Zombies, Run! Excellent example of a completely fictional story with real-world consequences

“It’s easy to experience multimedia: Just step outside on the road and wait. You will see the big truck approaching, you will hear it blow it’s horn, you will smell it’s tires, you will feel the impact, and with a little luck you’ll even taste the dust.”
apparently from a .sig in de.talk.bizarre

It’s not easy to have impact with one’s ideas. I mean, you can have a great idea for a fictional story, write a book, perhaps some people read it … but does it changes lives? Does it have impact? One brilliant example of how a completely fictional story can have real-world consequences is Zombies, Run!

You can see their Kickstarter video here:

Essentially, it’s an app that supports you to go running — real running — regularly. It’s a brilliant example of gamification or immersive games, using a story to tie in the ‘gamer’ and encourage him/her to exercise more regularly.

It uses GPS to simulate chases, tracks your speed and other data, and, of course, if you sync the data to their website you can get a map view of where you did run and how long (beautifully done). So much for impact — using a story to encourage people living a more healthy life. BTW, it’s completely off-topic, but if you are not an organ donor because you don’t care, why not ‘not care’ the right way and fill out an organ donor card? If you already are, thank you. 🙂 Now, back on topic.

I think transferring ideas across borders, esp. with gamification, is very interesting. BTW, there is a very good course over at Coursera about Gamification and an one-page info (in German) on this site.

After all, just because you have an idea in one area does not mean it has to stay there.