Every breath you take, every move you make keeps your virtual pet alive, as long as you have Wokamon installed on your smartphone.

It is known that most people lack motivation when it comes to performing physical activities. Grumpy animals can help a lot with that. If you happen to own a dog, walking running along with it could help you burn a few calories. On the other hand, if you annoyed a stray dog, or even your neighbor’s dog, running away from it will have the same effect. Still, if you want something similar without having to worry about any pet grooming or training, Wokamon might be just your thing!

Wokamon is an pedometer app developed by Noodum that turns your workouts into energy, food and happiness for a one-eyed alien. You even have a few different versions of aliens to choose from, so you can’t say that you’re stuck with an ugly one forever. The app can be used either in tandem with a smartphone or a fitness tracker such as UP by Jawbone, Fitbit, Ledongi or Moves.

Unlike the classic Tamagotchi, which only provided you one virtual pet to take care of, Wokamon has no mercy for you. After working out for a while, you’ll get to level up and new virtual pets will be added until you get a real menagerie.

The best thing about the Wokamon app is that it makes you feel bad if you skip a workout. Think you don’t have time to stay fit? Well, think again, as that family of cute little aliens is about to die (most probably in a horrible way) if you don’t get up from the couch and start running.

Wokamon’s colorful interface makes it very adequate for girls, but the male kind might not find the app as attractive. After all, this type of sentimentalism is not for us, guys, who would much prefer to run with real pets by our side. The other thing that I don’t like is that the app is only available for the iPhone, on the smartphone side of things. Why aren’t Droid chicks allowed to have this kind of fun while working out? I would definitely call this a sort of discrimination!

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