Simulation games are not limited to young adults. While simulation games like Worldbox, a god sandbox game, has captured its target audience in many countries, it has not really captured the interest of many adult women. But one game developer has made a difference, to target this age group.
The Yoga Retreat Overview
Gajatri Studios, a Finnish game developer, is trying to do things differently with the game Yoga Retreat. They made a game for women between the ages of 18 and 55, where you learn to manage a yoga studio on a tropical island. And in the meantime you also learn something about the correct yoga postures.
In the game, you will be shown a lot of yoga videos that teach you how to perform certain yoga exercises. Meanwhile, you are busy helping the customers. There is a constant flow of customers, where you can always choose whether you spend 1 minute or a longer period of 10 or 15 minutes explaining the yoga exercises.
The more time you invest in a customer, the more you earn and the more satisfied the customer leaves the island. In fact, there is little difference with the well-known restaurant games, where you have to complete the orders as quickly as possible. In this case, there are only a few more steps, because a customer also wants to sit down and think quietly or drink a juice after performing an exercise. You have to make sure that a nice chair is ready in time and that you have time left to prepare a smoothie.
So you have to keep the customers happy so that they leave a big bag of money at the end of their visit and return regularly. You can expand your yoga empire by offering new services such as laughter yoga, a smoothie bar, and yoga exercises on a paddleboard, a type of surfboard.
Free to play
The game is free to play, but there are in-app purchases, which are not necessary by the way. CEO Tiina Zilliacus has already tested the game in three countries and noticed that more than 20% of daily active users watch at least 5 yoga animation videos per day. The intention is, of course, that people actually do these exercises, so that the game is more than just a simulation game, but also encourages healthy behaviour. One of those test markets was the Netherlands, the others were Finland and Canada.
In summary, The idea that you are going to try actual yoga exercises is a nice idea. The game also does not have the typical floaty, which often revolves around yoga topics. There are fluttering butterflies, pink hearts and sweet-looking dolls, which fit well with this genre. It doesn’t look nerdy, and you’re not left to your own devices, because the game starts with a – rather detailed – tutorial where the player is really taken by the hand. After that, the action really starts, and you regularly receive extra instructions in between, for example when you have made your first smoothie for a customer. You can also play together with friends in Yoga Retreat by linking your account with Twitter and Facebook, but you don’t have to.
Yoga Retreat will certainly appeal to the chosen target group of women between the ages of 18 and 55. It’s been a good look at how other games have approached the idea of a time management game. The execution is good, the choice of theme is good and the game gives just enough clues without being patronizing. But in the end, of course, you’re just playing Diner Dash.
Yoga Retreat is made by a former Nokia employee and two former Rovio techs. The plan is to link the game to Apple’s HealthKit so you can also earn points for exercises you’ve done yourself. One of the ideas is to get users’ heart rate data from HealthKit so that you can earn points in-game for performing a yoga exercise.