While virtual reality has become the most frequent venue in which you can both do some gaming and burn some calories, other non-VR workout-centric video games have started to appear in the space recently. As of today, Quell is the latest of these ventures that looks to combine the worlds of gaming and fitness, and it looks to be doing so in a very novel way.
Quell is a video game that looks to utilize resistance bands in order to get you sweating. The system centers around a device, called Gauntlet, that you attach to your chest and back before then placing your hands in a pair of glove-like items. These gloves are then attached to the aforementioned resistance bands which are connected to the chest piece of the contraption.
Once you’re all hooked up, then you get to playing. Quell puts players in the midst of a fantasy world where you’ll have to do battle with various enemy types. The game will let you “travel through an exciting fantasy world fighting enemies with your bare hands and get fit at the same time.” Thanks to Gauntlet, Quell will track your movements in real-life and will then emulate them in the game. Because of this, Quell will essentially take the form of a first-person fighting game, which is quite novel.
The developers say they’re putting just as much effort into Quell’s gaming application as they have the Gauntlet device itself, because they know that “the game is just as important as the exercise.” As such, Quell also has multiplayer and co-op functionality so that you and a friend or family member can take down some of the biggest baddies in the game together.
You can get a look at Quell in action right here thanks to the video uploaded by Best Crowdfunding Projects:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeFr4VdMSD8]
Quell has been known of for awhile now, with the product’s creators saying that they’ve already seen massive interest in the product. Within the first month of being shown to the public, Quell achieved over $10,000 in pre-orders alone and over 17,000 people signing up to get on a waitlist for the device. To help bring Quell to an even bigger market, its creators have today launched a new Kickstarter page.
The makers of Quell brought the game to Kickstarter to help achieve “the goal of bringing to the market an exciting fitness game, that brings real exercise and real gaming, with zero compromise.” The campaign indicates that Quell is currently being planned to release in September of 2021, with many additional stretch goals also being provided.
Fortunately for the folks over at Quell, the project has already been a major success. After launching earlier today, Quell has already hit its initial funding goal, which was near $33,000. As of this writing, the campaign now has accrued a little over $87,900, and has hit its first stretch goal, which will seemingly add a dog companion to the game.
While it’s still quite a ways out, Quell seems like one of the more intriguing workout-focused video games that have come about in quite some time. While the idea of resistance-based workouts might not be all that revolutionary, Quell looks to be quite fun and has the potential to be something much greater if it continues to grow.
Quell’s gaming companion is set to be available on PC, Mac, and mobile devices when it arrives next year and will be able to be streamed easily to your TV. As for the Kickstarter campaign itself, it’s set to be active from now until next month on September 27. It’ll be interesting to see how much Quell ends up netting for itself with this ongoing fundraising period as it will better inform us of what the final product might end up looking like upon launch in 2021.
Hopefully, one day they will come out with a VR version of their fitness technology. Until then, we wish them luck with their Kickstarter and goal to get more people exercising.
