Zombies, Run! Let’s Play

Part 0

I guess sort of like an introduction type thing? This is basically my experience with the awesome game Zombies, Run!

I suppose you could call this a Let’s Play sort of thing, but it’s also something of a personal log for myself.

It’s partly because of the format of the game that I’m playing– Zombies, Run! is an phone app game that is largely audio based, and intended to be “played” when the player is physically running.

So already, the game has broken the fourth wall and incorporated the player as an actual character in the game. So it’s not quite the Wii motion sensor with you waggling a vaguely shaped piece of plastic in the air and hoping it matches up with the character on the screen– no, you, the player ARE Runner 5.

Your movements are those of Runner 5; if you are warned about a gaggle of zombies approaching behind you, you physically have to speed the fuck up, or risk getting chomped on. All the while, folks back at home offer advice, encouragement, and directions. As you run, you collect “items” that are reflected in your game’s cache on your phone.

It crosses the line between an RPG, a phone game, and geocaching, and the best part is that the setting of the game is the ground beneath your feet.

And the line between the post apocalypse zombie world and the ground passing beneath your feet gets precariously blurred as you play. Because for all intents and purposes, the lives of these people on the other end of your headset are preserved by your progress, and they’ll let you know in no uncertain terms.

Alright, now that I’m done with setting up what the game is about, I’m going to go into a bit of a more personal introduction. I have this theory that we all insert bits of ourselves into who Runner Five is. So when we think about who they are in this world, there’s more than a little bit of yourself invested in that world.

Personally, the story of Zombies, Run is very appealing to me. While we aren’t exactly in the midst of a zombie pandemic, and I’m not exactly a member of a fleet of runners tasked with gathering supplies, it’s still not too hard for me to draw my own parallels that pulls me further into the world.

And pieces of Zombies, Run! back story niggle at me. Things that I know about the world that make the story all the more possible. Things that motivate me, and not just to run, but to think and care more than I have been.

It feeds into my real life motivation, both to continue the game and “do right” by these voices in my ear, but also other factors in my own life. To run and get my fitness up, but also brush up on my languages and pursue my stats and methods training more aggressively.

So as a fair warning, this LP will end up toeing the line between fiction and reality, as I draw parallels between myself and Runner 5. But I assure you, all of it is personal, and all of it is genuine.

As a last note, I’m going to put down my baseline before I started this game.