The most fanfic-friendly studio ever, with a very "active" fandom
This year I downloaded my first game on my new smart-phone -- well, sort of a game, sort of a radio play, and mostly a fitness app. I know there are other fitness apps out there; Kaiser offers a free one called Everybody Walk, which sounds so lame I didn't even bother looking at it. I've already arranged things so I have to walk or bike a lot, by the simple expedient of never having bought a car, and I've also been hiking a little on weekends, so I figured I didn't need any extra motivation. But this one sounded much more exciting than Everybody Walk: It's called Zombies, Run! (iPhone, Android). Because nothing makes exercise more fun than associating it with running in terror from the living dead.Actually, I personally treat it as Zombies, Walk Very Briskly!, which works fine, since zombies, you know, shamble fairly slowly. Well, OK, when the zombies get close I usually break into a jog for the minute it takes to evade them, but I probably don't have to.
The writing and voice acting are very good. I really want to go out and risk my life collecting food and clothing for Abel Township, because they all sound like really nice folks. I've actually started adding extra walks that I would not normally do. It plays you songs from your own library; I constructed a playlist that is a mix of filk songs that are a good walking rhythm, filk songs about monsters, and the one actual zombie song I could find ("Re: Your Brains"). One unfortunate side effect is that I now associate some of my favorite songs with running from hordes of zombies.
But best of all, it turns out that not only is there a good bit of fan fiction about it already, in one year of existence, but that the company actively encourages it.They actually ran a contest with cash prizes to encourage more! (They also spell out some very reasonable ground rules about fanfic right in their FAQ: identify it clearly as unofficial, and any commercial use requires permission.) That's unusual, isn't it? And the lead writer loves reading the stuff so much that now that the company has grown enough to hire another writer, she actually hired a fan writer. She wrote:
Yes, that’s how we found her and fell in love with her work. No, I don’t really understand why more shows/games/zombie-based-fitness apps don’t do this.
She even talks about the slash pairings that have come up. Although I'm not sure it meets the definition of slash if the canon has established that at least one of the pair is gay (she's mentioned a girlfriend, presumed dead, who turns out to be important to the plot), or when canon has repeatedly hinted that the pair is indeed a couple (the radio DJ's Jack and Eugene), or when one of the pair is of unknown gender (Runner Five, the canon's silent protagonist -- the radio operator, Sam, does seem very attached to Five even though he admits "we've never really talked").
Jack and Eugene, the Radio Abel hosts (created by the sound director, not the lead writer) are very intriguing. Mostly they tease each and otherwise act like close male friends often do, but their dialog is so consistent with them being a couple, even though they never quite say it on the air (up to the point I've reached), that the fans have apparently dubbed them the Radio Boyfriends, and even the template script provided for the contest refers to it. But on top of the obviously intended slashiness, one of my first clues was when one of them says the song they just played was the one he'd had his first kiss to. Remember, the writer has no idea what song the player just heard; in my case it was "Wolfling" by Cynthia McQuillin, a song I've always thought was an allegory about someone in denial about being gay. As I was reflecting on the writer's choice to do this knowing that the song could be anything, the character added, "Wait until you hear what I did for the first time to this next one." I thought, So the next filk song is what he lost his virginity to. I can't wait to see what song it is. And the song that played was "Gay Vampire Boogie."
Today there was an episode where Eugene has suddenly gotten sick and throws up, and Jack insists on taking him to the (makeshift) local hospital and playing recorded interviews until he gets back. When he returns, he assures the listeners that Eugene is fine, but it's obvious that he's really trying to reassure himself and is very worried. He adds that Eugene made him promise to keep the show going and that he'd be listening. The song that had just played was "Go On Without Me" (Ookla the Mok). I couldn't have chosen a more appropriate one myself, but it was randomly selected from my playlist. Jack then dedicates the next song to Eugene, and the song he "chooses" is "Blood Brothers" (Alexander), about a man trying to bring his blood brother back from the brink of death.
And that's why this is my all-time favorite zombie-based-fitness app.
The writing and voice acting are very good. I really want to go out and risk my life collecting food and clothing for Abel Township, because they all sound like really nice folks. I've actually started adding extra walks that I would not normally do. It plays you songs from your own library; I constructed a playlist that is a mix of filk songs that are a good walking rhythm, filk songs about monsters, and the one actual zombie song I could find ("Re: Your Brains"). One unfortunate side effect is that I now associate some of my favorite songs with running from hordes of zombies.
But best of all, it turns out that not only is there a good bit of fan fiction about it already, in one year of existence, but that the company actively encourages it.They actually ran a contest with cash prizes to encourage more! (They also spell out some very reasonable ground rules about fanfic right in their FAQ: identify it clearly as unofficial, and any commercial use requires permission.) That's unusual, isn't it? And the lead writer loves reading the stuff so much that now that the company has grown enough to hire another writer, she actually hired a fan writer. She wrote:
Yes, that’s how we found her and fell in love with her work. No, I don’t really understand why more shows/games/zombie-based-fitness apps don’t do this.
She even talks about the slash pairings that have come up. Although I'm not sure it meets the definition of slash if the canon has established that at least one of the pair is gay (she's mentioned a girlfriend, presumed dead, who turns out to be important to the plot), or when canon has repeatedly hinted that the pair is indeed a couple (the radio DJ's Jack and Eugene), or when one of the pair is of unknown gender (Runner Five, the canon's silent protagonist -- the radio operator, Sam, does seem very attached to Five even though he admits "we've never really talked").
Jack and Eugene, the Radio Abel hosts (created by the sound director, not the lead writer) are very intriguing. Mostly they tease each and otherwise act like close male friends often do, but their dialog is so consistent with them being a couple, even though they never quite say it on the air (up to the point I've reached), that the fans have apparently dubbed them the Radio Boyfriends, and even the template script provided for the contest refers to it. But on top of the obviously intended slashiness, one of my first clues was when one of them says the song they just played was the one he'd had his first kiss to. Remember, the writer has no idea what song the player just heard; in my case it was "Wolfling" by Cynthia McQuillin, a song I've always thought was an allegory about someone in denial about being gay. As I was reflecting on the writer's choice to do this knowing that the song could be anything, the character added, "Wait until you hear what I did for the first time to this next one." I thought, So the next filk song is what he lost his virginity to. I can't wait to see what song it is. And the song that played was "Gay Vampire Boogie."
Today there was an episode where Eugene has suddenly gotten sick and throws up, and Jack insists on taking him to the (makeshift) local hospital and playing recorded interviews until he gets back. When he returns, he assures the listeners that Eugene is fine, but it's obvious that he's really trying to reassure himself and is very worried. He adds that Eugene made him promise to keep the show going and that he'd be listening. The song that had just played was "Go On Without Me" (Ookla the Mok). I couldn't have chosen a more appropriate one myself, but it was randomly selected from my playlist. Jack then dedicates the next song to Eugene, and the song he "chooses" is "Blood Brothers" (Alexander), about a man trying to bring his blood brother back from the brink of death.
And that's why this is my all-time favorite zombie-based-fitness app.