Workout games to play with friends online

Race live in an online room

1. Make a profile. Open Friends and choose “Make my profile”. The app asks your age group once and gives you a friend code that looks like BA-7K2Q4X. It needs no e-mail address and no password.
2. Add your friend. Send your friend code or your invite link. When your friend accepts, you are friends.
3. Start a room. The host picks the game. The games with a live race are Squat Flap, Knee Sprint and Reaction Tag.
4. Invite people. Send the invite link, the 6-character room code or the QR code. A room holds 2 to 4 players.
5. Get ready. Every camera gets ready first. When everyone is ready, the round starts for all of you at once.

During a race your device tells the others your score and a skeleton of 13 joints, about 15 times a second. That is a stick figure, not a picture. Your camera video stays on your device unless you choose to share it.

Two people on one screen

In 8 of the 11 games, two people can share one camera: Squat Flap, Knee Sprint, Star Catch, Pad Work, Reaction Tag, Firework Jacks, Limbo Bend and Pose Wall. You need a big screen such as a laptop, a desktop or a TV, and it is not offered on phone-sized screens. Player 1 stands on the left and Player 2 on the right, about 1 metre apart and about 3 metres from the screen. Each of you gets your own score.

Races against a recording, and weekly boards

You can race a ghost at any time, with nobody else online: your own best run, a friend’s run, or a practice partner, which is a bot. The app always says which one it is, and nobody is shown as live when they are not. After a round in a private room your friends can keep your run as a recording to race against later. It holds what you did at each obstacle and no picture.

Once you have a profile, your best score in each game and week goes to a board of your friends and a board of players in your country and age group. A new week starts every Monday. Boards list real players only and carry no prizes.

Who can play online

• Under 16: no online profile. The games work on the device only, and the app sends nothing about the child to the friends service. Younger players can still play on their own device, including two on one camera.
• 16 to 17: generated names, preset messages, friends added only by code or link, and never video or typed text.
• 18 and over: typed chat in a private room where everyone is 18 or older, and optional video between friends there.
• Between the groups: an adult cannot send a friend request to a player under 18.

Who sees what

Friends see your display name and whether you are online. Nobody can search for you: people find you only through your friend code or invite link, or in a public lobby of your age group. In a public lobby you meet players of your age group at your level. They see a skeleton in your colour and your display name, and they can send you preset messages and reactions, never video or typed text.

Video between friends is optional and off by default. It works only in a private room where everyone is 18 or older, when both friends switch it on. Either of you can turn it off at any time. The picture goes from device to device, encrypted, and nobody records it. If your devices cannot reach each other directly, no picture is shown and the game goes on with your skeleton.

To report or block someone, open the menu of a player in a room or on your friends list. Every report goes into a queue that we read, and serious ones come first.

What to expect

• Live races exist in 3 games: Squat Flap, Knee Sprint and Reaction Tag. Squat Flap and Knee Sprint are free games. Reaction Tag is a Pro game: a room can hold it when its host has Pro, and the friends who join do not need Pro.
• You need a connection. Friends, rooms and boards do not work offline.
• A room closes 10 minutes after the last player leaves, and 24 hours after its last activity at the latest.
• Each player uses their own camera and their own space. One camera misses a move now and then, and the results screen says why a move did not count.

Questions people ask

Keep reading

• Fitness games you can play in your browser: all the games, what each asks of you, and which to start with.
• Seated exercise games: how to play every game from a chair, and the Easy 60+ plan.
• Workout games by body area: legs, arms, chest and back, core, cardio and mobility, game by game.
• How webcam fitness games work: how a browser reads your body, and how to set up your room.
• Exercise games for PC: what a laptop or desktop needs, the games you can play at a desk and the ones that need floor space.
• A Kinect alternative for PC: what a webcam can read next to a depth sensor, and the games it runs.