(EDIT: Some people asked, so I created a community for the game here too with some useful links on the pinned post: [email protected])

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 [email protected] 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!

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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    2 months ago

    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?

    • schamppu@lemmy.zipOP
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      2 months ago

      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.