The category
GPS running games, and the half of this search they don't serve
Two different people type this. One wants a running app that makes the route mean something. The other wants ground they can hold and lose, and doesn't much care how fast they got there. The answers are different, so this splits them.
If you want to run
RunStrict is the most developed of these — hexagonal tiles you flip by running through them, three teams with genuinely different scoring rules, and 40-day seasons. It is explicit that running is the point: capture only activates under a set pace, and it verifies movement with the accelerometer rather than trusting GPS alone. If you want a game that makes you train, this is the one on this page to install. Free, on both stores.
Capture calls itself the territory game for runners: run a closed loop and the enclosed area becomes yours, with leaderboards for most territory, distance and time.
KYRO works the same way — close a loop and the block inside fills in your colour on a shared live city map — but is explicit that there is no distance to hit. It is filed under Health & Fitness and built around "the run you already do". Territory Run is a third take on closed-loop capture, currently on Google Play.
Claim of Zones is a different shape again — "the city is the game board", organised as a session between teams of players with challenge cards and photo proof. Closer to a city-wide party game than a fitness tracker, and the organiser decides whether GPS presence is enforced.
If any of that is what you came for, take it. We do not do route tracking, distance, pace or seasons, and installing us expecting a running app would just waste an evening.
If you want the ground, not the run
There is a real gap in this category: every one of these rewards covering distance. Territory is a by-product of the route. How hard the gate is varies — RunStrict will not capture at all above an 8 min/km pace, while KYRO says outright there is no distance to hit — but in all of them the ground you own is the ground you ran over. That still rules out anyone whose route is a commute, and anyone who wants the strategy without the running.
BloodRivals has no pace requirement and no route tracking. You claim a specific address by standing at it, build it up, and it earns while you hold it. Walking is fine. The unit is a place you own rather than an area you painted by passing through — and another player can take it off you.
The trade is that this rewards being somewhere rather than covering ground, so it will never make you fitter. If the run is the reason you play, the games above are the better product and it isn't close.
The honest comparison
Swipe the table sideways to see BloodRivals →
| RunStrict | Capture | BloodRivals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you capture | Hex tiles you run through | The loop you enclose | A specific address |
| Pace required? | Yes — capture is gated on it | Built for runners | No — walking is fine |
| Route tracked? | Yes | Yes | No |
| Does it reset? | 40-day seasons, then wiped | — | No — held until taken |
| Does ground earn? | Points | Points | In-game income |
| Population | Bigger than us | — | Small, mostly Norway |
The board, right now
That last row is not a figure of speech, so here it is as a number. The board currently has 123 registered players holding 23,664 properties. (as published 2026-09-13 — the app shows the live count)
Free on iOS and Android. No ads. Optional in-app purchases.
Common questions
- Do you have to run to play BloodRivals?
- No, and there is no pace requirement at all. You claim an address by standing at it, which walking does perfectly well. Running games like RunStrict gate capture on speed — that is the point of them, and it is the main reason to pick one over the other.
- Does BloodRivals track your route or your distance?
- There is no route recording, no distance total and no pace — nothing that turns a walk into a logged workout. Position is used live, for whether you are close enough to act on a place and for how long travel takes. What is and is not retained, including the anti-cheat exception, is set out in full on our privacy page rather than summarised here.
- What is the equivalent of territory here?
- An individual address rather than an area you covered. You claim it, build it up, and it generates in-game income while you hold it — so ground is something you own and earn from, not something you painted by passing through.
- Does anything reset at the end of a season?
- There are no seasons, so nothing is wiped on a date. That is the sharpest difference from the running games: RunStrict runs 40-day seasons and clears captured ground at the end of each one. Here, what you hold keeps counting until a rival takes it off you.
- Is it free, and are there ads?
- Free to play with no advertising of any kind. There are optional in-app purchases — BloodCoins, an in-game currency — but nothing has to be bought to play.
Read next
- Location-based gamesThe genre, and what is still active in it
- Property gamesBoard, idle and location — three kinds that play nothing alike
- Territory gamesHow claiming and holding real ground works
- GPS gamesBattery, rural coverage and how much walking is really needed
- Pokémon GO alternativesFor catching-game players wanting stakes
- Ingress alternativesTerritory without the coordination overhead
- Turf alternativesGPS capture without the monthly reset
- Atlas Earth alternativesVirtual land other people can take
- Landlord GO alternativesProperty games you have to walk to
- Orna alternativesGPS games with real-world stakes
- Geocaching alternativesWhen you want the ground to be at stake
- Walking gamesA reason to go out — without a step counter
- Mafia gamesCrime empires from the sofa vs turf you walk to
- Games that shut downMinecraft Earth, Wizards Unite and more — and what's left
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