I'm the developer of WalkScape, the RuneScape inspired fitness MMORPG where you progress by walking IRL. We're now accepting more people to the Closed Beta!

Games@lemmy.world – 19 points – 3 weeks ago

(EDIT: Some people asked, so I created a community for the game here too with some useful links on the pinned post: !walkscape@lemmy.world)

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 !walkscape@lemmy.world 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!

As a person who hates phones, I love this game. I got accepted into the beta a week or two ago and having a game that doesn't require me to touch my phone all the time is my favorite thing.

The only thing that would make it better is integration with other smart device step counters. Being able to play (more like progress I guess) a phone game while not even carrying my phone would be hilarious. I am sure you're getting hounded by people about this non-stop.

I've been in the closed beta since February and I can vouch for this game being awesome. It's been a great way to encourage me to take my dogs on walks and stay healthy. I definitely recommend checking it out.

To the dev, your game has motivated me to learn flutter/dart. I've been working with it for four months now and I'm getting close to finishing my first app, so thank you for the inspiration!

Woah, thank you so much ❤️

Awesome to hear that the game has inspired you to learn Dart & Flutter. Dart is an awesome language, and Flutter is versatile and easy tool for making some great looking UIs! But even more so, it always warms my heart to hear that the game has a positive impact on people's lives. Keep it up, and thank you again!

I got in a week or so ago and immediately started walking a ton more than usual. It was also great timing because I'm in Paris at the moment, so I'm walking so much every day and leveling up like crazy as a result.

I love this and I haven't even used it yet! 😅

A few things:

I love the idea of paying one-time to play offline, but it's not currently very possible to do in-app purchases on a ROM like GrapheneOS, which you mentioned in the post as being something users (myself included) have. Will there be a way to pay outside of the in-app purchase dialogue to get access? (i.e. donate through bmac, then link account to app temporarily to confirm) I'd definitely like more of my money to go to you, rather than a play store fee.

Additionally, will there be a direct APK download at all, or will it only be available through the Play Store? (obviously privacy-preserving frontends like the Aurora Store exist, but it's nice to have an APK download too 😊)
Thank you for making privacy the default setting, while still letting users share more if they want to. This is something I always love to see!

I'd 100% sign up for the beta right now, but since my GrapheneOS phone doesn't have the ability to use the Play Store beta features, I'll hold off on that so I don't take someone's spot :)

Thank you so much!

Depending on how the legislations now post-DMA go, it might be possible to also handle payments throughout our Portal instead of app stores. The app stores, especially Apple's, has still a bunch of rules in their ToS about this where they might remove the game entirely if you're not using their payment system. Android is slightly more lenient on this regard though.

The cuts Patreon already takes (a whopping 14% in total, after which we then play VAT) already affects us enough that I would definitely love to rather have my own systems, but also they offer a lot of convenience to the users that we couldn't at this point.

But overall it would be great if we could provide a direct payment system straight from Portal, as we could price that one also significantly cheaper than using Google's or Apple's systems when we don't need to pay their cuts. It's something I really want to do to be able to make the pricing as affordable as possible, and everything depends on if it's both feasible and allowed by the app stores. But can't promise this, as there are a lot of factors in play whether it's feasible to provide our own systems and if it's allowed by the biggest stores.

When it comes to direct APK downloads, maybe if we can get a good pipeline for those. I think the most realistic option is that we'll pick the one for an "extra release pipeline" that we can automate most easily to our current systems. Could be Aurora Store, F-Droid or some other depending on what kind of automation options they offer.

I'm not an expert on what automation options they might offer, but I know Aurora Store will essentially just pass through anything you do on the Play Store since it's just a frontend, and for F-Droid you can host a repo where you place any updated APK to automatically make it available to anyone linked to your repo.

I know alternative payment options are probably a nightmare to properly set up and integrate, so it may not be worth the increased cut of revenue you'd get, but I'm really glad you're considering it!

I look forward to trying the game when it comes out :)

So F-Droid can take a github repo as source? If that's the case, I could consider it much sooner than I originally thought

Oh yeah, I wanted to recommend an f-droid release as well, but thought you had to open your source up for that.
I hadn't thought of making your own repository where you don't have to do that \o/

I'm not an expert on the process, but anyone making a custom repo should be able to store the F-Droid repo on GitHub.

