We had our ‘launch’ party a couple of weeks ago, so we felt it’d be fun to show you some of the people and things that were shown there!

Clockwise from top left:

Limited edition badges made by Idil Sukan
Matt Wieteska, Sound Director
Adrian Hon, Co-Creator and Producer
Eleanor Rushton, the voice of Janine
A mystery slide… what could it be?!
Naomi Alderman, Co-Creator and Writer
Alex Macmillan, Lead Developer

Not in the photos - but no less important - are Estee Chan, Artist and Graphic Designer, and Richard Bell, Sound Engineer, and our other fantastic actors.

Photos © Idil Sukan.

There’s been some fantastic press about Zombies, Run! in month since we launched - here are some highlights!

Channel 4 News in the UK interviewed our intrepid lead developer Alex Macmillan in his bedroom, playing some great audio from the game. The clip was also syndicated to various others networks like ABC and SBS in Australia, so you may have seen it there!

If you watch the end of the clip closely, you’ll notice something interesting in the background…

That’s right - Channel 4 had a zombie lurching around outside their studio, confirmed by presenter Cathy Newman:

Channel 4 - we salute you!

Other features were made by WSILTV, WSAV, NBC Chicago, and Fox News, plus others that I’m sure we’ve missed.

It’s not all about the video though - Zombies, Run! has been on a number of great podcasts like BoingBoing Gweek, where Michael Pusateri’s named us as his favourite app, with some nice chat with Matt Haughey (Metafilter founder and ZR Kickstarter backer), around 49:30 in.

This Week in Tech (TWiT) has also been very kind to us, with Zombies, Run! being Mac guru Leo Laporte’s Pick of the Week on the Macbreak podcast, and Tech News Today included a great video call-in from player Sean Palladino (around 32 min in).

Returning to the UK again, we’ve had a perfect storm of press in the broadsheets - not just reviewed but also featured on The Observer, plus recently stories in the Daily Telegraph, and the Independent.

Finally, we want to do a callout to the ever-awesome fuckyeahzombiesrun Tumblr and also the Reddit r/runner5 community - and everyone else who’s reviewed, tweeted, and spread the word about us!

Finally finally, we have a couple of hopefully pleasant surprises for you all this week, so stay tuned…

In other news, we went out to see The Hunger Games last Monday. Now, wouldn’t that be a great mission pack… (no, it’s not happening, but if you do know anyone there, well…)

Team ZR (Adrian on the treadmill, Alex running the ‘puters) was hard at work this morning gathering data to improve accelerometer mode.

The reason why we don’t have zombie chases in accelerometer mode yet is because it’s hard to reliably figure out how fast you’re running based on the motion detected by the accelerometer. For one thing, there are differences in how people hold their devices (on an armband, in their pocket, etc.) so we need to look at all the possibilities.

We’re hoping to have an experimental solution out soon, but to be totally honest, it’s not something that we think we’ll nail perfectly on our first try because it’s a tough problem, so we hope you can be a bit patient - but don’t worry, getting this working is one of our top priorities!

In other news, we’ll be posting here more often about our upcoming plans so you don’t need to keep checking Kickstarter/Reddit/Twitter/email etc. to see if we’ve said anything new or important!

And, appropriately enough, that is a box of sports bras in the foreground…!

Thanks to Sweatshop Clapham for letting us use their treadmill!

It’s official - since our launch, players of Zombies, Run! have spent over 20 years in total running away from zombies! At an average walking pace, that’s half a million miles: the distance to the Moon and back.

It’s quite a way to go to help the good folk of Abel Township, but we know the Runner 5s out there will always get the job done…

papernest:

Cat says to draw ourselves as either zombies or survivors. I wanted to depict pretty much what I was imagining while I was playing Zombies, Run! while walking Rascal during spring break. It was pretty cold half of the days and so I usually have to use my inhaler before I go out (cold air + exercise = asthma). (Also, no Zombies, Run! spoilers since I’m still mid-game.)

The full story is on our Kickstarter page, but in short:

Barring any major disasters (e.g. asteroids, zombies, Apple, etc.) we are going to launch the iOS version before the end of this month. So, even if that means 29th February - and we hope it’s sooner - that’s just over two weeks.

Just imagine - two weeks until you too can be running for your life from zombies and saving humanity. It’s been a long journey, but we’re nearly there now! Also,

• We are into full swing in production of the T-shirts, and they should be going out later this month.
• We have also received all the posters, and they’ll be going out this month or next month.
• Our celebrity voice casting is still on hold, but will resume again when the game has launched (partly because that’ll make it more likely for them to return our calls!)
• We’re in the early stages of scripting the Couch to 5k and Interval Training add-ons.

Statistics: it works! These are the aggregate figures on how many of our Kickstarter backers have registered on our new ZombieLink website and have made ‘zombie groan’ noises after less than 24 hours of it being up. No doubt we’ll be getting more zombies mumbling at us this weekend…

Prototype layout for the base in Zombies, Run! More info…

We asked our Kickstarter backers which special guest voices they’d like to see in the game - here’s the results of the first round:

Nathan Fillion 224
Felicia Day 149
Simon Pegg 99
Bruce Campbell 83
Neil Patrick Harris 70
Wil Wheaton 67
Samuel L. Jackson 46
Morgan Freeman 35
George Romero 32
Patrick Stewart 31
Stephen Fry 31
James Earl Jones 25
Christopher Walken 24
Ellen McLain 24
Bill Murray 22
Mark Hamill 22
Nick Frost 20
Alan Tudyk 19
David Tennant 18
Jennifer Hale 17
Andrew Lincoln 16
Patrick Warburton 15
Alan Rickman 14
Nolan North 14
Donald Glover 13
Eliza Dushku 13
Hugh Laurie 13
Sean Connery 13
William Shatner 13
Adam Baldwin 12
Woody Harrelson 12
David Hayter 11
Ron Perlman 11
Seth Green 11
Stephen Merchant 11
Chris Hardwick 10
Summer Glau 10

In the second round, we asked backers how much they wanted each individual voice. More info here…