this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
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Hello again, Lemmy!

It's been a while since I last posted here, and the reception for the post was really awesome - thank you all for that! I also created a community in Lemmy for the game: !walkscape@lemmy.world where I'm posting every development blog post.

We have a new Closed Beta wave right now, so if you'd like to try out the game, you can follow the instructions available at walkscape.app/help. The wave is running until January 7th.

Since the last post, we've now started to add some Quality of Life updates to the game and we're nearly finished with the lengthy optimization process of the game engine and servers. We're expecting to release the next update next month!

If you haven't heard about the game before, I started this project as a personal hobby project to help myself walk more. I tried most of the games available, but I wanted to have something that didn't need attention while walking and wouldn't have predatory monetization like most mobile games tend to have these days.

The game is inspired by RuneScape, and you level up skills, craft gear, find loot and so on by walking IRL. We have a short introduction video to the game where I explain and show how the game works in more detail.

Once again, thanks Lemmy for all the awesome feedback we've got and for the countless encouraging messages that you've sent us. And I'm hoping to see more of you in the game & community!

I'll answer any questions or feedback here in the comments and in our own community. Happy new year, and happy walking <3

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[–] Corigan@lemm.ee 59 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

The game is a lot of fun and good motivation for walking.

But at a point the inventory management becomes a pain to manage and annoyance to switch gear sets around.

Hope you come up with gear sets to help ease these burdens and give some qol. Bank filter would help but still would be a pain to switch sets.

Keep up the good work.

[–] schamppu@lemmy.zip 55 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Hello! Gear sets are actually coming in the very next update to the game, that feature is already pretty much finished. Most recent devblog covers this more! We held a poll about what are the most frequently asked QOL, and gear sets were #1 so we started with that.

You can check how the system works here: https://lemmy.zip/post/27883811

[–] Corigan@lemm.ee 14 points 2 weeks ago

Woot fantastic!

[–] ThePantser@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

Gear sets are in the next update. Check out the dev blog.

[–] Hello_there@fedia.io 8 points 2 weeks ago

Gear sets are coming in the next update

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 40 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What a coincidence, I'm a QA tester that was illegally fired and therefore no longer bound by my moonlighting clause. I'll have to give it a try!

[–] NewNewAccount@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You had a moonlighting clause as a QA tester? The fuck?

[–] Sunny@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] tfkgmjfy@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago

It seems that a moonlight clause is what someone has in their employment contract that tells them what they can and can’t do on their free time.

If true, the QA above could not do QA work for anyone else while in employment.

Something like that, I guess. 🤔

[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 29 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I've been playing for a few months now. I love the concept, the art and the atmosphere of it. And I feel it's been making me walk more. However, I can't seem to make any substantial progress in the game. I'm still stuck on the starting landmass (Jarvonia), and while doing activities gets me raw materials and the occasional rare item, I can't seem to do anything with them as transforming those requires skills I don't have and don't know how to obtain.

Am I missing something ? Am I just not walking enough ?

[–] schamppu@lemmy.zip 24 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Thank you so much! <3

If you feel a bit stuck, I recommend to check out https://wiki.walkscape.app/ and https://map.walkscape.app/

In order to process higher level materials, you need to level up your craftings skills: Carpentry, Crafting, Smithing. You need to start with low end materials, which you have levels for. Then you can move onto higher level recipes.

When you craft yourself some good gear, progress in the game is a lot faster and you'll find yourself progressing to further areas.

[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 11 points 2 weeks ago

Hi, much appreciated ! Thanks for the links. Hopefully it'll click soon

[–] big_slap@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

hey! I am in the beta and love this game. just wanted to let you know 🙂

[–] schamppu@lemmy.zip 17 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

That's really awesome to hear <3 Thank you so much, and there'll be a lot of more awesome stuff coming to the game next year.

[–] HollowNaught@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Hiya, walkscape user here!

Been loving the game, I'm just wondering if you could add a section to the website/game that explicitly goes over what data is collected and what it's used for?

[–] schamppu@lemmy.zip 19 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

We do have the privacy policy on there, which lists what sensitive information we collect. It's a bit vague, and we could later on edit it to be more specific, but I don't have the required skills to edit those kinda texts and we can't afford a lawyer at the moment. The sensitive information we collect are your email, username and step data, and the step data includes device information (phone model & operating system).

Non-sensitive information includes all kinds of gameplay data, like items you got and how many things you've crafted etc. which we use for game balancing and when designing new content.

[–] Senshi@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Does step data just mean the number of steps (and timestamp, I assume), or do you actually track the routes walked, which would mean gps coords/ tracks.

Cause the first is much less invasive and problematic than the latter option.

[–] schamppu@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

It's just steps and the timestamp, no location data. We don't ask for location permission, and it's not accessible through OS APIs either.

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[–] Ruben@feddit.nl 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The game doesn't access your GPS, it won't even ask the permission. It's all steps only.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 19 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

can you link to your privacy policy and/or data collection practices?

[–] schamppu@lemmy.zip 27 points 2 weeks ago

Sure: https://walkscape.app/privacy-policy.html

We're based in Finland, so we follow GDPR.

