Launch HN: Quell (YC S20) – Immersive gaming and combat workout
We're Cam, Doug, Lorenzo and Martin, co-founders of Quell (https://quell.tech).
Quell is an immersive fitness game which guides players through an exciting, effective combat workout at home. Players fight enemies with a low-cost wearable which uses smart resistance bands to simulate real combat training. Our aim is to be Peloton meets gaming meets boxing, at 1/10th of the price. We launched on Kickstarter yesterday, and would love it if you checked us out! Here’s the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/quelltech/quell-real-ga...
We started building Quell because for us, exercise wasn’t fun; it was work. We’d tried all the stats tracking apps and the cycling simulators, but they weren’t treating that root problem. Over time, as the novelty wore off, we were left with the feeling that working out was still boring and uncomfortable.
As big gamers, gamification seemed like an obvious solution. We looked at what was happening in this space and felt that exercise games tended to compromise on the exercise or the game. We believed that, if we could get both right, we could make something we’d want to play. Everything in the market was focussed on running, cycling or yoga/pilates, so we went with boxing as a more intense and cathartic alternative.
We realised that Quell could be a real business when we started talking to people about exercise. Everyone was facing the same two problems: obstacles, and a lack of reward. The absence of immediate rewards when you exercise means that you have to propel yourself using long-term benefits, and most of us are bad at this. On top of that, seemingly small barriers like weather, travel, set-up, knowledge and equipment sharing have a massive impact on people's ability to commit.
The team started working together in February, but we all had other things going on. Cam had just left his career in management consulting to do a design master’s. Martin was wrapping up his PhD in sensor tech at Oxford. Doug was building a business providing remote working and development retreats. Lorenzo was doing a design master’s to pursue a career in prosthetic design. None of us had the financial stability to make this our full-time job, so we decided to develop the product over a year or two in our spare time. After a month, we applied to YC with zero expectation of being accepted. Our idea was basically a punching bag with a screen, and we knew it wasn’t where we wanted it to be. We saw the YC application as a forcing mechanism to put some rigour behind the business, and an exciting experience to go through.
Then Covid hit, and the target market went from ‘people who don’t like exercise’ to ‘people who don’t like home exercise or running around the same park every day’. We went into overdrive, using all of our days off and lunch breaks to develop the product. Despite all this effort, the pace was glacial. All the workshops closed during lockdown, so we had no tools. We were separated in different parts of the UK, trying to build hardware via Zoom. Then YC accepted us, and we could finally focus! We left our jobs and degrees. Everyone moved into Cam's apartment. We bought a 3D printer, a sewing machine and a bunch of electronics and textiles. We spent all day every day looping through talking to users, collating insights, designing and prototyping.
We learned that no one wanted the hassle of a punchbag, but everyone loved the idea of feeling the satisfying physical resistance of punching something at home. We built a wearable which applied customisable resistance to punches through swappable elastic bands, and it landed well. We started looking at computer vision to translate player punches into the game, but our potential users hated the idea of setting up a camera. After hundreds of h...
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadFor us, it's about building something that is exciting enough to distract you from the workout you're doing - the gaming takes over from the awareness of your exercise in your mind. There are a number of ways to do this, some would include VR. For now we've opted against it as our users found VR fitness too sweaty and uncomfortable in its present form.
Where do you stand on VR? Do you have any of the headsets currently?
How sweaty you find it is surely a function of your local climate and availability of air-con. I wouldn't play Beat Saber in the summer without good air flow but then I'm in the UK where air-con is fairly rare in the home.
But I can happily play for 45-60 minutes when it's not super hot in the house.
We managed to get one of the first copies available after it had sold out through the lockdown, and have put in a good few hours over our lunchbreaks to benchmark against it. In our opinion Nintendo has done a really good job, and we even managed to break a sweat playing it.
That said, Ring Fit Adventure is limited to Switch users, and the game itself was not compelling enough to build a real fitness routine around (if Peloton and Zwift are too far in one direction, then RFA is too far in the opposite). It's taught us a lot about how important certain aspects from the game design will be as we continue building the Quell game world though...and anything that is encouraging people to look after their health gets a big thumbs up from us.
