Hello!
First off, I've struggled to exercise, and I also have ADHD. Gamifying exercise works really well for my dopamine-craving brain, but I'm also easily distracted, so the current mobile fitness games on the market didn't really work for me. That's how I came up with this idea.
Here are some info about the game and how it's different from Pokemon Go for example:
- no distractions. I love games that value my time. WalkScape is designed so that it encourages you not to open it while you're walking, but afterwards. And even if you open it while walking, changing things in the game is super quick.
- no GPS. So you can walk where ever you want. The game tracks your steps even without an internet connection, but you need a connection when you open the game.
- no ads, no MTX. I hate predatory monetisation practises, and they encourage unhealthy spending habits. This game is about both mental and physical health.
In the game, you explore and work in different skills such as woodcutting, foraging, fishing and crafting by walking in real life. The game uses your phone's pedometer to track your progress. It's also online, so you can work with your friends towards common goals without needing to be physically in the same location.
The game has dozens of locations, hundreds of items, NPCs, shops and more is coming as I work towards the full release of the game. There's a lot of different unique and cute activities in the game you can set your character to do in addition to the typical woodcutting and mining, like volunteering in soup kitchen or helping locals repairing their boats. All fueled by walking IRL.
If you feel like you'd like to try it out, you can either apply to the closed beta (we're inviting more people right now) or if you like to support the development, you get instant to access through Patreon or Buy me a Coffee to start playing. The game is completely community funded.
Whether you decide to support or apply to the closed beta, you'll need to sign up at WalkScape Portal to the game and then apply or connect your Patreon on the account page.
You can also check our this video to hear me and the artist explain more about the game: Youtube introduction video
Or you can visit the website.
We also have my devblogs released every two weeks available at https://portal.walkscape.app/development
It's been a wild journey for me growing this thing from my personal hobby project, and awesome to see the game helping so many people to exercise more. I'll answer any questions you might have in the comments!
Stay hydrated, and keep walking ❤️
Since this is an MMORPG, how so you prevent cheating? Since this works offline, what prevents someone from faking the steps count and reporting to the game that they totally made 50000 steps while the phone was offline for 24 hours?
Looks amazing! But this was my main worry here.
We're developing an anti-cheat, and have quite good plan how to deal with it. Obviously every MMO always has cheaters, but the great thing about WalkScape is that there's just one input to the game (your steps) which makes monitoring a lot easier.
We're already tracking the steps server side and getting some data to implement a version of the anti-cheat during closed beta, and then testing it out in our separate server with people who want to try cheating in order to perfect it before we go open beta. It's something we're committed to improve, and I'll do the best coding wizardry that I can.
My bottom line is that we probably can never catch every cheater, but as long as we can catch those who would ruin the economy or competition, it's not going to ruin the game for others. And I'll of course aim higher than that, but trying to stay realistic as this is an indie game and I don't have the resources to hire 20 people to work on anti-cheat.
Sounds good! Thanks for the answer
What do you mean you're tracking the steps server side? I thought they came from the phone's pedometer
Yeah, we need to know that when you finally add HCIM mode and someone reaches 200m with all skills -4,600,000,000 steps- it was entirely legit.
Haha, agreed! Replied to the OP with more details, we have this planned out and will do the best we can.