We’re pretty excited about this here at ShrinkGeek Orbital HQ. Why? Well, join us behind the break as we run down the reasons why we think Kinect may well be the answer to some of our exercise gaming prayers.
Krystalle Voecks
Jan 012010
The idea for ShrinkGeek came from a series of emails back in January of 2008. We’ve told the story here before so we won’t go over the gory details again, but the Cliffs Notes summary of the story is that we took that idea and managed to make it a reality in May of 2009.
In the time that has passed since we’ve posted how-tos on things like 100 calorie breakfasts, had the chance to talk to other geeky fitness fiends like Tonya Kay (Creature from Stan Lee’s Who Wants To Be A Superhero), taken a look at fitness games and gizmos out there, and managed to attract a small but dedicated community. We feel that we’ve started something good, but there has recently been a great deal of talk among the geeks here about how we could make this year even better for our little labor of love.
ShrinkGeek 2.0 is what we’ve come up with.
Today we’re bringing the newer, shinier, faster version to you – and with several improvements from the original design we started with. Some of the improvements are:
- Forums – Simply put: while a blog is a great deal of fun, it doesn’t really give readers a place to share their stories. This was something we felt was severely lacking in the original site, so we’ve added a new forum system in.
- The Daily Quest – Looking for ways to jump start your healthy new year? Taking inspiration from MMOs, we’ve set up a Daily Quest that you can complete for your own fitness level-ups. Each day we’ll post a challenge on the forums for everyone to complete and report back.
- More reviews, interviews, and featured content – You’ve voted with your comments and pageviews, and we’re working hard to bring you more original content. We are still going to post links to news that we stumble across from other sources (with our own thoughts tossed in to the mix), but we’re going to make a concerted effort to have more original content here as well.
- A stronger commitment to Facebook and Twitter - While we’ve had a presence on Facebook and Twitter for a long time now, we really didn’t do anything with those services other than treat them as glorified RSS feeds (and really, if there is one that Twitter doesn’t need it is yet another link bot). We’re planning to use both services as another way to communicate with our readers as opposed to just linking to stories here.
- Our new mascot! – Lemuel “Lemmo” Pew, one of the creators of a truly trippy webcomic called Blank It, helped us bring to life an idea we’ve had in our heads since we originally launched the site. The cute little guy you see at the top of this post is going to be showing up a lot around these parts in the future, and we’re really excited to have him along for the ride.
At ShrinkGeek we believe that if you want to improve yourself you constantly need to take a look at what you’re doing and ask yourself if you could be doing it better. That’s what we’ve done here, and we’re really happy with the results. We hope you are too!
Today is quite possibly the single-most insanely hectic shopping day for many people. You roll out of bed extra-early, head for whatever store has your interest and hope that you manage to score that geeky toy that will brighten someone’s day – or maybe just your own. Black Friday is not only dangerous from the aspect of getting smooshed at a door-buster sale, but also from sheer frustration, rush, and ease of access to fast food. Rather than run the risk of a dangerous case of the hungries, here are some things you can do to avoid getting trampled by your stomach as it drags you towards the nearest pile of french fries. (Trust me when I say I’ve been there!)
I first caught wind of this particular Nintendo DS exergame when I was at E3 with the Joystiq crew. As I work on Joystiq’s sister-site, Massively, I had zero chance of checking it out there, sadly. Nonetheless, my curiosity piqued, I filed this title away in memory to check out for ShrinkGeek once I was back and everything was sane again. The truth is, I should have had this product well before E3, because I’ve gotten addicted to checking out my step progress every day, and probably would have been much better prepared for the walk-fest that is E3! No, it’s not a deep game – and if you go into it expecting that, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. That said, for what Personal Trainer: Walking sets out to do, it nails it effortlessly.
What is that exactly, you ask? Well, I could call this a pedometer, but that’s just not doing it justice. Sure, the small peripheral you carry that comes with Personal Trainer: Walking counts steps like any regular pedometer does, but it also acts as something of a fitness mentor – a feature you’re just not going to get with a regular pedometer. When you first fire up Personal Trainer: Walking, you’re given the option of creating your own personal mini-Mii, or importing one from your Wii. That said, when I wanted to import my Wii Mii, the program suggested I do some strange Wiimote chicken dance where I had to press four buttons, stand on one leg and sing Louie Louie. Needless to say, this didn’t work very well. Thankfully, I found my Wii had anticipated this peripheral, and instead there was an easy on-screen option in the Mii area to connect to my DS. I took the easy way out – a move which I heartily recommend to anyone wanting to import a Mii.
Once imported, my Mii then made friends with my new pedometer peripheral, and they proceeded to take me through the initial setup steps. The program started me out at a very reasonable 3,000 steps based on my initial information (37, overweight, sedentary job) and explained just what I could expect in terms of the program. In exchange for checking in, Personal Trainer: Walking would not only check my daily number of steps against the target, but also how fast or slow I was stepping, when I was stepping – an overall life rhythm, essentially. Easy enough, I thought, and headed for bed – ready to try out the peripheral the next day.
Recent Comments