Entering the supernatural world

So I've mentioned before that Supernatural, one of the most highly recommended fitness games, is one I'd yet to try, due to its subscription costs.  I've seen videos of people playing and kinda thought meh - it's like Beat Saber and, well, I already have Beat Saber ;)

I honestly really didn't see what the big deal was, or how it could really be *that* much better of a workout.  And definitely not worth the price.

Except for the moment, the price is free.  Lol they're doing a one month free trial.  Well okay - may as well have a look at it then, esp as my fitness scores this week were, ummm, less than spectacular *sigh*  More on that later.

Well.  Honestly, I'm *still* not sure how it's such a better workout, but I can tell you, it definitely IS.  lol So it follows the same basic premise as Beat Saber -- moving to music, hit the floating things in the direction they're pointing with the bat of the correct colour (have to admit, the light sabers are way cooler).  Instead of the occasional wall to duck under or around, Supernatural has triangles that you duck through.  So depending on how the triangle is oriented, they're either low squats or lunges to one side or the other.  I admit, I wasn't proving coordinated enough for the lunges so they tended to be more of squat and side-crunch lol - but honestly, that's a great workout too, so I'm okay with it.   They also have long streams to follow -- you can feel in the controller that you've got it (yeah haptics!) -- these can cause quite the vertical stretch if you happen to be short.   So between the squats and the reach I'd go from almost on the ground to standing on my toes and back multiple times in a few mins.   And the arms are everywhere.  And then on top of it all, it has *stunning* scenery and the game itself is both fun and addictive (as per Beat Saber).

The music was fun AND the location was amazing

Also, I suspect I'm right in their target demographic cause the amount of 90s music to pick from was moderately amusing.  I did a 90s Pop run and a "Prom Night" -- which definitely had music from my prom days.  Tells me they're not going for the current prom audience ;-P   Certainly a decent amount of $ from their subscription cost is going for music rights.

The other thing the $ is going toward is the coaches.  Who, honestly, I could probably do without, but they do certainly add a "workout" vibe.  There's a warmup before and cool down after every round.  Which got annoying very quickly when instead of one long workout I wanted to do multiple short ones.  Fortunately FB saved the day and told me how to skip those ;)  They also comment as you're playing the game but since I ignore them as effectively as I ignore Josh (sorry Josh!), I have no idea if they're useful or not ;)   Also, new workouts daily?  This seems slightly excessive -- I'd prefer they drop it down to once or twice a week and lower the cost, but not my call.   

This was my coach in Iceland

I've only played the light and medium level.  Medium seems about right atm, but will prob move up to hard before too long.  Just cause, well, me ;)  There's also a leaderboard so you can compete against friends.  Unlike Beat Saber or Oh Shape, it doesn't give you the whole world of scores, only those people you're "following".   I didn't know about this so I had a very empty leaderboard.   A quick post on a FB forum garnered me a whole collection of new competition though so my leaderboard won't be empty tomorrow.  When I checked this afternoon I was somewhere in the middle, which is pretty well the most motivating place for me to be.  At the top is boring, at the bottom is frustrating or overwhelming.  In the middle means room to get to the top ;) 

There's a phone app that goes along with it that tracks your history etc.  I haven't done enough to see if it'll be at all useful or not; I suspect not, but look forward to being proven wrong ;)

Now as for the less-than-successful...   Last week's FB stats came in and they're all red.  Boooo.  I blame a complete lack of meetings at work and two papers being due at school.  There was a lot of sitting still and moving only for the bare minimum 250 steps / hour.  Sometimes not even that.   Also - I've discovered it doesn't count about 1/3 of my workouts?  So random.  Don't *really* care (esp as it does seem to count those steps) but have learned not to stress too much about the exercise count cause it's so inaccurate.

Room for improvement next week!

On the plus side - both papers submitted!!!  Now we wait...