- Gamification does sometimes interfere with the workouts and/or workout enjoyability. The tasks that were gameplay-optimal were often either tediously easy or exhaustingly targeting the same muscles repeatedly.
- Not enough cardio opportunities in the game, IMO. You get interrupted from the jogging sections repeatedly. Only a couple of the skill moves targeted cardio at all really.
- Lots of downtime and fiddling with menus and only semi-skippable instructions/tutorial videos of things you've done before. Enemy animations even for non-actions. Squeezing one's smoothies while dorky music plays. A half-hour workout took more like 50 minutes.
- Difficulty of exercises not reflected in their impact. Partly due to the fact that each person finds different exercises difficult and the game had no way of accounting for that.
- Sweat! I sweat a lot during any workout and I felt gross wearing the leg-strap repeatedly and the non-washable ring grips. I can guarantee I'd make the Quell gear stink in a few months max and would need a cheap way to wash them and replace padding that wears out.
The rhythm game section they added in a more recent update is super fun, though. I wish it were incorporated into the main game. Overall, I like RFA and have benefited from adding it sporadically into my exercise routines. I could definitely be in the market for Quell.
I agree about the rhythm section and some of the menu downtime. As for the sweating, any game in the fitness space needs to recognise this! We're making sure the Gauntlet can be washed just like any fitness kit should be for this exact reason!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/534230/Quell_4D/
Optimism is fine, but realistically, yes, competition over a name for another video game can definitely hurt you.
I know for me I'd get pretty bored with doing just one thing (here, boxing, Peloton bike riding, etc.), even if the online "experience" varies things.
Also, while it's good for burning calories, it's just hitting (har!) one set of muscles. I'm doing a broad range of exercises through a streaming video service, including various weights/resistance training, and a yoga/tai-chi/pilates class that's really improved my balance.
So, for me, variety is something to shoot for.
Congratulations on the successful kickstarter!
Variety is absolutely something to shoot for. Personally I've always been big on 'adventure' sports - I find that the distraction from the fact I'm working out allows me to have fun, and still stay (reasonably) fit! Not so easy to do when I'm back around home though - all these activities require time away...so building Quell allows for a more exciting workout whilst staying indoors (something that became a lot more relevant this year!)
One thing to note is that whilst the Gauntlet delivers resistance to upper-body motions, boxing is very much a full body workout. We're exploring a few different ways to maximise the core and lower-body elements of this within the game, but this is no case of skipping leg day!
Which streaming video service are you using? Any key parts of it that you think make it stand out against everything else you've tried?
With streaming, they have (literally) dozens of workout routines, at various time lengths, in eight or ten categories of work out types (straight weights, cross-training, a few kinds of aerobics, yoga fusion, barre, dance, more I can't remember :-). So when I get bored with a particular routine, I can easily switch to another.
On the iPad, you can download the routine so you don't need to worry about stream buffering (which has never been an issue on other devices, but I have fairly fast internet service).
It's ~$11/month (buying three months at a time) subscription, and I spent about $180 or so in equipment, so it's similar to the outlay for your service.
Again, congratulations on the launch, quite interested to see what you do in the future!
They have a lot of training videos, several for each class of exercise they do. They're in-depth, and really show you the form.
They add tips to the actual work-outs, so you're constantly reminded of good form.
They have alternatives to most of the exercises, so you can modify them if you have (e.g.) knee problems, or aren't up to full push-ups, etc.
They do good cool-down routines at the end of most videos, and have a number of cool-down-only videos you can watch for the others. Not everyone thinks highly of post work-out cool-down/stretching, but a lot of the people who seriously study exercise recommend it.
How has the community element of LM translated to their app? Do you still have ways of engaging or competing?
There is a Facebook group (which I haven't joined) which is, I gather, more supportive than competitive. They do videos every once in a while where they get their trainers/directors to either discuss techniques or answer Q&A. It's support-oriented.
I want to play a game that has a side-effect of a fitness program. I'm not looking for a cut beach bod, I'm just looking to get mobile and get my heart rate up; I want a slightly more involved Wii Sports.
