Saturday Morning Gaming: Pikmin Bloom and Getting Your Steps In
Sitting down is heck on me. It was bad enough that I had a job in computers. There was a period of about two years where I spent more time inside of my house than outside of it. Going for a jog was pretty much the only way that I went outside for a good long while there and if you’re inside and you’re not cooking… well, you’re either sitting down or lying down.
Maribou did a good job of getting me to go for a walk… around the block, maybe to the local park… but then we go back home and sit. I did some research into the whole “getting your steps in” thing and found that the goal of 10,000 steps was a marketing idea in Japan based on the Japanese Kanji for 10,000 which, apparently, looks like a dude walking.
Here: 万
See? It’s a guy walking. I guess. 10,000 steps.
Anyway, I wasn’t getting my steps in. Maribou found a little phone game, made by the Pokemon Go people, that helps her get her steps in and she put it on my phone too. Here: Pikmin Bloom. (Or google pikmin bloom in your app store.)
It’s a free app with potential purchases to make but it’s not pay-to-win or pay-to-do-anything (seriously, I have never once been even tempted to spend a dime). It’s a game made by Niantic (the Pokemon Go and Ingress people) and the point of the game is to get you, the user, to walk. Get up and go for a walk.
Here’s the crazy part: It works.
When I am at work and I find myself stuck on a problem, instead of just banging my head against the keyboard, I pick up my phone and go for a walk around the building to clear my head. When I am building a server or downloading large patches, instead of drumming my fingers on my desk, I grab my phone and get up and walk around the building.
The other day, I went out for a long walk on my jogging route and found myself saying “I’ll just walk a mile… wait… a mile and a half… wait… is that a new collectable over there?” and I ended up walking *FOUR* miles because I kept finding new little things on the app.
The basic idea behind the app is that you are a Mii who runs around finding Pikmin. You feed your Pikmin nectar and they provide you with flower petals. You can then plant your flower petals as you walk. (And it’s important to walk. If your phone is moving more than 10 miles per hour, the game assumes you’re in a car and stops planting.)
If you live in a place with enough people, there will be landmarks on your walk. A peculiar parkbench, maybe. Public art. A mural by an elementary school. These landmarks will be giant flowers that require you to plant your own little flowers around them. With enough flowers, the giant flowers will bloom (giving you somewhat more rare nectars that will allow you to plant flowers like peonies and carnations and chrsanth, erm, chrysantim, uh…, lilies of the valley).
Other landmarks will be mushrooms for your little Pikmin to attack (that will also give you rewards). If you have friends with the app, you can plant flowers together as you go on your walk. You can enlist them to help you fight the mushrooms you’ve found. You can get into little contests with them to see if you, as a team, can beat 30,000 steps in a week or plant 30,000 flowers.
It’s cooperative and not competitive (beyond, of course, just trying to get in more steps than your friends).
I have found myself getting up and going for walks. I have found myself bugging Maribou to go on a walk with me.
I have found myself getting my steps in.
If you’ve been having the nagging feeling that you should be doing more to get your steps in, try picking up Pikmin Bloom from your app store. It’s free and it worked for me.
So… what are you playing?
Most educated people know about Simplified Chinese: Back in the 50s, the CCP simplied the structure of many Chinese characters in an attempt to increase literacy, although I don’t think there’s any evidence that it actually makes it easier to learn to read; the only real advantage is that they’re faster to write by hand. Anyway, since that time, simplified characters have been used in China, and Singapore jumped on board in the 70s, while traditional characters are still used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Fewer people know about simplified Japanese. After World War II, Japan also simplified some characters, although the changes were more limited, with only about 350 characters being affected. For example, Yokohama changed from 横濱 to 横浜, geisha changed from 藝者 to 芸者, and Yen changed from 圓 to 円. More apropos to this post, the character for 10,000 was changed from 萬 to the previously obscure 万, the former originating from a pictograph of a scorpion.
Which is to say, the belief that 10,000 steps per day is optimum for good health is, in part, the result of a bureaucratic decree that 10,000 should look like a guy walking instead of a scorpion.Report
As you may have noticed, the other real advantage to simplified characters is that they’re easier to read as 10-point type on a monitor.Report
Oh, man… that link is a rabbit hole.Report
About the time I turned 60, the docs quit nagging me about aerobic goals and started nagging about strength training goals. I am not consistent in meeting goals, but do try to spend some time doing exercises with body weight and a pair of 20-pound dumbbells every week. Which was useful last week when, as I noted in a comment then, I had to climb up and retrieve granddaughter #3 (aged two and a few months) who had climbed to the top of one of these and couldn’t figure out the way down.
https://www.dynamoplaygrounds.com/product/apollo-with-floor/Report
13 feet!Report
It’s Colorado. It’s like there’s a law that says playground equipment must require climbing. Here’s an old (low quality, large file) photo of the star of the park. The 13-foot rotator is to the extreme left. I have climbed to the top of the enclosure, once, when granddaughter #2 was younger and insisted I go down the slide with her. It’s not a pleasant climb for an adult. All the interior spaces are sized for skinny people no taller than about 4’6″. If I had to climb up again to rescue someone’s kid, say, I’d go up the interior of the slide.
http://mcain6925.com/ordinary/playground.jpgReport
I played Pikmin Bloom for a bit. I will still open it up if I am visiting someplace to get some different post cards.
If you want something similar, but with a little more “game” to it, Monster Hunter Now, by the same company, is a lot of fun. You walk around, hunt monsters, and use their parts to make better weapons and armor to hunt stronger monsters. The combat isn’t too complicated, but they do a surprisingly good job of adapting the franchise to the mobile format. The fights take no more than 90 seconds.
I have also started trying to get more physical activity over the past few months. For me, it’s trying to deal with back issues. I started walking on a treadmill, but it was cheap and limited. Last week, I decided to try a Couch to 5K program alternated with other aerobic activity on the other days, as well as doing exercises to strengthen my core. I have tried to do the Couch to 5K a few times before, but never finished. I think I will get through it this time, though.Report
I got Couch to 5K to work for me way back in 2021. Good luck! You can do it!Report