Agreeing with the cheating issue.

What I would recommend would be to make the RPG aspect as normal, make that a good game in and of itself, then have the fitness part give you bonus items.

I know with pokemon I used to have the yellow Pikachu pokewalker thing that gathered points from walking or playing a simple card game on the device. I'd rack up points (usually through the card game) then spend the points on Pokemon Gold to get special berries and items.

So I'd suggest that the fitness part of the game just be used to gather up some resource (maybe 'mana' or 'fighting spirit' or just 'fitness points') and then when you've gathered up enough of that you can spend them to give you hero temporary bonuses or consumable items. Like some sort of sacred fruit... magical fruits that are normally rare in-game but you can reliably get by using the fitness program. Said fruit should just provide temporary bonuses like increased strength, increased critical hits, health, revive allies, or maybe an increase in experience gain for a while.

Or maybe something like divine intervention? Just recently looked at how Nethack had its prayer system that let you call on your god to do things like restore your health or grant temporary invincibility or give you artifacts. Maybe the fitness program can help you boost your reputation with said deity even when not playing the game.

Basically, you play the game normally and through actions can gather some sort of reputation or morality resource that you can expend (either with gods intervening or civilians recognizing your deeds and helping you our or something) but you can gather it while not playing the game through the fitness program. So you can either gather it by say slaying a bunch of undead or saving people... or by using the pedometer feature while you're jogging (or driving a car or setting it on the washing machine).


Basically, I'd suggest making the RPG aspect great on its own, then have the fitness feature on the side and just allow you give bonuses to the player while they play the main game. Then see how it gets received and take the new info into account if you ever want to make a sequel to it.

It's an interesting prospect but you've got two different audiences here:

Those looking for a fun way to workout.

Those looking for a deep story to get into.

Those two groups wouldn't overlap much in my opinion, your marketing/game is going to have to heavily lean to one side. An rpg with fitness elements or a fitness game with rpg elements?