Gamified fitness apps: 8 games to try.

What are gamified fitness apps?

A gamified fitness app takes an ordinary activity, like walking, and wraps a game around it. Your steps might move a story forward, grow a collection, earn points or unlock the next level. The exercise doesn’t change. What changes is the reason to do it.

That matters because most people don’t stop walking for lack of information. They stop because a step count on its own gets boring. A good game gives you something you want to come back to tomorrow. For walking apps that focus on tracking rather than games, see our list of the best free walking apps.

8 walking and fitness game apps

These are in no particular order. Lore is ours, so we have listed it first and kept its description as factual as the rest.

Which type of fitness game suits you?

The best way to choose is to ask which kind of game you would enjoy even if it had nothing to do with exercise. If the game itself doesn’t interest you, the steps won’t keep you there.

• You like stories. Try a story game such as Lore or Zombies, Run!. You walk to find out what happens next.
• You like collecting. Pokémon GO and Pikmin Bloom reward you with new things to find on most walks.
• You like slow, steady progress. Walkr and Pikmin Bloom are relaxed and build up over weeks.
• You like rewards. Sweatcoin turns steps into points you can spend.
• You like role-playing games. Habitica turns all your habits, walking included, into quests.
• You want to exercise indoors. Ring Fit Adventure works in your living room.

Lore sits in the story group. Each case is a short weekly mystery with suspects to question and fifteen clues to collect, so there is a clear end point on night 7 and a new case the next Monday. You can see what is running on this week’s case.

Gamified apps vs plain step counters

A plain step counter, like the Health app on an iPhone or Google Fit on Android, does one job well: it tells you how much you walked. That is useful. It is the only way to know your real baseline, and every app on this list relies on that same count underneath. But a number on its own doesn’t ask anything of you. Hitting 6,000 steps today feels much the same as hitting 6,000 yesterday.

A fitness game adds three things a counter usually doesn’t:

• A question you want answered. What happens in the next chapter? Who did it? What hatches from this egg?
• A reason to go today, not just in general. A clue that unlocks tonight, or an event that ends this weekend.
• An end point. A story or a season that finishes gives you a sense of having completed something, and a fresh start after.

Many people use both: a counter to see the trend over months, and a game to get out of the door on a given evening. If you are working out your baseline first, our guide to average steps per day explains how to find it and how your number compares.

What to look for in a walking game app

• It uses your phone’s step count. You shouldn’t need extra hardware to start.
• It fits your level. A game that asks for 10,000 steps on day one is easy to give up on. Look for adjustable targets.
• It has a real free tier. Check what you can do without paying before you commit.
• It is clear about data. Location games need your location. Read what the app collects and why.
• It keeps you safe. Games that send you to places on a map should keep you on public streets and let you skip a spot you can’t reach.

On that last point, our guide to walking safely at night covers how to plan a route and what Lore does when a clue lands somewhere you shouldn’t go.

Do gamified fitness apps actually work?

There is decent evidence that game design can get people moving more, at least while they are playing. Randomised trials led by Mitesh Patel at the University of Pennsylvania tested programmes with points, levels and team or family competition. People in the game groups increased their daily steps more than people in the control groups. Separately, a 2016 study by Tim Althoff and colleagues looked at Pokémon GO players and found that engaged players walked noticeably more in the weeks after they started.

The catch is that the effect depends on staying interested. A game that feels like a chore stops working. That is why it is worth picking a type of game you already enjoy, and why it is fine to switch games when one stops being fun. The goal is to keep walking, not to stay loyal to an app. It is also why apps that refresh their content, such as a new story each week or seasonal events, tend to hold people for longer.

No app replaces the walk itself. The game is the reason to go out. The steps are the point. If you are building up from a low base, read how to walk more without forcing it alongside whichever app you choose.

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