Walking apps like Pikmin Bloom and Finch: 7 options compared

The short version

• Pikmin Bloom: walk outside, plant flowers along your route, and collect Pikmin, on your own or with friends.
• Zombies, Run!: story missions in your headphones while you walk, jog or run.
• Walkr: steps become fuel for a spaceship, and you collect planets as you travel farther.
• Finch: a self-care pet that grows as you complete short self-care exercises, with journaling and mood tracking.
• AquaSteps: steps bring new fish and sea creatures to aquarium tanks you can decorate.
• Fish Steps: steps keep an aquarium filled with water, and the tank drains when you stop.
• Pixfin: steps raise one real aquatic species at a time through its life stages, with a goal set from your own week. Made by RJ Labs, the publisher of this guide.

Pikmin Bloom: walking outdoors, with friends

Pikmin Bloom, from Scopely Explore, Inc., is a walking game that its App Store listing calls a step counter and collector. As you walk, you grow and pluck Pikmin that join your squad, plant flowers that leave colorful trails, and you come across postcards and mushrooms along the way.

• What gets you walking: steps and the places you go. Walking produces more seedlings and fruit, and a daily review shows how many steps you took and where you went. The listing notes that the game uses your location and that compatibility is not guaranteed on devices without GPS.
• Creature or collection: yes. Pikmin join your squad, and over time you collect Decor Pikmin.
• Friends: you can team up with friends for Weekly Challenges, take on mushrooms together, and host or join a Party Walk, a group walk you can join remotely.
• Streaks and missed days: neither the listing nor the official site mentions streaks.
• Platforms: iPhone, and the official site links to Google Play for Android. The listing describes the game as made for smartphones rather than tablets.
• Active or background: both. With your permission it uses Apple HealthKit to count walking distance while the app is closed, and you open the game to grow Pikmin and plant flowers.
• Model: free with in-app purchases.
• Suits: people who enjoy walking outside, seeing where they have been, and walking with friends or a group.

Zombies, Run!: a story in your headphones

Zombies, Run! is an audio adventure for walks and runs. A story plays through your headphones, woven between tracks from your own music, and the supplies you pick up along the way help you rebuild a settlement called Abel Township.

• What gets you walking: the story. The listing describes more than 500 missions across 11 seasons, playable at any speed: walking, jogging, running, on a treadmill or in a wheelchair. The official site adds optional chases, where you speed up to escape.
• Creature or collection: no creature. You collect supplies on each outing and trade them for buildings or trophies for your base.
• Streaks and missed days: the listing does not mention streaks.
• Platforms: iPhone and Apple Watch, where you can control the story and see distance, time and pace. The listing also covers Apple Vision, and the official site links to Google Play for Android.
• Active or background: active. Each mission is something you listen to during a walk or run, tracked with GPS, with detailed stats.
• Model: free to try, with a membership subscription.
• Suits: people who want a reason to head out for a dedicated walk or run, and who enjoy following a story while they move.

Walkr: steps as fuel for a space adventure

Walkr, from SPARKFUL, is a space-themed walking game. Your phone's pedometer records your steps and converts them into energy for your spaceship, and the more you walk, the deeper you can travel into space.

• What gets you walking: steps, turned into fuel. The app also recommends daily fitness goals and tracks calories burned.
• Creature or collection: yes. You collect planets (the listing says more than 100), spacefoods and rare elements, and take on missions to help lost space creatures find their way home.
• Friends: you can invite friends as co-pilots for extra fuel, join a fleet, and compete with friends in leagues.
• Streaks and missed days: the listing does not mention streaks.
• Platforms: iPhone and Apple Vision, and the official site links to Google Play for Android.
• Active or background: steps are recorded automatically while your phone is in your pocket, and exploring and collecting happen in the game.
• Model: free with in-app purchases, with an optional subscription that starts with a 7-day free trial. The listing notes that the app contains ads, with an in-app purchase to remove them.
• Suits: people who like exploring, collecting and playing alongside friends, all powered by everyday steps.

Finch: a pet for self-care in general

Finch is a self-care app built around a pet. You complete short self-care exercises to grow your pet and earn rewards, and the app also offers goal tracking, guided journaling, mood tracking, breathing exercises and help winding down for sleep. Its official site sums it up as taking care of your pet by taking care of yourself.

• What gets you moving: goals and exercises you choose across self-care, rather than a step count. The App Store listing does not describe step counting.
• Creature or collection: yes, a pet that grows as you complete exercises.
• Streaks and missed days: the listing does not mention streaks.
• Platforms: iPhone and iPad, and the official site links to Google Play for Android.
• Active or background: active. You check in and complete exercises in the app.
• Model: free with in-app purchases, with an optional Finch Plus subscription.
• Suits: people who want one app for self-care as a whole: journaling, mood, breathing, sleep and personal goals. If walking is the main habit you want to build, one of the step-based apps here can sit alongside it.