If it gets too fitness-y, I'm just going to pursue a proper fitness program and not waste my time with kitschy and campy video game facades.
We all agreed there was a lot we could learn from it though - after all they've had 5 million downloads, so it's working for some people!
If you'd be interested to provide some thoughts on the direction we take with the game, we'd love to have you join the conversation in the Quell Discord channel.
cries in Muay Thai
Can’t skip leg day.
We looked into leg resistance bands early on in the design stage, and user tests led us away from them. In reality, you can get plenty of resistance for the lower body from gravity and the right exercises - we're working on some different game dynamics to introduce things like squats and lunges.
Thank you for your input!
Why would i get this instead of just buying a used wii or a vr system?
No offense, i thought the Peloton was stupid too and their ads were horrible. I was so happy when i stopped getting ads for that thing.
Waggling the controller with one's wrist was more effective in game and didn't hurt after 15-20 minutes like playing "for real" did. It also wasn't really any more fun than playing with a normal controller—so, fun, but nothing special.
I'd expect to hurt myself trying to get a workout with something like this, based on that experience.
We're working in consultation with boxers and boxing trainers to ensure that the game teaches users proper form. To break through your enemies defences and succeed in the game, you'll need to perform precise, accurate strikes with good technique. In addition, our wearable prevents you from hyper-extending when throwing straight shots, which can otherwise cause injury.
PS as a keen cyclist I have to agree about Peloton. That's why we decided to make a game about punching monsters instead—much more fun!
Some thoughts I had off the top of my head:
- This seems feels like a good use case for VR to have something totally immersive. Not sure how steady VR headsets are these days though...
- Are there mechanics to "level up", like an RPG? I think that type of structure motivates a lot of people to keep playing and "grinding"
- What about P2P? It seems hard to pull-off, but could be really cool & entertaining on twitch!
Excited to see where you all go!
Thank you so much! Lovely to hear that you're interested in backing us!
To answer your questions: - We're definitely interested in porting Quell to VR later down the line. However, we chose not to for now, because our users just don't like exercising with it. They say it's cumbersome, heavy, sweaty and unsteady.
- The game is a fully-fledged story-based game with RPG elements. We totally agree that it's absolutely key to have this, to make sure our users love exercising with Quell, and don't get bored of it!
- P2P is also in our plans! It's not going to be one of our first features, but we're working to make it happen later down the line - it would be super exciting.
Let me know if you have further questions, super happy to reply :)
VR headsets are pretty secure in general. The problem is comfort and the other is sweat. Comfort will vary headset to headset but there are lots of accessories and mods to deal with both issues.
The best thing about VR is immersion. There are also several really good boxing/fighting games out now. One of them is good enough where a pro-boxer uses it for training much like some pro drivers use driving sims to practice. The only things missing are resistance and feedback. I can see Quell's straps being used in VR. The best I've seen for feedback is wear a suit or vest of bunch of small speakers. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing.
I know next to nothing about being fit and working out, but would this workout target pretty much a single muscle group with resistance?
If it's all running on the phone, hows battery life? Between running the game and processing motion data what's the specs required?
I'm guessing a motion tracker in both hands and in the body to detect motion, but that'd drift if you allow movement. Are you planning on using any body-tracking ML with the phone's camera? Otherwise it sounds like the game will be a linear rail-road.
Finally, given it's elastic, how easy is it to hit yourself in the face if your arm gives out at full stretch?
Hope that answers your questions :)
Don't get me wrong, I think it is a great idea. I just wonder how much better it will be than Wii Sports and if you will even achieve those levels. For that to happen, your game must be addictive. In my experience, that works best if the player can build things within the game (think Stardew Valley/Minecraft, not character cosmetics).
If you have more feedback / input, please do let us know! Thank you!
I think you're using the wrong words there. "High Impact" workouts in the fitness world mean they are harder on your joints and tendons (think crossfit/hiit vs low impact like spin cycles).
Since you aren't punching anything and you're not jerking your body around, I'd imagine this is more mid-impact?
https://www.humana.com/prevention-and-care/healthy-living-an...
If you have some games which require faster reactions and speed of punching then it could become more interesting.
Are you planning to allow modding of the games?