It looks like you wouldn't need to make the app open-source either, as it should be capable of just accepting an apk file. (and possibly auto update from any GitHub releases page, not sure on that though)

Again, not an expert, I haven't made an F-Droid repo yet myself, so I may have understood something wrong, but it looks relatively straightforward according to their guide

This wouldn't make it available to users through the default preinstalled repo in F-Droid (which is heavily privacy-focused and limited in scale) but it would allow any user to just click a link or scan a QR code to add your repo to their F-Droid app.

Suggestion: add other exercises. I can’t walk much because the impact is bad for my mangled knee, but biking is fine.

I'd love to buy the game if it was free software. What license does it use? I can't find one on the site so I'm assuming it's an all-rights-reserved situation.

It's not really viable to run a game studio with developers and artists who work full time to create free games. I wish it was

It’s not really viable to run a game studio with developers and artists who work full time to create free games.

I'm not asking for people to make their games free as in price, but rather free-as-in-freedom. Osu for instance is an open source game and they're thriving. So it is possible to do so.

One of the things I hated about Pokemon Go was how taxing it was on the battery. It burned through my phone's ability to hold a charge in less than a year. If your game is constantly tracking steps, I expect it's constantly running. How does it manage power draw?

I love the concept. Thanks for sharing!

Battery drain is almost nothing. The game doesn't need to be opened when you walk, and you can kill it entirely. The pedometer is anyways running on most phones regardless if you have WalkScape installed or not, so this doesn't add battery consumption in that sense either.

For me when I just checked, it's used less than 0.3% today which is less than most other apps I have installed. I've tried my best to keep this as low as possible, and we'll probably be optimizing this even further in the future if necessary.

Just checked ok my android (stock android running on an old One Plus Nord) and it's about 25th on the batter usage list and only used 0.34% of batter, which is less then the app i only need to sign in to my work accounts a few times a day. So atleast in my use it's so tiny i never even noticed it.

I never played RuneScape, but I did just delete Pikmin Bloom. What if players cheat their steps? How will you detect the difference between that, and a Pacific Crest Trail thruhiker who legitimately walks 60,000 steps day after day, and over 1,000,000 steps per month?

Anyway your game sounds cool. I had an idea for a one player game while I was hiking the PCT - kinda like the Oregon trail, or dope wars, but it would be a simulation of the Pacific Crest Trail and the steps would be 1:1. So you’d have to walk 7 million steps to beat the game, and obviously make decisions along the way about food and water, weather, resting, hitchhiking, etc. But there will be long stretches of the game where you just look at a new vista, or look at the location, eat food, camp.

Anyway the reason I’m commenting is I wanted to tell you why I quit playing a walking game. I quit after a backpacking trip of 7 days with no service. When I came back, the game had nothing to do for my ~150,000 steps. No confetti or prizes. If I was actually playing it for any achievements it would be a setback to be offline for 7 days.

So yeah, if you have any players of your game who do serious miles in one day, or one week, or whatever, you should pile on the rewards. Because at the end of the day that’s all I want out of a game like that. An automated micro-recognition that I kicked ass. So I can relax my tired legs and use all my hard earned digital loot.

We already have an anti-cheat in the game and it's being developed further, although not exactly a priority at this point of Closed Beta. But it's shown great promise of detecting cheating. In can't disclose how it's working, as that would make circumventing it easier.

There are already a bunch of activities in game that have been designed for people who hike and gain a lot of steps during it and don't have service. Also, the offline game mode will not require service at all, so it's possible to manage it even while hiking. In addition to the current activities, we also have special "Adventures" planned that can take tens of thousands of steps without needing to open the game.

Combat system also will pretty much work as "piling up the rewards" in addition to the core gameplay. You gain combat points for each step you take, and there will be a large cap to those. Then you can play the combat system and spend those points and gain a ton of combat progress fast if you've got a lot of points saved up.

Thank you for the feedback!

In the OP is stated that you need a connection when you open the game.

