(EDIT: Some people asked, so I created a community for the game here too with some useful links on the pinned post: [email protected])
Hello there, Lemmy! It’s been a while since I last posted here, and a lot has happened since!
First off, we’re once again inviting new players to our third closed beta wave. If you’re interested to give it a try, you can apply to the beta by following these instructions. If you feel like you want to support the development and want to gain access immediately, you can do so here.
I started this project more than two years ago as a hobby while studying Computer Science in the university. I have ADHD and finding motivation to be active is tricky, but gamification works really well for my dopamine craving brain. I first off tried the games on offer from Google Play, but they all either had horrendous monetisation (MTX, ads, or both) or were too distracting. Especially GPS games usually need you to have the game open all the time while you’re trying to enjoy being outside and they also pose privacy concerns.
So that’s when I started to think of what would do the trick for me, and combining my life long RuneScape addiction into fitness seemed like the obvious choice. And I’m happy to say that I’ve definitely been walking nearly three times as much this year compared to last year.
WalkScape in nutshell is a game where everything that happens in the game requires you to walk. So if you want to explore or travel to a location, want to chop some trees, or you want to craft stuff - everything needs steps. You set your character to do what you want, and then go for a walk. The game counts your steps even when it’s closed, and you can open it ip when you’re taking a break or back home to see your progress and maybe switch what you’re doing.
The game doesn’t use GPS, so you can walk on a treadmill. And it can track your steps when you don’t have internet connection, and only when opening the game needs you to be connected.
Here’s what we’ve added in the last three months since I last posted:
- Achievement system with almost 50 achievements. And an achievement rewards track, giving you unique items or cosmetics for your progress.
- Social features. You can add friends in the game and have your personal leaderboards with them.
- A new underwater realm (that has merfolk!) with a bunch of new locations, more than hundred new items, new crafting recipes, activities and more.
- Realm reputation system. You can become famous in any of the four fantasy realms we have now and gain rewards for doing so.
- Job boards & jobs. You can accept jobs that function as miniquests and gain rewards and reputation for completing those. These work as an item sink in preparation for player trading which is what we’re working on next.
- Privacy features. These are all opt-out, so your steps and profile are hidden from others unless you specifically want them to be visible.
- And a lot more!
As always, I’m happy to answer to any questions or feedback you may have about the game. Also from last post, I know many users here might have GrapheneOS, and the game seems to be running on it fine if you run it sandboxed.
Keep walking, and stay hydrated! ❤️
Some pictures:
Edit: small errors and had the same picture listed twice
Edit 2: I created an official community for the game here on Lemmy [email protected] after many people asked for it. For official development blogs, I still recommend to check WalkScape Portal as I can’t promise we can post them here as well. But we’ll see!
This is a an amazing concept! I created an account (same name as here). And tried to sign up for the beta, however the submit application button is not working for me. I’m using Firefox on android.
Huh, interesting. Could you send me the email you signed up with to [email protected] and at which point the beta application fails? Is it while you try to submit the fully written application, or even before that?
Emailed! It fails while trying to submit a fully written application.
Replied to you via email!
Total level 443 so far and while the core loop was already good the new content has really elevated the experience
Thank you! The feedback we’ve received about the most recent content update has been awesome to read, and I think it’s given us some great ideas on how to go forward with next content updates!
And 443 is awesome, I assume you’ve been leveling most of the skills? :D I’m still at 349 as I’ve been mostly grinding agility.
Yeah most of my skills are in the 40’s aside from fishing and foraging from lots of magnet fishing
I joined in the last beta wave because of your post here on lemmy. Big fan! Personally I’m looking forward to combat features most of all but the pace of development seems strong regardless and I’m enjoying all the new content.
Thank you! After the next update (Quality of Life) I’m moving to work on combat system. It’ll be a longer development process, so before the next update I’m also polishing our development tools so the other members of the team can create content updates with ease while I’m busy with combat. We’re aiming to avoid having lengthier periods of time without fresh stuff.
Thanks for all your work and the transparency throughout, I’m excited to keep supporting the project 😀
I’m loving it! I love how the steps for each activity is fair and that we can bank steps up to 8k so they don’t go unused!
The bank also grows based on your character level! Mine is now 22k steps, more info here: WalkScape Walkthrough - Saved Steps
Thank you so much! ❤️
Got into the beta before this one, like a week 1/2 ago, and it’s so addicting. Can’t wait for combat and other stuff but I’m having a blast in just the traveling/jobs/crafting I can do already.
I think you really got something here
Thank you so much, and awesome to hear you’ve been enjoying it! We’re moving to combat and trading after we ship the next update (Quality of Life update)!
Since there is a server with this, will there eventually have a list of other players in locations, and will there be trading/selling items in private shops? A player economy here would be awesome
List of players at a location was supposed to ship already in this update, but we didn’t have enough time for it. Trading is planned to be added before the end of the year (our second dev, myzozoz, will start working on it after Party system is completed)
Sweet, is there anyway for me to submit bugs? I walk around 15-20k steps a day but a lot of the times it’ll not register my steps, no clue why. This morning alone I’ve walked a few miles, checking fences, and I get inside to make breakfast and check the game and…no steps registered :( even though the game was on in the background. I’m guessing it’s my older phones (note10+).
