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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!

https://i.postimg.cc/8z3xhHxZ/barber-GIF.gif

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:

https://i.postimg.cc/Ls28Mm8d/big-gif-square.gif

https://i.postimg.cc/R0LQMC1w/Screenshot-20240821-102724-Walk-Scape-Development.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/HnVQ4Qqt/Screenshot-20240821-102742-Walk-Scape-Development.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/MTZ0XktN/Screenshot-20240821-102756-Walk-Scape-Development.jpg

Edit: small errors and had the same picture listed twice

Itsyaboiwhatevs ,

Been using this since the start of the year i think and it’s been really fun! Just the right amount of activity needed, for me atleast! Thanks a lot for the awesome game, and i can’t wait for more updates!

mox ,

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!

Minnels ,

Been playing this for a couple of months and I can say that the battery drain is next to nothing in my experience. No need to keep the app open to track steps.

MrScottyTay ,

It gets the step count from the device itself so it does not need to be running at all times to track it. I think it just keeps track of what the number was the last time you opened it and what the number is the next time you open it and it awards you the difference.

mox ,

If the accelerometer is running, it’s drawing power, but perhaps that can be done efficiently on some devices.

Itsyaboiwhatevs ,

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.

Zoldyck ,

Very cool. Will use this when initial release is available on android!

chiliedogg ,

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.

MrScottyTay ,

I think it uses the step counter service on your phone. It does not need to be running in the background.

VelvetStorm ,

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.

Minnels ,

I love this game. Made the walks with my kid more fun and longer. The fact that I only have to check the game once or twice a day depending on what I am doing is perfect.

PugJesus ,

Gamification of fitness and the like is such a cool concept, I love seeing it in action.

jjjalljs ,

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.

Ruben ,

There will probably be an offline/ironman game mode that is a one time purchase

moon ,

Really dig it. Too bad I don’t have the time to actually walk around and play this lol, otherwise it looks really fun.

flames5123 ,

This is really cool! I just applied. I live in a moderate sized city, so I do walk a bit. I hope to help you out on the iOS side of things since lemmy is very android heavy.

I really think this will motivate me to walk more, as I really only walk to work and the store when necessary.

Right before I left my last job, we were looking at using Flutter to dual deploy our app so I’m excited to see it in use by an indie dev!

SuzyQ ,

Brand new to Wave 3 and loving it so far. Still learning as I go, but gamifying walking is helping.

Romkslrqusz ,

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!

schamppu OP ,

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 ❤️

PixelTron ,

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!

brbposting ,

RS fitness 💪

Wonder if there’s a way to optimize the original video so that it shows it higher resolution without much of a larger file size? Screen recording here

gramie ,

I’ve been using this for about 3 months. I would estimate that my dog walks are now about twice as long as they used to be. I don’t really enjoy walking, but this gives me just enough incentive to do it everyday and, if I feel like taking a shortcut, taking the long way instead.

jodanlime ,
@jodanlime@midwest.social avatar

I signed up after seeing your last post. I made it into the last wave of invites and have been playing since last week. This game is really cool and I don’t think there is anything else like it.

schamppu OP ,

Thank you so much!

I think why this game is so unique is that it’s origins are a hobby project and come from my sentiment of creating a fitness game that fixes what the others fail at. Rarely anyone makes indie games for mobile, and I’ve been called a bunch of names for attempting making an indie game to the mobile platform by other devs. But so far things are looking great, and I’m hoping that the mobile game industry would have more indie games.

Maybe with DMA we could start seeing more, as the biggest hurdle are the app stores and how they’re made to only favour games with big budgets.

jodanlime ,
@jodanlime@midwest.social avatar

I agree with everything you said, only that I’m not quite sure what DMA is.

I want more indie games on my phone because the major mobile app developers are beyond trash at this point. I love indie devs, I love FOSS and indie games. I prefer programming that lends itself to democratizing the web and my devices.

Your game is a breath of freedom right now in the mobile marketplace. I made it in on the free invite system, but the fact that you are on the fediverse talking to me, coupled with the fact that your game and end goal seam awesome, I’m going to figure out how to become a donating member as soon as I get home.

I’m out on a night walk right now with my walkscape app open, while typing this reply. Amazing times.

schamppu OP ,

Thank you so much! And I’m a huge fan of both indie & FOSS too.

DMA (Digital Markets Act) is a new EU legislation that came into effect just few months ago. It forced both Apple and Google to allow third party app stores and change their ToS (I think in EU only). Apple even had to lower their “developer tax” when it comes to payments from 30% to just 12% in EU. It’s good progress, especially if we start seeing competing app stores (I think Epic had plans for that). But even if the app stores open up for smaller studios, there’s still a lot of convincing needed until gamers start considering that mobile games can be good too, and not only match-3 gacha crap. And the big studios never want to innovate, they’ll keep making games that they think are safe bets to generate maximum profits.

Maybe Valve could now expand to having a mobile game store? :D

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