■ Walking Game Apps
・Walking RPG
・Fantasy Hike
・Walkr
・Arukuto (あるくと)
Walking RPG
An RPG in which you journey toward the Castle of Health, fighting enemies along the way. Your step count becomes the energy that levels up and strengthens your character. It also packs in various other RPG elements, like upgrading your equipment.
Your steps are clearly linked to your character's strength, and you can't progress without walking, so it works well as an app built around walking. The loop of walk → get stronger → progress further seems to genuinely drive motivation.
The graphics have a nice, colorful, pop style, though they feel a step below something like Dragon Quest Walk, in our impression — though that's partly down to taste.
Fantasy Hike
Based on your step count, a story unfolds in which you journey through a fantasy world. The story is based on The Lord of the Rings, and it appears to be a journey toward throwing the ring into the volcano.
The beautiful, atmospheric, picture-book-like graphics are lovely. The interface is polished too — simple enough that you're unlikely to get lost in the controls. As for the game aspect, there are four other challengers besides you, all racing toward the same volcano. It's interesting to wonder how winning or losing against them will affect the story.
We'd especially recommend it to fans of The Lord of the Rings, but as far as we could tell, it does not support Japanese.
Walkr
Based on your step count, this is a game about — of all things — space exploration. You search for planets, find them, and raise them.
"Searching for and finding planets" is hard to picture from words alone. "Exploring" an unknown galaxy lets you discover planets. Feeding a planet lets you raise it (a bit like an animal, really). A planet you've raised produces resources like coins, which you can then use to search for new planets. Your step count can be used as boost energy, letting you speed up things like resource production.
It's an app with a lot of atmosphere — the graphics are cute and pleasant, and the BGM is soothing. It supports Japanese too, so we'd encourage you to give it a try.
Arukuto (あるくと)
This app packs in a lot of different elements, making it hard to categorize, but we'd say its collection and character-raising elements are the strongest.
The basic loop is set in virtual towns — a starting town, a peaceful town, a trending town — where you listen to and respond to requests from the residents who live there. Fulfilling a request ties into things like "walk this many steps within this many hours," something you resolve simply by walking.
Completing requests and filling out the resident list lets you move on to the next town, giving it collection and virtual-travel elements too. You can also use cards collected from resident requests to enter for real-world product giveaways. The step-ranking feature is also well developed, letting you do things like ranking competitions within a group — a school, neighborhood association, or company.
It's a good, feature-rich app in that sense, but its look and presentation are flashy and feel a bit childish, which is likely to be a matter of taste.
Category Comparison Table
| App | Price | Language | Highlight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walking RPG | Basically free (check in-app for details) | Multilingual | Your steps directly power up your character in a walk → get stronger → progress loop |
| Fantasy Hike | Basically free (check in-app for details) | English, German, Spanish, French (no Japanese) | Picture-book-style graphics themed after The Lord of the Rings |
| Walkr | Basically free (check in-app for details) | Multilingual | Atmospheric graphics and soothing BGM built around space exploration |
| Arukuto | Basically free (check in-app for details) | Japanese only | Feature-rich app combining collecting, raising, rewards, and rankings |