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Comment by Moru | Hacker News Reader

Some people needs to be gamed to do something. I find turfgame.com to be my carrot to get out more but that one is best in Sweden and as long as you live in a halfway big town. You take zones, your neighbour blocks you and takes them back.

Others are happy when they can compare number of steps to their co-workers I guess.

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I did play a game similar to that called Ingress (I think it was by Google, and they were presumably collecting GPS data to improve their pedestrian mapping).

I'll check out turfgame when I get a chance!

Respectfully - Ingress is by Niantic, the same company behind Pokemon Go (and maybe that Harry Potter version?). They share data between the two games - points of interest tagged in Ingress still usually map to Pokemon Go Stops and Gyms; energy (can't remember the name for it - the golden energy you collect by walking near) usually maps to individual Pokemon spawn locations. They get their raw map data from OpenStreetMap; I'm not sure if anyone knows where they get their specific data on user/internet use density which informs some of their map features, but Google GPS analytics is probably a fair guess.

I used to play a lot of Pokemon Go, but plenty of things made me drift away; as for motivating me to walk, it kinda helped, but really just ended up with a lot of "walk 300 ft. (~100m), stop and stare/tap at your phone for several minutes", vs. the more enjoyable and directly beneficial (towards distance/time/step goals) uninterrupted pattern.

It can be a bit scarse on zones so if you can't find any zones in your area, suggest some in the app and then go to the forum and lobby for them [1]. The name of the area and why it's a nice place for a zone is a good start. The zone makers are all working on spare time so can take a while until you get your zones but they will add them sooner if they are easy to find :-)

[1] https://maqqansturf.wordpress.com/2020/05/29/zonemaking-2-0/

I love this concept! Sadly, no one plays it near me

It's an old game so might need some fresh blood. You could do some flyers, there are some on the forum to download and print :-)

I usually stop and talk to people when they look at me funnily. You do look funny when you come on the bicycle - stopping in the middle of nowhere, stand still for 15 seconds and then run off again. They are all curios what you are doing and how it works, especially older people and some even start turfing after a while.

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