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Comment by tawan | Hacker News Reader

Shameless plug: if you are into VR fitness but you think the existing solutions are missing multiplayer options, my brother and I are building Space Punch [1] which is a multiplayer fitness app. It is currently released in early access on Sidequest, and it’s functional. We are working out Monday to Friday 4:30pm UTC. If you have a Quest and want to work out together as group, then drop into our Discord sever. I’ll personally make sure you get an access key and I will show you the App from within.

[1] https://sidequestvr.com/app/5820/space-punch

[2] https://discord.gg/MKsZqrZh

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Perhaps because I'm an introvert, but never quite understood the motivation for social exercise in VR. Half the advantage of it is that I can work out on my own time, in private without being coupled to fixed schedules or other people's expectations.

Same motivation as social exercise generally. It can make a mundane task more fun.

Peer pressure (hopefully in a positive way), fun, distraction from the boredom of the exercise. The better memories you form of the event, the less likely you are to seek excuses to skip the next session.

Fixed schedule is one possible system that will push you to keep going even while you go through demotivated period. Same with "other people's expectations". Seeing other people exercise is motivating for a lot of people. And being seen is one more nudge to actually do it today. Moreover, many people are motivated by competition. That does not need to be official competition or large scale one. Pretty often it is just "I want to keep doing it as long as him" or "I think I could get bigger score then mx123Throwaway". For many people, the social aspect is what turns activity from "boring chore I do because I think I have to" to "I actually like doing it".

Underappreciated aspect of long term exercising is "how to keep doing it long term" and "how to prevent it from becoming yet another annoying dot on my todo list".

So I reckon there's about 50% of the population for whom what you say is true and then a giant slice for whom all those factors work in reverse. They are demotivated / scared by the thought of competition, and social activity is tiring rather than stimulating and intrinsically enjoyable.

It is pretty easy to not use social functions.

My fitness center is located next to a McDrive. Seeing that is enough to motivate me. Don't want to be fat.

Shameless plug plug

If you want to join a hand tracking based full body group workout you can join our daily session in VRWorkout ( 7AM GMT+1/10 PM Pacific)

For audio chat send me a friend request (oculus) to: xrworkout.io because we are still ironing out some flaws of our audiochat in GodotEngine

[1] https://xrworkout.io [2] https://github.com/mgschwan/VRWorkout

Looks fun! Reminds me a lot of Blaston which I love and is indeed quite a workout with all the dodging.

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2307085352735834/

Thanks! Yep, I also played Blaston a while and really liked it. We basically replaced shooting with a gun with punching in order to make it even more intense.

In addition we also want to build out the social part and create a community of Space Punchers that work out together and motivate each other to stick to a regular schedule. I find it really fascinating how immersive VR can be and really make you think that you are in the same place with your friends. If we can translate this energy into forming a healthy habit of working out regularly with a community than we are on a good path.

Quest only?

At the moment yes.

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