Combat and Farming are both things that are planned to address having something to do while taking a break from walking but both will be fuelled by your steps! They'll be the type of thing where you spend your steps but don't actively walk while doing them.

Dungeons are also something we've been throwing around as an idea for the future, but that's still quite far off.

Thank you so much for the comment!

Directly from our FAQ:

Offline mode - One time purchase. You’ll be able to pay once to download the offline mode of the game. You’ll receive future content updates, not have a requirement to be online to open the game, and have a slider that multiplies your steps to reach the game experience that you wish. No multiplayer features.

Online mode - affordable monthly subscription. You’ll need to be online to play the game, but you’ll receive future content updates and all multiplayer features that the game has to offer.

Free to play area - both forms of the game will have a free to play area that can be enjoyed for free.

Thanks! Sounds reasonable.

Awesome, thanks

I appreciate your response and I know I am but one of many opinions out there and you have your own priorities in how the game is designed and paced!

I certainly enjoyed it and I love the art, just sharing one anecdote on how it can get burned out.

Me personally, I don't mind RNG as a concept, and I like your approach of having the coins as a backstop for really bad luck, I just think there should 1) be something to do while grinding, and 2) be a sincere assessment (and hopefully rebalance) of how long is practical to grind for top-tier items. Years of grinding on average per item feels like... A bit much.

Another popular way to balance the RNG is to have RNG stats for the items, that way you can have legendary items be more common, but perfect legendary items still take time. IIRC I was going for the candle hat partially for its stats and partially because there was a perk or location unlock for having multiple light sources equipped. I could satisfy the latter with a lesser-tier hat.

Looking forward to seeing how things develop, maybe I'll pick it up again soon, especially now that the weather is cooler again and I can use my walking desk while I work without getting cooked.

Haha, yeah when I saw the raw footage I was like, “Man, you really didn’t pull any punches! 😅”
He’s so passionate about the game but he also has no filter, lol.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, the only thing I needed was synchronizing with watch for when I exercise without my phone. Reading the above, looks like that is fixed now?

That looks neat! I just subscribed on Patreon. Thanks for sharing on the threadiverse! ✨

Didn’t read your wall of text but I immediatly thought “why normal ass boots give me merfolk dancing?” Maybe the joke was in the flavor text or whatever but come on. Maybe art be a boot on a fishing line? Or like, flippers?

Again first thought not looking at anything else but like… come on.

Linking patreon to walkscape account seems to be broken on mobile firefox.

Yes, indeed smart watches work! We have the list of supported smart watches here: https://wiki.walkscape.app/wiki/System_Requirements

The shoes are the symbol of Agility skill which that activity is categorized as :D but it's a fun idea to switch them to something else while you're in an underwater world.

Their explanation comment above makes a lot of sense though.

Thank you! Indeed the combat & farming systems are designed to be something that you can keep doing while on a longer grind. And with good item builds you can bring down the steps required for some of the items. When it comes to chest drops like Candlehat they're not as easy, but the coin system addressed that and I think the trading system addressed it even further (you now have multiple new options: buy the item directly from someone or buy the lesser tier items from people and turn those into the coins and buy the item you want from Mysterious Merchant).

And thank you so much, would love to see you in the game again!

I tried it, seems like there's some issue. To fix this:

1. Link using the button, follow the normal procedure.
2. You will get a cannot load page eventually.
3. Go back to the previous tab where it says "walkscape would like to etc.".
4. Refresh the page.

With this it seemed to work even right now, we'll investigate this.

Looks interesting, hope i gwt in so i can tty it out

Hiya, Shampuu! I found out about this 2 years ago on Lemmy. I applied for the free beta and got in around January 2025. I then convinced all my friends to join in May when the Patreon members getting access immediately was added. I then started my first side project since college working on an optimizer. I’ve met so many great people through this game’s community. Everyone is so positive. Thank you for creating this game and fostering its community. I can’t wait to see what this game becomes, but I’m in it for the long haul!

Here’s my optimizer if anyone wants to check it out! I added trading and even federate with the other main web based optimizer so that no one loses out on potential trades! https://walkscape.flamesandvoltiply.com/

I would look into how Final Fantasy does free to play. They can party up, but they can’t be in a guild. They can’t trade or use the market board and get limited inventory. They can only do the first few expansions for free. It’s a great trial period with no playtime restrictions. I think it would be very beneficial to have something like this to hook into. I think that’s exactly what you’re describing with the free to play area!

I use Paseo as a step counter. It works reliable without Google Services. Maybe you can get some inspiration from how they do it.

Would be very interested in a GApps independent version.

Edit: they claim to also use some Android API, but one of AOSP, so it works without GApps on Lineage.

When I saw the name of the game the first thing that popped into my head is this... A blast from the past. x_x

https://youtu.be/_cG7ZVBXQII?t=73

https://youtu.be/JiUTv7bvfN4?is=m63J1aq7DEp0uob-

Thank you so much, I've been using your tools quite a bit too and love the work you do!

I think they use SensorManager API which we could also use if Google Play Services isn't available. SensorManager just has one big downside that it loses your steps if you restart your device, but at least it'd be better than nothing on de-googled devices.

Same here.

I've seen dozen of the same core "Gamification of real world activities".

What makes this one different from the rest?

If I remember correctly, a permanent notification can keep the app running and prevent it from being killed by the battery optimization.

That doesn't solve the pedometer, obviously.

I'd say most gamification apps are first and foremost an app and they don't really feel like serious games (or games at all), think of something like Duolingo. And the main difference with WalkScape is that it's a game first and a fitness app second. There's a ton of lore, details, an interesting fantasy world and things like that which have been crafted to make a fun and interesting game that has actual depth to it. Not used just as fancy dressing for gamification app which aims to appeal to the casual players.

And in pedometer gaming space WalkScape was the first of this kind. If you think of stuff like Habitica and so forth those depend entirely on you checking off to-dos and whatnot, which you can cheat easily. With pedometer it's a dfifferent thing and we have a pretty robust anti-cheat here as well.

On our Discord you can find people min-maxing their character builds, doing interesting self-imposed challenges, theorycrafting, and they've even built online tools to optimize the crap out of the game mechanics. I think these are positive signs of the game having actual depth through its mechanics, items, designs and so forth. And a lot of these people have been playing the game for couple years now and they're still not bored of it, and I think that's what for me is lacking on most gamification apps out there: the mechanics are usually shallow or even superficial and there's not much actual game to it.

Sorry for a long answer, I couldn't think of a shorter way to put all this :D but great question anyways, thank you!

I like that walking doesn't require constantly checking the screen. Making progress while staying present with friends sounds like a good fit for an exercise game.

Nice to see you in fedi! Your game was really interesting when I first saw it at Maagiset Messut Lahti, but I usually avoid carrying my phone to everywhere so game is not for me :(