Great idea needs better app and game development
The idea of PlankPad is great, I just received mine and it is a solid piece of exercise/fitness equipment.
The app unfortunately is mediocre.
The games (the main attraction to PlankPad besides just doing planks without the pad/app) are deficient.
In my app there is no sound effects or music in the games. The graphics are unfortunately at the basest level. And they managed to somehow NOT “gamify”the games.
It seems like you just pick easy, normal, hard modes, And the game just keeps going (say shooting astroids in the asteroid game) until you decide to stop the timer. There isn’t a time limit or a life meter. There should be achievements and progress via levels, badges, and other offerings as your go through a game’s levels.
Again this is a great idea but executed only decently or ok.
And this is a problem with the part of the fitness word attempting to get in to games, I think it is a great space and it makes total sense for our health and fitness regimes to make gaming a workout, but PlankPad fails to be a game changer. It doesn’t seem like a better choice than say Fruit Ninja. Arguably Fruit Ninja is significantly funner as were the Wii fitness games a decade ago with a similar plank system for games. And really because the PlankPad games are so mediocre it really does just feel like you’re working out. Which is fine, but again defeats the purpose of trying to make folks work out longer and more often through gaming.
I work out 5-6 times a week already, and was hoping to add this for fun during my workouts, but the novelty has largely run out within this first week with the PlankPad app and its games. I will still use PlankPad instead of just doing normal planks since I have it, but it is a wasted opportunity.
And hate to say it, because I loved the idea so much and backed it immediately on KS, but it is not worth the money. Unless you’re looking to do planks slightly more comfortably than you already do on your floor.
Hope they keep learning and improve the games and app. I love forward to seeing updates in the future.Tomes JT
