Torch has you run a virtual race against someone else who is more or less the same level runner as you are. The races are 25 minutes (at least on the first 4 levels) and have you run on low, medium or high effort for varying lengths of time. During the race, there is frequent information over the headset (or speaker) on how your score is against your opponent’s, who leads and by how much. The races finish with a 1-2 minute dash after which you learn if you won. Even if you don’t win that race, the score you gathered is added to your total and once you gathered enough points and enough wins, you level up.
I don’t know if the opponents are real or not and honestly, I don’t care. I enjoy these races, that Heidi who was leading to the very end suddenly fell behind in the last two minutes, or (sigh) when Frank took the well earned win after leading for most of our race. Good game, Frank.
It’s fun.
Also, for many years I was running with the same speed. You could set you clock to me: each kilometer in 7:30. I wanted to break out of that and with Torch, I run 6:30kms (of course I’m pretty tired afterwards. I hope over time it gets better).
The support team is responsive (I sent them a few observations and the reply came within two days).
The definition of low, medium and high effort is somewhat vague. You are being told that during medium effort you can carry a conversation with gasping for air, while on high effort you can’t even talk, and that’s it. It’s a good guidance at least and for more accuracy there are watches that measure your pulse for example.
The in-game music is pretty basic, but it can be turned off to listen to your own.
The after-race results aren’t very detailed (I use my watch and its app for these instead).