Especially on some older devices, it’s best to shut down the game entirely while walking. There’s some issue if it’s on the background where steps might get lost if your internet connection changes (for instance, from wi-fi to cellular).
Bugs can be reported either on our Discord (which has a dedicated channel for step recording issues) and on Portal to the bugs category.
Walked another 2 miles and it registered all steps with the game completely closed out. Seems this is the way to go.
Also for whatever reason trying to join the discord doesn’t work from the link in the profile. It just brings up discord in mobile but then never registers the server in my list.
The Discord link is sometimes quite buggy, and I don’t know why exactly. I think our channel can now be searched for in the communities, maybe give that a shot? Or try this one: https://discord.com/invite/8F5CWpUc
Ooh, I can’t wait to play! This looks awesome!
Thank you, I hope you like it ❤️
I just signed up! This looks great!
Thank you so much, I hope you’ll enjoy it!
Brand new to Wave 3 and loving it so far. Still learning as I go, but gamifying walking is helping.
Just signed up for the beta. I also have adhd and I was overweight for the majority of my life, and then in 2018-early2020, I went from 300ish to 160ish, and I felt great. Then the pandemic hit and I could no longer go on walks and runs and then I got depressed and then injured my leg permanently and now I’m back up to 235 and I fucking hate it but I can’t seem to get the will to walk again. So this game sounds like it would be really fun.
I’ve been wanting a game like this for years!! As soon as Pokemon Go came out I thought it would be awesome to have a similar game that was offline or less Network dependent that modern AR games.
Like you level up and gain experience by walking around but you don’t have to live in a city or busy area to play. You don’t have to have the social element of say Pokemon Go or Wizards Unite to play and have fun.
The entire point is to have a game that ties the fun elements of gaming with the real world effects of exercise!
Thank you for this I’m excited to keep up with the progress 🙂Thank you so much for the write up! Glad you like it the concept, and I hope you’ll enjoy the game as well ❤️
Just got admitted to the closed beta a few weeks back and have been absolutely loving it :]
This is everything I want from a gamified step counter with none of the things I don’t want!
Looking forward to push notifications to help me remember to queue up the next activity when the last one is complete
Thank you so much for making this!
Our next update (Quality of Life) exactly aims to iron out most of the kinks remaining in the core loop. So being able to queue starting an activity after traveling, equipping saved gear presets, being able to organize bank & inventory, push notifications (that are opt-in and customizable) and cleaning UI stuff where it’s been reported confusing for some.
We’re aiming for this to ship in the next couple of months along with some content additions. Thank you so much ❤️
This sounds amazing, I’ve been playing for a couple of months & really enjoying it. Having never played RuneScape or anything like it, it’s been quite a learning curve, but it’s all very chill so you don’t feel bad if it takes a while to spot a certain feature or remember where a certain screen was in the sprawling menu system (which is fairly easy to use once you get used to it).
In the first few days/week I found I needed to interact while on walks to make the most of the short step requirements for early activities, but that soon levelled out, & the walk buffer with 2x multiplier is a really nice touch. Every few days/week I try to leave it on idle to build back the buffer, then everything feels relatively quick to progress for the next few days.
Really awesome work & look forward to the upcoming updates whenever they arrive. Big thanks to you & the team!
It would be neat if it could pull step count logs from fitness devices and watches so it didn’t even necessarily need to be running while you’re doing your walk.
I think it uses the step counter service on your phone. It does not need to be running in the background.
^ Yup, the game doesn’t need to be opened for it to count steps. You can kill the game entirely and open it when you want to, and the steps will load!
This is on our to-do!
We would’ve likely implemented it already, but Google is in the process of killing Google Fit API and replacing it with Health Connect. Health Connect, as of now, is kinda terrible. So we’re waiting for Google to fix their APIs.
I’ve tried my best as indie developer to hurry them :D Last week I was at Gamescom and managed to meet with a director from Google, and asked to connect me with Health Connect team so I can tell them what’s broken and maybe have some insight on when stuff is about to get fixed.
When it comes to Apple, there’s no problem with this. But we want to release wearable support to both platform simultaneously.
Really interested in this but would rather wait for a full release - just wanted to thank you for posting on Lemmy as well as Reddit. Everything about this project seems so sincere and I’m not used to that with new apps
I’m whole-heartedly impressed with what you are presenting here. I wish I’d seen your booth at gamescom, since I am sincerely excited by the non-predatory design philosophy you’re describing in your blog posty on your website.
I have already set up an account and written an application. Hopefully I’ll have the chance to try this out. :)
Thank you so much! We’re accepting new people throughout the wave, so until October 6th!
Edit: and I will be at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki if you’re attending, come say hi if you swing by!
Buying Gf
Free armour trimming!!
I can trim those shoes of yours if you like. 100% legit, my dad works at Jagex
