The Walk Will Have You Off To A Good Start On That New Year's Resolution
The Walk - Fitness Tracker and Game ($3.99) by Six to Start is a theatrical fitness app and game, brought to you by the creators of the classic Zombies, Run! running game. If you are not much of a runner, but like the idea of being active throughout a virtual reality, The Walk may provide you with the encouragement you need to get moving on that New Year’s resolution.
The most important aspect of The Walk is the immersive storyline. As you progress through episodes of the story, new audio clips will become available based on your time being active. These small snippets, which are similar to segments of an audiobook, tell the story from the point of you being in it. It is quite fun and engaging as you only hear what is going on around you, a secret agent with the code name Walker, as you walk across the U.K. with a mysterious object that could save the world.
Whether you kick back at the end of a long day and listen to the clips you unlocked, or take a walk through the city while listening to them, The Walk will make you want to keep on walking. Nothing beats hearing sounds of explosions, people screaming, and other frantic activity as if it’s happening around you while on your morning walk to work.
The neat thing about The Walk is that it has the ability to adapt based on your activity level, so it’s fair for those with different lifestyles. On average, it can take a few days worth of walking to complete an episode, but this varies. I do a reasonable amount of walking, completing between 7,000 to 12,000 steps per day, but I have still only been able to complete just short of two episodes during the past week of using the app. There are 23 episodes, so completion could take a while.
Despite The Walk’s great potential, there are a few quirks involved in the app. To avoid these, you should be prepared to use the app at least once a day, or else your activity may not get logged. For example, after not opening the app for about three days, I found that a little over a day’s worth of my activity was completely unlogged, meaning that I did not progress in the game during that time. Along with this, you will have to keep the app open in the multitasking switcher in order for it to work. While this does cause the location icon on the status bar to be present all the time, The Walk is optimized for the iPhone 5s’ M7 chip, so additional battery usage is next to none.
As long as you frequently engage in and commit to the app, The Walk makes your daily activity worth keeping track of. Whether you use the app to encourage physical activity, or simply for entertainment purposes, it’s a great app to get a hold of. You can find The Walk – Fitness Tracker and Game is available in the App Store for $3.99.