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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

obinice ,
@obinice@lemmy.world avatar

Put in my application for the beta last night, and grabbed Walker Patreon today :-)

I really love the vibes of this project, as someone who loves walking and needs to walk more, and someone who struggles with ADHD, and I’ve always loved RuneScape, this project calls to me haha.

I feel like my character was getting more exercise than me back then, I remember I used to spend a lot of time at the guild coal mine (with those bats), so much time that this is seared into my memory…

Welcome to RuneScape.

You swing your pick at the rock.

drphungky ,

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).

Marighost ,
@Marighost@lemm.ee avatar

I’ve been playing since the last round of beta invites, and I love it. Everything’s pretty intuitive so far, and I find myself moving around more to give me those steps. Can’t wait to see what comes next!!

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

schamppu OP ,

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.

cows_are_underrated ,

I really like the thoughts put into the game. However, I personally think, that micro transactions aren’t necessarily a bad thing, if you do them right. As an example for this I would call Helldiver’s. You can pay to get faster progress, but it isn’t necessary by any means. You can unlock everything with a reasonable amount of grinding.

schamppu OP ,

But this game is tied to fitness and also has competitive elements to it. Imagine you can buy yourself faster progress here, when it’s all tied to physical activity. It would completely ruin the game and any competitive aspects in it, and devalue the feeling of achieving things in it, if players with bigger wallets gain advantage. When there’s only an affordable subscription, there’s a ceiling to spending and no one can gain unfair advantage by paying more than others.

Microtransactions overall pretty much always compromise game design. Games usually make the grind or progress much slower than what would be actually good to drive the purchases of MTX.

I’m also personally very against MTX and ads, I think they’re the worst invention in gaming and I hate when game design is now revolving around what kind of mechanics can make people open their wallets as often as possible instead of what’s fun and cool.

watersnipje ,

I’m really glad to have found a fitness app made by someone with the exact same opinion as me on app monetization. I’ve been using the app since March and will happily pay for the subscription. I’m really happy to see this openness, and the fact that you still repeat this promise.

SupraMario ,

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

schamppu OP ,

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)!

SupraMario ,

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

Vlyn ,

I tried it out a while ago and didn’t mesh with it at all. Like the options I had was gather things, minor crafting and traveling. But zero goals or combat (as far as I could tell at the beginning). So after going around, gathering and crafting a bit I got bored and gave up.

Hell, I even traveled around to just find if there are any encounters or places with more happening and I didn’t find anything.

So it felt meaningless to grind with nothing to grind for.

schamppu OP ,

Combat is coming, and so are quests, which will give more direction and goals for new players.

There are a lot of goals already available inside the game, but because it’s very open ended at the beginning, it might seen like there aren’t anything to grind for. It’s one of the games where players usually make their own goals, and then try to achieve those.

First goals usually could be to unlock the other two realms in the game, complete enough achievements to unlock the first guild in the game (Adventurers’ Guild), get some good starting tools to become more efficient at it, and so forth.

If you’re more combat focused usually in games, I recommend to wait until that’s added, as it sounds like that might be the main thing you’re missing!

Vlyn ,

Ah yeah, I’m not a big mobile game fan and heavily play PC games. I just missed the draw of it, but had wrong expectations probably. In my head it was more of a sandbox combat game with gathering/crafting, so I kept trying to get to the actual game part :)

While I’m not motivated at all by just achievements or grinding for grinding sake (incremental games are a slight exception there, but progress is much faster / you do have some goals dangled in front of your face). You’re probably aiming more for a classic fitness tracker, but instead of step counts, graphs and so on you present it in game form. Which is valid, but just not what I was after.

As it gets brought up in this thread: When it came out I actually liked Pokemon GO, because the gameplay was interesting. Originally it only showed Pokemon near you and how far they are away (with 1, 2 or 3 foot steps). Which meant you wandered around and actually met people back in the city, grouped up to search or they knew where it was. That all got dumbed down until everyone was just sitting at the same spot and farming unfortunately :-/

schamppu OP ,

Combat in the game is going to require active play, and it’s meant to be played at home. It’s a turn based combat system with its own progression systems, but you’ll need to walk in order to gain combat points, which work as an energy to engage in the combat. So it’s not possible to endlessly grind it without going for a walk, but something you’ll be able to do when you’ve got the time for it. There are a few interviews on Youtube where I’m explaining it if you’re interested to hear more about it.

Also there’s already a ton of depth on the game, so I’m not sure how far you got in there if you think it only represents your steps in a different way than graphs. I recommend to check wiki to get a good idea!

LifeOfChance ,

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!

schamppu OP ,

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! ❤️

LyingCake ,

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. :)

schamppu OP ,

Thank you so much! We’re accepting new people throughout the wave, so until October 6th!

Zoldyck ,

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

schamppu OP ,

Open beta release is planned for next year

Zoldyck ,

Awesome. Do you have social media to keep people updated?

schamppu OP ,

We have a newsletter available on the website, and also Reddit, X/Twitter, Discord and WalkScape Portal (which is our own “Reddit alternative” for the game).

magikmw ,

I tried to sign up a while ago and had some issues, like link not arriving or something. Shame because I like the idea. Will try again I suppose.

schamppu OP ,

If you have problems with signing up, please send email to [email protected] and I can help you out. Tell me the email you signed up with and I can help!

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!

schamppu OP ,

Thank you! And Flutter especially when it comes to game development is still in its infancy, but hopefully more devs would pick it up. It’s great for interface-heavy games, and with Flame and upcoming Flutter-GPU also viable for more art-heavy games.

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

schamppu OP ,

It’s a .gif, and seems like it got resized when si had to upload it. Maybe this would work better?

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.

schamppu OP ,

Thank you! And awesome to hear it, your dogs must be enjoying it as well! ❤️

PugJesus ,

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

schamppu OP ,

Thank you so much!

ngwoo ,

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

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