What about having bands in other positions to enable using the biceps and shoulders?
We're improving the gameplay every day, and with Kickstarter funding we'll be able to really bring it to the next level. We absolutely think it's key to have fast reaction times :)
We're really interesting in opening the platform up to developers, including for modding!
Regarding the resistance bands: we've tried a wide range of different positions for the bands, and we're happy to say that the current design provides really effective muscle training. But I totally see your point, and we'll be constantly looking to improve our Gauntlet Wearable with even more resistance!
Thank you for your feedback :)
Also, how are you doing the tracking? I don't see any external sensors mentioned, is it just IMU based? Because anything less than perfect sub millimeter motion tracking has become unacceptable these days.
We are indeed using IMUs to track the player's movements, and agree that high-accuracy motion tracking is one of the keys to making the experience really compelling and immersive. It's been a blast so far to feel the experience improve with each iteration of the game and software!
Having done a little bit of boxing, it's a pretty good full body workout. It's hard to say how the resistance bands would feel compared to a punching bag though. Also: how do they work for different punches like uppercuts?
How would you track blocking? How accurate is the position tracking? The tracking animation notably only measures one dimension (extension), not the direction in 3D. That seems quite hard just with the bands.
Another concern: I feel like for many users the punching motions would get boring really quickly.
Engaging game(s) would be key. Since it's all you do, the punching must be satisfying. Including making me "feel" the impact. That means: smooth animations with accurate position tracking, quality audio, ....
What I see in the video does not work so well for me. Having some variety would also be key. Eg have a basic boxing ring available for mindless punching, but also a more engaging RPG style game where you don't punch all the time - for longer sessions.
Building full-fledged quality games in addition to the hardware seems like a very big task.
Have you thought about searching for interesting indie games (including the various VR boxing variations) and looking for partnerships?
Since it's all you do, the punching must be satisfying. In addition to the resistance of the bands, I wonder if there is any sort of haptic feedback on contact? That seems like it could be very satisfying to me.
As for the haptics, check our stretch goals on Kickstarter! It's something we're very interested in...
I agree with many of the concerns OP mentions, especially the need for a variety of engaging games. The demo game feels a little too cartoony for my taste, would love to see more titles in different styles.
Another concern I have is how can it help reinforce proper posture, body positioning, and footwork? I realize this is very difficult to address, but those fundamentals are extremely important and seem to me to be areas where many beginners could develop bad habits if not corrected somehow.
We're absolutely on-board with the idea of multiple games - we have the launch title being developed (that you've seen in our current artwork), and others in mind. Out of interest, what would be your preferred style of game for combat fitness? We've had some good discussions around this in our Discord server.
To your concerns re: body posture and movement; you couldn't be more right about the importance of getting these aspects right. We have experience both within our team and our advisers covering everything from international boxing to prosthetic design - we are taking the ergonomics and science very seriously for this exactly reason.
I'm imagining a branching "storyline"/exercise routine. One path might have many very weak enemies that take somewhat precise combos where another might have stronger minibosses where its a slugfest.
We love boxing for its exercise impact—until you try it, you have now idea how quickly punching can get you out of breath! The main resistance is indeed to straight shots, but as we add new movements and improve our game and motion tracking, it is feeling more and more satisfying.
Blocking is quite natural—when your arms are blocking your face in real life, so too are your character's! Totally agree that variety is needed to keep people engaged, which is why we're developing a range of motions beyond traditional boxing strikes that players must perform during a session. We'll also be including a selection of modes, including a training mode which lets players jump straight into a fight when they don't feel like playing the main story. And yes, beyond our initial release and our ongoing support for it, we plan to open up the Quell system to other developers, via partnerships or otherwise, and grow into an ecosystem of immersive games aimed at our core desire to make working out fun, efficient and accessible.
We'd also love to see this used in gyms and fitness classes, and have been gathering insights from local gyms around London on how best to do this. Despite dealing with their own difficulties as a result of Covid-19, they provided some great insights that helped us to shape the product into something that we feel is compelling and effective, even to committed fitness folk.
