story, but I learned later it was just a computerized voice telling me I had collected items.
The items you collect can be used on buildings in town, earning them experience points that can upgrade/level the buildings. From what I can tell, this changes their physical appearance, increases the town's population size, and eventually unlocks new missions. From how the site describes it, it sounds like the size of the town will eventually grow too. Guess time and running will tell!
I plan on doing an actual jog/run this evening with the GPS and Zombie Chase feature turned on to see how that goes. Will post more thoughts on the app after that.
Hope you've enjoyed this review; lemme know your thoughts or post your own in the comments! You can get your own copy of the game for iOS at the iTunes Store.
James out.
If you have not played Plants vs Zombies by now, then you're missing out. If you have, and it's been a while, it's a game worth a revisit.