But here you say there's an offline game mode.

Is an internet connection required?

Offline mode will launch when we go to open beta. During Closed Beta, there's only the online mode (as that's what needs the most testing).

Last time I applied, it took like 6 months for my beta app to be accepted. That's fine but I had ran a marathon like the week before, and did all my marathon training during that time. Was big sad. Anyways best of luck with the next round!

We've been accepting thousands of applications each wave, so it sounds like you've been terribly unlucky if it took you that long. Sorry to hear that. We're also accepting applications during this wave all the way until October 6th, so nee applicants have a good chance on getting accepted!

Hi! Sorry if this has been answered, but this uses the phone's built-in pedometer, right? So, if you're running you'd get more steps/hr (without triggering anti-cheat)? Thanks! Looking forward to trying it!

Yes, indeed! Currently supporting only phone's built-im pedometer, and wearable support is coming when Google fixes Health Connect.

Running is fine, and you indeed get better steps/hr due to the increased cadence.

The game looks great! I really like that you don't rely on GPS, because of privacy.

Thank you! Privacy is definitely the biggest concern, but also GPS requires apps to be opened to register anything, and it kills the battery quite quickly (and requires active internet connection).

Does GPS really require an internet connection? I know it uses the radio, which kills the battery, but AFAIK you can get GPS without Internet access. For example, I've downloaded offline areas for Google Maps and have tracked my location that way, while traveling in countries where I didn't have a SIM allowing me to access the Internet.

Not necessarily, but in order to use map data, you'll pretty much need it. This is why all of the GPS games require a connection, as they'll download map data and cache your current surrounding areas

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.

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.

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!

I haven't gotten into the Beta, so I haven't played it, but I'm curious, is the game designed so you can't do anything without walking, or is it so that you can creep along at a snail's pace without walking but to actually make real progress you have to walk?

It seems to me like you could use the psychology of a Pay To Win / Microtransactions game to motivate people but by using walking instead of money.

There's no progress without walking, all of the progress is tied to steps.

I dont have Google play store. Can I still join?

As far as I know, it's possible somehow. We currently don't have enough resources to manage additional release pipelines, so it's definitely tricky at the moment.

I understand. I mean, i can get the apk but if it requires Google Account for activation then it wont work on degoogled phones.

Recording API is local only and doesn't require a Google account

Thanks! So I pay a tier and gett aceess? 😁

For immediate access that's the way, or you can also apply for the closed beta for free

I've been using it for the last few weeks, applied at the last post and just got in. Right now there is basically nothing to do in the app. I've heard there are plans for combat that you can do in the app. But I'd love the option to plan your next things. Like a to-do list. There are jobs and I'd like to go and cut 214 Birch trees. Not more, not less. Currently I'm sitting at 17 stacks of birch logs (each 25) since I was walking for a long time without time for the app. I didn't need as many and it seems like my steps were wasted. I'm still super low level but there are items that are worth 0 copper, others are worth 1 copper and processing 2 of them (costing steps) results in an item worth 2 copper (wasted steps). However to get to another area I need 4.5k so that seems somehow punishing. Regardless of those nitpicks it is really nice, got me moving way more than I would have (started walking while on calls during work) it's definitely an incentive but I'd really like to plan my steps ahead. "Go here, gather x amount of an item, process said item or collect another..." You probably understand where I'm going otherwise shoot me a PM I love the game, recommend signing up and once I've seen a little more than walking cutting trees and then planks I would consider a one time purchase. (Or maybe a stylish shirt or cool tattoo only available through mtx. Once p2w is in I'm out

There will be no MTX or P2W!

And there are quite a lot of things to do in the game already. I recommend to explore the starting area, and there's nothing stopping you from planning things you want to do. If you're feeling a little bit lost (which I totally get, the game is still lacking a proper tutorial and starting quests) I recommend to check the wiki. There are guides there also how to make money. The NPCs don't pay pretty much anything for early game unprocessed materials, but there are several ways of gaining coins. You can also get past the Fort of Permafrost by going under water and skipping paying for the toll entirely, for which you'll need to find Diving Gear.

