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 ❤️
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Hey, this looks really interesting! I am looking forward to trying it. I just bought you a coffee and connected BMAC to my account. Do I also need to apply to the beta to get access?
Edit: I just got the mail for the beta access without additionally applying for it.
You’ll need to sign in with your Google account that you use on Google Play and then press join group. This requirement is Google’s one for how they organize closed betas through Google Play. After that you’ll be able to see WalkScape in Google Play via the link provided in download instructions.
I just did that, but it still does not let me join and says the same.
Edit: Now the button to join the group suddenly shows up after trying several times.
Yeah Google Groups is a bit janky, sadly I can’t do anything about that.
When you say “apply to the closed beta”, where do you want people to apply?
- Sign up to the Portal https://portal.walkscape.app
- Click your profile pic to get to account page
- Press apply to beta
Wow, this is awesome! Definitely going to consider supporting this, looks like a lot of fun for just moving around.
As a long time RuneScape player, this is exactly the kind of stuff I want to see more of.
Are you in contact with Jagex at all? They have a history of actually supporting “community projects”, best possible analogy to this being Melvor Idle, which is officially recognised and published by Jagex. And they’re also known for supporting mental and physical health causes. Seems like the perfect game to form some kind of partnership on.
Thank you so much! I’ve been in contact with Jagex. They’ve give us their legal blessings for our trademark and also license to use their trademark as part of our marketing. But nothing more than that.
We’re now working to fix a lot of the issues that were brought up by the awesome testers we got, and then again expanding the game with more features, content and online stuff. I think as a RS enthusiast, you would probably enjoy a lot of the stuff we have in our roadmap :D
Having carried over an account from the original RS2 back in the day all the way over to modern RS3, getting multiple 99’s, and now currently exploring all that OSRS has to offer, I bet I’m one of those crazy enough to grind out all the things in real life too.
I still consider properly implemented progression systems (where you’re always working towards the next thing) one of the more enjoyable and rewarding game mechanics. And I find there are too few games out there that actually implement them correctly. Most prominent examples I can think of are RuneScape and Terraria. There is just something about progressing through the tiers and experiencing all the different shinies that come with them.
But you probably know this, otherwise you wouldn’t be working on this app. :P
Signed up and already find myself adding extra ways to my day to get steps, the gamification works!
Is there a Lemmy community to discuss this with other scapers?
Not yet, we have a fairly active one over Reddit. I’ll need to consider opening one here as well!
This is a neat idea. I never exercised more than when I played Pokemon Go.
Definitely trying this one out. I’ve been a daily POGO player since launch because it gets me outside walking around. I liked how Pikmin Bloom had the passive pedometer angle, but it also had to constantly check GPS, so it was a battery hog.
I’d definitely benefit from Google Fit integration since I like to use the elliptical while wearing my watch. But I’d still get plenty of distance with just pedometer. Least of which because I’ll already be playing POGO.
I’ve been consistently hiking for a couple months now and I don’t always enjoy it. I’ll try this out and see if I can change my perspective! Thanks!
Sold 👀
Joined the closed beta yesterday and the game seems very nice,however I’m not sure how the step counter works. In Statistics,at least , they are way off,by thousands of steps.
Edit: typo
@hornedfiend @schamppu I think the game is set to medium sensitivity, or Low. There are some fitness apps with a sensitivity setting, and if you place it high, it is more accurate. The problem arises if you’re just moving your phone, since it’s high sensitivity, it counts those as steps. So, most apps have it at medium or Low. That’s my guest at least.
Wonder if it would be good to add a “actively walking” mode that’s in a convenient place and just turns up the sensitivity for a while
@trashgirlfriend Ooh. I like that! It could be a widget too for easy access.
@trashgirlfriend I remembered, #Walkr, a space gamification fitness app, have an option to “boost” steps when you’re about to go on a long walk/run/jumping rope session. You can use it once every 24 hours only (and only lasts for 2 hours IIRC).
I think, now that you suggested it, that was maybe their solution to keeping the sensitivity fixed for their game, but giving users a chance to earn more if they’re about to engage in a long session.
🤔
This looks really cool!
I applied for the beta today and got accepted straight away. I love the look of this game and will be using it to get me to walk out more.
First impressions are good, the game is very polished and you can see that the creators really take their time with things, the level of detail is insane.
The game seems easy to pick up and I am looking forward to following it’s development closely.
Thank you so much, this comment made me smile <3! I’ve been accepting more people today, and I’m very glad to hear you’re enjoying it.
I’m the type of game dev who tends to be very perfectionist even on small things, and also this project started off as a passion hobby project, which hopefully shows! We’ve poured a lot of love and care to the game. Because of the high level polish I’ve seen that many people already tend to look at it as a “final product”, even though we’ve only been able to implement the core gameplay loop.
This is looking really cool! I’m really interested in trying it out.
Since you mentioned Garmin Connect in this thread, I would like to throw in my five cents too. I’m in the Garmin ecosystem for my fitness tracking devices, so it would be amazing if the game could get my step counts from Garmin Connect, since that’s where I’m collecting them anyway, and lugging my phone around to do the step counting can be a bit cumbersome. But if the game is fun enough, I guess it’s not a dealbreaker for the time being!
Depending on how easy Garmin Connect is to implement, it’s probably eventually going to be supported. I know we have a lot of people in the community with Garmins, but Google Fit integration should also when added already allow Garmins to be used for progress in game. But of course, using Gamin Connect would be handier.
Another +1 for Garmin connect!
I’ve got a whole family of Garmins (plus one apple) looking for a walking game and this seems right up our alley. +1 for Garmin Connect integration!
This is neat. I don’t know if I’d stick with it enough to justify paying, but I like the idea. Also big fan of one time purchase options instead of a subscription
Offline mode of the game will be offered as one time payment, whereas the online mode costs an affordable subscription. Both will include F2P where you can try out the game for free to see if it’s worth your money before making the decision.
If you’re thinking of supporting, Buy me a Coffee offers one time purchase to get access immediately.
The reason we have subscription planned for the online mode is that we don’t do ads or MTX. But running an online game comes with a hefty price tag, which we couldn’t support with single purchases only. Affordable subscription at least to me personally is much better option than ads/MTX.
Hello, I’m trying to submit my application on Android (Firefox browser) and the button doesn’t seem to do anything when I click it. Hopefully I didn’t just submit a bunch of apps at once. Any idea what I can do to get past this?
First time hearing this. Maybe your application is missing something? Could it be the 200 character limit to the text?
I cut my message down and it still won’t work. Btw there was no indication of any character limit or why it won’t go through. Here is the application I’m trying to submit:
Edit: nevermind, I figured it out. It was the dash in my step number.
Glad it worked! ❤️