I'm a bit of a fitness buff, I've been working out pretty my whole life. I guess the things that jump out at me that are off:
1. I wouldn't personally say 'we hate working out'. That to me is the wrong message. Working out is rewarding and worthwhile, for me it's something I look forward to every day. If you want to aim your messaging at people that feel that way, then say it that way - 'If you hate working out, this is for you!'. I'm not wild about that messaging either but at least it's not coming from the founders which to me is a big turnoff.
2. This is not a full body workout. There appears to be no leg resistance and/or emphasis on leg training. I would be careful in how you present this in your messaging.
3. I would position this as an intro to working out and partner with someone (if you can) like AthleanX.com which is are science based / physical trainer designed full body workouts. The reason I would try that is because you will likely have 2 outcomes of your users. Outcome 1 - they'll play it for a while, feel good about themselves and stop, or they'll maybe finish the full game experience, and stop. Outcome 2 is someone that really gets into this, sees some transformation of their upper body and wants to move on to a 'real full body workout' (which sorry this is not). That kind of partnership would be a win-win for both parties because it's a bit tough to jump right into a typical full body workout (esp. the AltheanX stuff which is really aimed at elite athletes), and having something like this as any easy onboarding process could be pretty cool. It would also be beneficial to have the expertise of a high-end, well designed full body workout help guide future workouts for your product. Right now, it really doesn't look like the movements, or punching is all that varied.
4. I also have a VIVE/VR setup and like others, I use that as part of my workout; in my case it's more a post-workout workout. I don't expect it to really develop muscles, or improve my cardio all that much, but it's a nice way to burn some extra calories and get some cool hand-eye coordination / dex training into your workout that is otherwise hard to come by (Space Pirate Trainer, Pistol Whip, Beat Saber for example).
Either way good luck, I do think the future of fitness is in some form of VR, AR + interaction/gaming.
I got excited about this concept reading OP's description, but the video makes it look like it's resistance band exercise for the arms, and nothing beyond that.
I guess my ideal version of this would involve full body weight exercise somehow or lifting heavy objects.
I'm not sure 20 ~ 60 minutes of extending arms with resistance bands is safe or effective. We didn't really evolve to work our muscles that way. Then again I guess we didn't evolve to cycle either.
To your first point, you're right—this is definitely not true for everyone. As a keen cyclist, I can say that getting out on my bike is definitely something I look forward to, too (less so now that London has returned to being one big puddle, but still)! We'll look into adjusting this to be more open-minded. You're also correct that, at present, it's not a full body workout. We're currently expanding the range of movements you can perform in the game to make it much more dynamic, including ducks and dodges, thereby providing a more complete experience here.
I love the idea of partnering up with a company like AltheanX. We're definitely keen to get people working out, and we know that our product can't be a replacement for a full gym, so partnerships seem like a brilliant way to provide a more complete workout.
Lastly, we too have enjoyed our experience with VR workouts. One of our early tests was to include wrist weights with games like Beat Saber, which makes it a much more challenging proposition. One problem that I'm sure you've encountered too, though, was that once the action got intense, we found the headset to be too sweaty and cumbersome for the experience to stay enjoyable for long. That's actually one of the big reasons why we started with a more traditional screen-based setup, but as VR lovers ourselves we're definitely keen to move into this space as people's adoption and comfort when using this amazing technology increases!
I'm curious if you have thought of having something like a burpee as one of a few different 'dodges' to move things toward a full body workout and activate the legs more?
I'll also second the idea of selling the harness separately. I think something like that + VR could be a big hit. I also wonder if you have considered creating a lower body harness to add resistance to the leg?
One thing I'll say that is appealing about your approach is that it's not VR. I find it somewhat unpractical to do a real workout in VR because current headsets are both bulky and very warm/hot to wear. The lens tend to fog up along with just sweating like mad, it's just not ideal. This is mostly a problem that'll solve itself as future HMD design presumably shrink and become less intrusive/bulky. Generally I think no headset like this is a big plus for you guys.
Regarding lower body workouts, we'll start by adding sensors to the legs if we reach that specific stretch goal. We'd love to add resistance too, if it's feasible! :)
Thank you for your input!
[1] https://vrworkout.at