I love Rags to Riches, where you and other players on large ships are fired on the upcoming pirate ships, with the intention of protecting your treasure. In this game, you can work with other players, but there are also a large number of head-to-head and group competition games that offer a more straightforward racing format.
The variety of games is really impressive. When I first heard about this machine, I thought the only game you could play on a rowing was similar to a race, but Aviron’s programmers came up with all sorts of interesting options to keep you entertained. You can play games where you row to shoot on bugs or throw snowballs at varying distances, or you must keep your strength within a certain range to jump into different race lanes to collect points. There are even options similar to table tennis.
The idea here is to allow users to exercise without considering it, and to program with the same addictive quality as an actual video game. It does feel like a game, and in a sense you can invite Aviron users to friends you play with, jump into the group games that have already happened when you log in, and collect coins while playing the game, which can be used to change the avatar or background or unlock new game packs. New games are also always added to the Aviron interface, so it’s hard to get bored.
Photo: Kristin Canning
If your game isn’t your business, there are other cool exercise options as well. You can play shows, row in scenic destinations around the world, fight professional athletes, and follow coaches’ guidance, pre-documented workouts and training programs.
You can also choose your own workout and track metrics such as rowing, splitting, watts, calories, output, strokes, and heart rate (if you wear a monitor and connect to the machine via Bluetooth). If you don’t get an Aviron membership, the metric tracking feature is one of the few products you can use.
