Rhythm Gaming With Litesport: The Guitar Hero of Workouts
Time travel with us for a moment back to the late 90s/early 2000s. You’re at an arcade with your friends, challenging each other to a dance battle on Dance Dance Revolution or facing off in Guitar Hero battle mode. It wasn’t just the sweet glory of winning that attracted you to these games. It was also the carefully curated soundtracks, the levels that walk you from beginner to expert, the intuitive controls, and a sense of community through competition.
Friends cheered you on with every successful guitar strum or dance step. The movements were timed to the music. The on-screen visuals brought everything together to create a very real experience. With Guitar Hero, you felt like a rockstar ready to hit the stage. With Dance Dance Revolution, you felt like a dance pro with killer reflexes and well-timed choreography.
What do Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, and Litesport all have in common? They’re all rhythm games. What are rhythm games and how exactly does Litesport fit in? Join us to find out.
What Are Rhythm Games?
Rhythm gaming is a genre of video games that matches software with song to create an interactive experience that challenges you to sync your skills perfectly with the beat. Whether it’s hitting the right buttons, dancing on the right sensors, or punching the right target, the goal is to perform the action in perfect rhythm with the music. It’s all about timing and coordination as you match your moves to visual and auditory cues on screen. Rhythm gaming exists across a diverse range of games and interfaces from classic arcade-style setups to mobile apps to virtual reality.
Combining Rhythm Gaming With Workouts
At Litesport, we asked ourselves: what would happen if we combined rhythm gaming with a full-body workout? This all started with founders Todd Dagres, a lifelong athlete and general partner at Spark Capital, and Jeff Morin, an MIT-educated engineer. After feeling less than enthused with a stationary sandbag boxing workout at home, Todd knew that physical training could be better with a more digital experience.
Todd knew he couldn’t be alone in craving a more interactive workout. As the pandemic made working out at home the norm, we understood how important it was to have a workout experience you actually look forward to. After all, this is what made Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution so popular. People wanted to play. They chose those games over other options time and time again. Why can’t your workout feel the same way?
Strength training at home or facing off against a stationary heavy bag can be a very isolating and repetitive workout. Todd and Jeff wanted to take the best parts of working out and marry them with an interactive, rhythm gaming digital experience. They wanted to connect you with other athletes, make working out fun, and help you improve your skills while getting stronger.
Todd and Jeff knew that the answer they were looking for existed in the power of rhythm gaming, but that nothing like this existed for a boxing, boot camp, or strength training workout experience. This is when we combined rhythm gaming with rhythm technology, our very own software that combines the best of exercise and gaming.
Rhythm Gaming With Litesport
The result was Litesport, a game that syncs lights, music, and programming to create an immersive and effective workout experience in the metaverse. By combining rhythm gaming with fitness we’ve essentially created a rhythm gaming experience that challenges the full body. In other words, we aspire to be the Guitar Hero of workouts and a Dance Dance Revolution for your fists.
Strap on a VR headset and you can enter a virtual boxing ring or fitness gym, bringing expert trainers right to your living room. You can box, slam battle ropes, and rep out strength training exercises to the beat. We also measure and track your progress with every punch, rep, and squat with real-time results and performance-tracking metrics. This rhythm technology gaming system combined with fitness will leave you wondering whether you finished a workout or a highly interactive video game.
And what makes Litesport so appealing is that well-designed rhythm gaming gives you the benefits of the real experience without the hassle of the real experience. With Litesport, you can learn to box or give strength training a try without the intimidation and expense of a gym or the hefty price tag of a personal trainer.
The Best of Gaming and Fitness
Todd and Jeff’s vision has come to life as Litesport brings the best of both gaming and fitness worlds together to create a virtual workout experience unlike anything else. You get competition through matches and challenges, music to power your workout, interactive gaming features that leave you sweating, and real-world tips from the pros. This is the power of Litesport, rhythm gaming, and rhythm technology.
Whether you consider us the Guitar Hero of workouts or the DDR of boxing, know that with Litesport we’re always going to bring you the best that gaming and fitness have to offer. Ready to dive in? Give us a try today with a 7-day free trial.