AquaSteps: an aquarium that fills as you walk

AquaSteps, from AppSeed, Incorporated, is an idle aquarium and walking game. Your daily steps bring new fish and other aquatic creatures to your tanks, and each one is recorded in a field guide with its name and facts.

• What gets you walking: steps. Progress updates when the app reads your step data, so there is no need to claim each creature.
• Creature or collection: yes. Four free tanks (a freshwater stream, coral shallows, the deep sea and a tide pool) hold 40 companions, and Premium adds more tanks. You decorate with shells earned in the game.
• Streaks and missed days: the listing does not mention streaks. It says that on days you can't walk, you can still look at and decorate your aquarium.
• Platforms: iPhone, also listed for Mac and Apple Vision, with a free progress widget and more widgets in Premium.
• Active or background: mostly passive. Creatures arrive as your step data is read, and decorating is optional.
• Model: free with in-app purchases, with an optional Premium subscription. The listing notes that the app contains ads, and that Premium removes banner and interstitial ads.
• Suits: people who want a relaxed aquarium to fill and decorate, with many species to collect.

Fish Steps: a tank that needs your steps

Fish Steps, from Henhouse Labs LLC, is an aquarium kept alive by walking. Every step adds water to your tank, and when you stop moving, it slowly drains.

• What gets you walking: keeping the tank full. You set a daily step goal, steps come from Apple Health in real time, and the tank thrives when you reach your goal.
• Creature or collection: yes. You unlock new fish and decorations as you rack up miles, from tiny guppies to a great white shark.
• Streaks and missed days: it has daily streaks and achievements, and falling behind has a cost: the listing says that if the tank runs dry, the fish don't make it. For people who are motivated by something at stake, that is the point of the design.
• Platforms: iPhone, also listed for Mac and Apple Vision, with a Home Screen widget.
• Active or background: the tank follows your steps from Apple Health, so it keeps up with your day without a workout to start.
• Model: free with in-app purchases. The listing notes that the app contains ads.
• Suits: people who respond to clear stakes and a daily target, and who enjoy keeping a streak going.

How to choose

Two questions settle most of it. First, do you want to play during a walk, or have your steps counted while you get on with your day? Second, how do you respond to a missed day: does a streak or a tank at risk spur you on, or make you want to quit? Our guide to walking more without a streak to break goes into the second question.

• To explore outside and walk with friends: Pikmin Bloom.
• For a story that gets you out the door: Zombies, Run!
• For collecting with a space theme and friends as co-pilots: Walkr.
• For help with self-care beyond walking: Finch.
• For an aquarium with many species to collect and decorate: AquaSteps.
• For stakes and a streak to keep you going: Fish Steps.
• For one real species at a time, a goal that follows your own week, and no streak at all: Pixfin.

On Android, the official sites of Pikmin Bloom, Zombies, Run!, Walkr and Finch link to Google Play. Pixfin is not available on Android.

Pixfin: one real species, grown by your steps

Pixfin is the walking app we make at RJ Labs. You choose one real aquatic species per tank and name it, and walking grows it through its real biological life stages, one stage at a time, while the scenery around it changes. Grown creatures go into a gallery of 32 real species across five habitats: Freshwater, Amazon River, Tropical Reef, Satoyama and Deep Sea.

• What gets you walking: a daily step goal set to your own average over the previous seven days, plus 500, rising toward 8,000 a day. The thinking behind that goal is in our guide on how to walk more every day, without a streak to break.
• Creature or collection: yes. One creature per tank, and a gallery of 32 real species to fill.
• Streaks and missed days: there are no streaks, and a short day is never marked as failed. Nothing dies, and there is no hunger to manage.
• Platforms: iPhone and iPad with an Apple Watch app and complications, on iOS 26 or later. Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets and iCloud sync are included.
• Active or background: passive. Pixfin reads your step count from Apple Health, so there is nothing to start or log, and it writes nothing back.
• Model: free to download, and using it takes a subscription: yearly with a 7-day free trial, or monthly. No ads and no third-party tracking, rated 4+.
• What it doesn't do: there is no Android version, no GPS or map exploration, no friends or multiplayer, no stories or audio, and no habits beyond walking.
• Suits: iPhone users who want a calm daily reason to walk, like real animals, and would rather not keep a streak.

Pixfin is free to download from the App Store, with a 7-day free trial on the yearly plan.

Common questions