This strolling app let me whack my co-workers with a baseball bat

Violence is rarely the reply. That mentioned, it was enjoyable after I opened a strolling app and whacked a Verge editor with a baseball bat and made one other slip on a banana peel. After, I continued on my peaceable commute residence. A bit later, one among my fellow writers walloped me not as soon as however twice with their very own baseball bat. I wasn’t really mad, but it surely did immediate me to go on a stroll across the block so I may hit them again.

That, in a nutshell, is the attraction of Stompers — an iOS app that encourages you to whack, trick, and out-walk your folks (or colleagues) in a Looney Tunes-like race.

The app is the creation of designer Soren Iverson. It’s possible you’ll know Iverson from his “unhinged UI” design sequence, wherein he posts conceptual app mock-ups for options that nobody requested for however secretly need. For instance, this Slack screenshot of peers who message you on nationally mandated holidays getting a SWAT staff known as on them. In all of them, there’s a thread of absurdist whimsy.

That whimsy is in Stompers, too. A few of that’s the cartoony, meme-like artwork type. That, Iverson says, is intentional. The app’s artwork is by Jim Soper, who’s accomplished character designs for Looney Tunes and The Cuphead Present. As a substitute of utilizing profile photos, you create a Stomper avatar. (At The Verge, a disproportionate variety of us determined to have fuchsia pores and skin.) There’s additionally little part the place you possibly can see what number of Danny DeVitos you’ve walked in a day or what number of steps you’ve got left earlier than you attain the Moon. Every part seems like an app circa 2015, however with a wholesome sprint of irony poisoning.

It additionally wouldn’t be an Iverson challenge if Stompers wasn’t twisted not directly.

“The work that I do is commonly about taking issues and flipping them on their heads, or simply questioning a core precept,” Iverson tells The Verge. “What if step depend could possibly be messed with by another person? It’s actually bizarre [because] it defeats the aim in a manner.”

The tip result’s kind of like Looney Tunes meets Mario Kart. As you “race,” you possibly can decide up objects to mess with your folks. You may ship mates on a faux shortcut, halving their step counts for a 30-minute interval. There are rockets that shoot you ahead 1,000 steps you didn’t really take. The baseball bats knock you again 500 steps. The bananas have a 50 p.c probability of knocking you again or propelling you ahead 500 steps.

As a health tech reviewer, futzing round with step counts is a enjoyable thought experiment. I’m responsible as anybody for getting too obsessive about metrics that don’t actually matter. Generally, I pout that my last step depend in Stompers doesn’t mirror what I’ve really accomplished in actual life. However that’s additionally challenged me to query why getting credit score issues a lot after I’ve achieved my objective of being extra lively.

Iverson says the sport’s final objective is to attach with mates. It’s not the identical as catching up on a name, but it surely’s a low-effort, straightforward strategy to verify in. Up to now week, I’ve discovered that to be one of many sport’s charms. Whereas pacing in my workplace over a hard draft, I laughed when a colleague DMed me to say, “Please, cease shifting.”

Stompers remains to be new, having simply launched final week. Even so, Iverson and his co-founder Josh Rozin have already got large plans for the app going ahead. Rozin advised The Verge that an Android model is within the works — a lot to the reduction of the Android devoted on employees. He additionally famous that the staff is discussing a possible single-player model of the sport. Each demurred as to what the roadmap appears to be like like past that, however Rozin says Stompers has “enormous potential past health.”

No matter lies forward, I’ve loved Stompers’ barely bonkers strategy to competitors. Generally, I’ll be rotting on the sofa, doomscrolling TikTok, after I get a notification that somebody has wronged my Stomper avatar. Sometimes, that may encourage me to go for a stroll so I can get my revenge. Different instances, I’ll chuckle as a result of joke’s on them: I’ve obtained a four-mile run deliberate for the following day. Both manner, I’m taking the steps — would possibly as properly have some low-stakes enjoyable to associate with it.