Month: November 2015

Zombies, Run! on Apple Watch

You’re out in the field, searching for a buried supply cache. With zombies on your tail, there’s no time to check your phone for your distance – but no fear, because now you can use your Apple Watch!

From today, you can start, pause, and complete a mission, right from your Watch! While you’re running, you can see your run distance and time, and you can even view and skip your countdown before you start.

The Watch app will be automatically installed to your paired watch; if not, you can manually install it from the Watch app on your phone. For best performance, we recommend going to Settings > General > Wake Screen and selecting ‘Resume to Previous Activity’ on your Watch.

if you’ve ever had to fumble around with phone armbands before running, or wanted to pause your mission on the move, our new Watch support is going to make Zombies, Run! better than ever. We’re really keen to hear what you think, and we have ideas for features we’d like to add in future updates, as well.

Also in our 4.3 update for iPhone…

  • Supplies and Artefacts are now synced to your ZombieLink account. That means you can take your Codex with you if you switch devices, just like you already can with your run logs and base.
  • No more back-to-back zombie chases!

A Wild Training Plan Appears!

We launched our new Training Plan feature last week with two 10k plans, and today we’ve added a new Half Marathon plan for beginners. If you’re embarking on your first half marathon (or aiming to beat your PB), then this is a great way to get into shape!

All three plans are available for free. You can get them on iPhone right now, and in our upcoming Android release later this year.

We’re constantly improving Zombies, Run!, so we already have some good ideas on how to make Training Plans even better – but we think this is a pretty good start!

Your Run, Your Way: Now on Android

Zombies, Run! just got way more powerful on Android thanks to our latest 4.3 update, rolling out today with time & distance-based runs, and a new ‘uninterrupted music’ playback mode!

You can access these new options by tapping on the cog button on the mission screen. But what do they do?!

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Time & Distance-Based Runs

Want to push yourself with a longer 7k run? Got exactly 33 minutes to save the world? You can now set your run to a specific distance or time, and we’ll match that with your music and mission clips. 

Uninterrupted Music

The perfect track can get you in the zone like nothing else. If you listen to longer music tracks in Built-In Music mode and don’t want them to be interrupted by mission clips, there’s a new ‘Don’t Interrupt Music’ option!

Grab the latest update from the Google Play Store to check these out!

Introducing Training Plans

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Hundreds of thousands of runners got started with our Zombies, Run! 5k Training, which uses an 8-week programme to take anyone from their couch to running a 5k. With our new Training Plans feature, we’re bringing the same structure and weekly progress to the main Zombies, Run! app.

Training Plans are included in the new 4.3 update on iOS, and are free for all runners!

Once you enrol in a Training Plan, you’ll be given a weekly schedule of runs. After completing a qualifying run (by meeting its time or distance requirement), you can tap a switch which marks it as complete in your Training Plan schedule.

We’ve included two plans to begin with: 10k Beginner and 10k Intermediate. These are 7-8 week plans intended for those who can already run a solid 5k and want to train further.

Training Plans are included in the Zombies, Run! 4.3 update for iOS, available now through the App Store!

We’ll be introducing more Training Plans in the near future, and Training Plans will be coming to Android later this year. Let us know what you think!

Listen Again & Resumable Races on Android

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Zombies, Run! 4.2.4 for Android has arrived, with a cavalcade of new features, bug fixes, and improvements:

  • Related Downloads: If there are downloads related to your current mission, like radio mode or the next mission, you’ll see a little download icon next to the ‘Start Mission’ button. This’ll let you easily get any related downloads.
  • Listen Again: Missed part of a mission clip? Want to listen again to your favourite moments? You can now play any unlocked mission clip – just tap on the ‘i’ icon on a mission screen.
  • Better GPS Tracking: If you have GPS tracking enabled, we’ll now start pinpointing your location as soon as you get to the mission screen. This means we can start accurately tracking your run route faster than ever.
  • UI Improvements: A new typeface for clarity, improved Mission Details screen, and a lovely new splash screen on startup.
  • Resumable Race Missions: Essential for the 20k missions!
  • Bug Fixes: Better memory management to help performance on lower-spec phones.

Grab the latest update now on Google Play!

Virtual Race 2015: The Results Are In

This week, our first-ever Virtual Race was completed, and we couldn’t be happier with the results! Well over 2000 race entries were submitted to our Live Leaderboard, and our fastest runners racked up some truly impressive times:

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Represented among just those twenty entries are Canada, USA, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and the UK, showing just how international the race was.

Of course, Zombies, Run! isn’t about speed – it’s about making running exciting and fun, no matter your pace. The fact that our Virtual Race was the first time a lot of our runners had taken part in 5k or 10k bears this out. We’re really happy we’ve found a brand new way to motivate people to run further and faster than ever!

An online leaderboard wouldn’t be complete without spurious and fun stats like these:

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That’s the whole 10-hour Lord of the Rings trilogy, mind you!

Here’s two sets of 5k ‘race triplets’ who have exactly the same time, from Hong Kong, USA, Canada, and Germany:

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And in our 10k event, Runner 500-502 (just as important as Runner 5!) are from Sweden, USA, and Canada.

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The Virtual Race didn’t take place in virtual conditions – people had to run in the real world to get their times, and brave some pretty tough weather, as softwood13 discovered in the snow and north wind of the Yukon:

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After the race, our entrants were finally able to open the precious, tempting red envelope containing their medal and certificate, as ably demonstrated by peter_chan and his feline assistant:

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Virtual Race 2: Coming Spring 2016

A massive 99.9% of Virtual Race entrants told us in a survey that they’d enter again… so who are we to deny them? 

Our next Virtual Race will take place in Spring next year, and it’ll be bigger and better than ever. We’re paying attention to all the great constructive feedback we’ve received, and working on improving the different entry options, along with the leaderboards, story, and race packet.

Want to make sure you’re in the next ZR Virtual Race? Sign up here:

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Tell me when the next ZR Virtual Race is open!

Once again, thank you to everyone who entered – we had a great time racing with you!

Warning: Zombies, Run! Book Detected

From the desk of Naomi Alderman, ZR co-creator and lead writer:

Some exciting news from the world of Zombies, Run! – we’re making a book! It’ll be published by Penguin in autumn 2016, will be set in the Zombies, Run! world, and will be mostly written by me, Naomi Alderman (with assistance from some of our other wonderful ZR writers). There’ll be a host of illustrations by our fantastic illustrator Kascha Sweeney – and a disclaimer that there’s no such thing as a ‘canon appearance’ for any of our characters!

It’s going to be a ‘non-fiction’ book from the ZR universe. The subtitle is “keeping fit and well during the current zombie emergency”. I’m intending for the book to be funny, characterful and with some genuinely good advice about health, fitness and living well! As pioneers of better living through zombies, I know we can bring our expertise to bear in helping our readers exercise at home and make good apocalyptic nutrition and lifestyle choices. After all, the human race needs all of us to keep as well as we can if we’re to survive as a species worth saving.

I’m incredibly excited to be writing this book. It’s a wonderful opportunity to expand the world of ZR and explore the place where our characters have been living. And there’ll be a few surprises and Easter eggs in there for fans too!

And just in case you’re worried, this is also your official confirmation that yes, Runner Five Will Return for a new season of Zombies, Run! next year. In Season Five we’ll travel further than we ever have, meet new allies and old enemies, and uncover secrets we thought we’d never discover. Season Five: it only gets better.

Note: We’ll be announcing the title of the book later – it’s not actually going to be called ‘Read & Survive’!