[–] sandalbucket@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I’m intrigued, but have two questions:

  1. Does running count?
  2. Can I pull in data from a fitness app / smart watch (Garmin)?
[–] schamppu@lemmy.zip 20 points 2 weeks ago

Running counts! Also treadmills or walking pads, as long as you have your phone in your pocket.

Smart watches are not supported yet, but coming. Smart watch support would already work great on iOS, but we're held up by Google with it as they introduced Health Connect for smart watch integrations and it's a buggy mess at the moment. Google Fit APIs (that would've worked nicely) are deprecated.

[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago

Hey! I almost forgot about this when I left Reddit. I was so excited to see it come to fruition some day. I'd love to beta test but I've moved to an office job since then so I probably won't be able to help much.

[–] VonVoelksen@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Is biking also implemented? Unrelated: Standard kommt nicht von Standarte ;)

[–] schamppu@lemmy.zip 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It's kinda supported - if you have your phone in your pocket you do get some steps, but it's not as efficient as walking.

I'm Finnish myself and my German skills aren't that great :D The translations for the game are made by the community, you can help correcting errors at https://translate.walkscape.app/ ~~(the tool is currently hosted on a very underspecced server so it's laggy, we'll be moving it to a beefier one soon)~~

Edit: Well this was sooner than I thought, I've moved it to another server and should be very usable now.

[–] isaaclyman@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

+1 for biking. I track my bike rides with Apple Health and it’s pretty solid, I don’t know if it would be hard to make those importable to the game.

[–] schamppu@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 weeks ago

When it comes to tracking, smart watch support is the most frequently asked addition and biking is the second. We will definitely add biking after smart watch support, as long as we find a viable way to do that. Biking relies quite heavily on GPS data which we don't want to deal with, so we would likely be using Apple Health and on Android some specific apps to pull that data from.

[–] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Loved the game when I first started, now I'm feeling stuck. I need to watch the tutorial videos!

[–] walkscape@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

Eric from the community (and a bunch of others) have been making some videos on how to get started. One I'd recommend for beginners is the Ultimate Beginners Guide video.

Also, if you feel stuck you can try https://wiki.walkscape.app and https://map.walkscape.app

Thank you so much! When we get the quest system into the game, giving some direction to the players will be much easier.

[–] danciestlobster@lemm.ee 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The game is great, eagerly looking forward to smartwatch support as someone who doesn't bring their phone on runs but otherwise having a good time with the game

[–] pachrist@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Same! Without smart watch support, it's a great game. With it, it will be incredible.

[–] moonlight@fedia.io 7 points 2 weeks ago

Looks cool, and I'll check it out on release. If you want beta testers though, make it easier to sign up. I'm not going to write an essay just to maybe get beta access.

[–] RabidRabbitch@lemm.ee 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Osrs member from before EOC. Love this game. When busy and can't invo manage or bank dump I farm ice sickles. Got 4 and want more lol.

Keep up the great work.

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[–] atro_city@fedia.io 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

How are you planning to monetize this?

[–] schamppu@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago

For the online version it'll be affordable subscription. For single player a one time purchase.

[–] Hello_there@fedia.io 4 points 2 weeks ago

The FAQ states it. Looks like some combination of subscription for multiplayer elements / ongoing events or a one time fee for Single-Player. Tho, tbd. He hasn't really asked for feedback on that so far.

[–] oo1@lemmings.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

When you say "android" does it depend on any google services? Or will it run on lineageOS with no(minimal) google stuff?

[–] schamppu@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The game requires Google Play Services for the pedometer to work (the game uses the new Recording API to count your steps while the game is closed). On GrapheneOS I've heard it works if you run it in a sandbox. You don't need a Google account for the Recording API to work, and according to the developer documentation data is stored locally.

If you can run sandboxed apps woth Google Play Services, it should work, but I've not heard from LineageOS users any experiences.

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[–] subignition@fedia.io 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Looked over your privacy policy and it seems pretty reasonable. I was curious about how location is used though - could you give me the gist of what kind of in-game features I might miss out on by denying location permissions?

[–] schamppu@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The game doesn't use location permission and doesn't ask for it, and it will never require GPS data. We have that clause because we might at some point want to do rough location estimates using IP addresses, for instance to see how many players we have from specific countries.

I suck at writing legal stuff and English isn't my native language, so I wrote the policy using different templates. We should probably remove the mention of GPS entirely as it's quite misleading.

[–] subignition@fedia.io 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Thank you for the details!

I definitely wouldn't recommend tweaking a legal document without the advice of a lawyer, especially when it's not in your native language, but hopefully the project will raise enough funds that you'll be able to hire someone to do that soon though! Fitness games are good ideas, and the art here looks real cute.

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[–] Hello_there@fedia.io 4 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

... It doesn't use location? To my knowledge. It just tracks steps. That doesn't use GPS.

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[–] sonderiaom@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I have been beta testing for a while and love this game! Definitely motivates me to walk just a little bit more to do that one more thing in the game.

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[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] Obscura@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Hey there! Absolutely love the idea for this game. I applied for the last Beta wave but didn't get through, am I able to apply again for the new wave?

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