Thanks for the feedback! ❤️

Have you thought about putting in a scheduling system? Like being able to queue up a bunch of stuff to do? Then the game telling you the # of steps required and then you can go on about your day?

Yes! A limited queue system and notifications are both planned to be added in the next update.

Mildly interested. Concerned about monetization. I don't do subscriptions or microtransactions, and "pay once and you're good" is pretty rare, probably in part because there's ongoing costs to running a server and in part because lol most people will charge as much as possible. But that's why the only MMO I play is guild wars 2. You buy the game and you're good. They sell expansions every couple of years.

Also you should mention lemmy on your site where you mention discord and reddit.

We don't have an official community here (at least, not yet). And I'm quite hesitant to add one, as we already have our hands full with Discord, Reddit and WalkScape Portal communities.

When it comes to monetisation, the model we've planned is what seems both the fairest and most sustainable when compared to any other alternative, which is why I chose it as our plan. You can either buy it once to gain access to the offline "ironman" mode, or pay an affordable monthly subscription to play the online mode - both of which will be free to try out, so you'll know if it's worth your money before paying anything.

Going with single purchases only isn't as sustainable for an online game. It's much harder to keep it supported and expanding it long-term (and pay for servers) if we're relying on single purchases, and it would tie us into needing to plan expansions that bring extra revenue to keep things running. By having an affordible subscription, we can keep content coming rapidly without needing to consider what kind of expansion pack and price tag do we need to put these new features behind, which I feel is much better from both game design and player perspective.

Microtransactions and ads are something I've clearly stated we'll never be doing, as those also compromise game design and are predatory or come with privacy concerns.

You can either buy it once to gain access to the offline “ironman” mod

This sounds relevant to my interests. What updates come with this? Just security? Nothing?

We're planning that it'll receive the same updates as the main game itself and all of the features (that work offline). Expansions to the game world might come at a small price so you can enter those, but other than those my current plan isn't to restrict features, new skills or content additions to existing regions in any way in the offline version.

Also, offline version will include cloud saving so there's no risk of losing your progress if the device is lost. It'll cloud save when it has connection periodically while mostly keeping everything on a local save.

Will this forever (or for the foreseeable future) be Android-only?

It's available even now during Closed Beta for iOS as well!

Can you really only get this through a google group and google play -_- ? Please allow another ways of downloading this, like an APK download.

EDIT: Sadly the game relies on google play services it seems, so I won't be able to play the game probably. Good luck with the development o/

Managing two release pipelines is already a lot, and we currently don't really have the time for supporting yet another one when 99.9% of users are fine with AppStore and Google Play. It's something I'll probably figure out at some point when we have enough time for that though!

And yeah, only relies on Google's Recording API which is part of the services. It's really annoying that they made (just recently) the pedometer APIs part of Google Services, but I can't really change that either.

Is microg an option?

Does it support the new API they are uaing ?

"Service Core (GmsCore) is a library app, providing the functionality required to run apps that use Google Play Services or Google Maps Android API (v2)."

https://microg.org/

The dev said it needs this "com.google.android.gms:play-services-fitness" part of the services to work, I'm trying to find a table of the things MicroG supports but I'm having a hard time x)

E: oh found it

E2: sadly not supported :(

I signed up, happy to try it out and give feedback. No idea what my average number of steps is because I don't super care about that, but I'd expect it to go way up if I suddenly did care (through a gamified app).

I'm actually dumb and my Garmin tracks my steps, so I DO know exactly how many I take (27,689 weekly). Damn I need to use my treadmill desk more consistently. That's low.

I saw in other comments wearables don't work. That's kind of a bummer. I like to leave my phone charging on my desk and let the watch track.

Doesn't work as of now, but this feature is something we're well aware a lot of people need, and high in our priority. We're just waiting for Google to get their tech together so we can start supporting it.

Have you looked at direct integration with Garmin Connect? My guess is they and probably Fitbit have the huge majority of the market.

Yup, I have! From development standpoint, building integrations with each of the manufacturer is not really an option for us right now, a it's both a lot of work and we can't afford to buy the devices to test it out.

Ah, gotcha. Well, best of luck. I'll let you know what I think when my beta invite comes in. Still waiting.