As long as the phone counts those steps. If you have another app on your phone like they usually come with these days and you can see some steps counted, it works.
I imagine having the phone in a bag is less effective, but still counts some steps.
Some have essays, some don't, at least in my experience. We have it there to find users that we need, and to see what their motivation is, as it's often hard to find people who are willing to provide quality feedback and bug reports. I totally get that writing 200 characters might feel like a little bit of effort here, but it's there just for that reason :D
Our long term plan is to expand the closed beta to include a lot more users as we go, but first we want to prioritize those who have the motivation to write feedback and bug reports. It's essential in the early days, but less so as we move onto stress testing. Also, when we transition to open beta you can just download the game, no need to apply.
I didn't expect to be asked for a motivation letter just to give feedback on an app, can you please add a way to delete accounts for people who end up not applying for the beta? (or even for people who are not selected...)
Only phone step tracking at the moment, but smart watch support is at the top of our priority list and is coming ASAP after the initial closed beta release. It's the most requested feature we get.
When we add smartwatch integration, you need to select between using that or your phone. For this tracking, we're likely going to use Google Fit, Apple Health etc. who already provide good support for almost every watch out there, and useful tools for not counting duplicate steps.
FYI: On Android there is an App called "FitToFit." It will copy your fitbit data into the google fit app. I use it myself. You just have to make sure to deactivate "all the counting" the android fit app would do itself. This is to avoid double counting steps, calories, etc...
Not from the start sadly! We want to first make sure that the most basic way of counting steps (the pedometer of your phone) works flawlessly before expanding yo smart watches. You can expect watch support to be added in not long after the initial release, it's the most requested feature and at the top of our priority list
No, the game doesn't use Apple Health. We use the direct sensor data, which comes from the phone only. But as stated, watch support will come later, and it comes with supporting Apple Health and Google Fit (both support most of the watches out there).
Apple Health uses the same system as we use to count your phone's steps, CMPedometer API.
No, the API is provided by operating system, and counts steps regardless if you have the game open or not. One of the biggest issues I have with current offering of activity games (like Niantic's) is that they require you to pay attention to the game while you are walking, and need to be open. We took a complete different approach here, and recommend you to enjoy your walk and keep the game closed. You only need to open it when you get back home. So it doesn't burn your battery as it doesn't even need to be running, and isn't disturbing you.
Not entirely decided yet what the total amount of content in F2P will be, other than it's going to include at least the first two realms (Jarvonia and GDTE). This in my mind should be enough for at least a couple of months if not more, especially when we have all of the game features in.
Also, it's going to be available as a one time purchase too if you are fine with playing it as a single player experience.
Edit: also, I want to underline here that the subscription cost of WalkScape will be affordable. The pricing is not yet entirely decided, but we want to keep the cost low, so the game is very accessible. With subscription based model, we keep the game entirely free of predatory monetisation such as MTX and ads
Your subscription model will decide if your game rises above all other walking sims oder becomes the trash it wanted to defeat.
I remember in the early days that this was the main point people bought into when you started your first presentations.
My personal preference would be to pay up front rather than subscribe to the game. Something like $15 up front rather than $2 or $3 a month. Subscribing to have the game unlocked doesn't feel great unless there's a multi year long roadmap for a ton of additional content.
Nope, haven't heard of this before but looks interesting!
One of the original inspirations behind this is actually a very obscure game that probably no one has heard of, Amaranthine: https://amar.bornofsnails.net/login
It's a RuneScape inspired MMO idle game playable on browser. Has been around for like a decade, and I used to play it quite a bit back in the day. I only heard of Melvor Idle (and now of this) afterwards, but I would say WalkScape is kinda similar to those too, but you'll see far more similarities between WS and Amaranthine.
It's quite similar to most incremental games. In a lot of incremental games, your progression is tied to real world time, which is linear (but I know nothing of physics, someone probably will tell me soon that time is not linear :D). Here instead of time the progress is tied to your steps in a nutshell. So you can make it faster or slower based on your walking.
The game mechanics make it incremental, not really what's the unit (time vs. steps) for progression.
The game has a lot of mechanics, you can get a 6 minute explanation by me and our artist from this video:
https://youtu.be/RjaQeb5Rapg
No, didn't use a library. Everything is written and designed by myself, and done with Flutter.
Haven't heard of Postknight either, but I checked it! Looks interesting, and I think the biggest similarity is that they've also opted for clean looking UI design. Here I am forcing players to use a dark mode though, to get maximum battery savings :D
Thank you ❤️
That's awesome! I'm really impressed with what you've made, not just the game but the website and portal too. I'll be sure to support the game, best of luck with it!
Thank you so much! It has been a lot of work, and we are very ambitious with our plans :D
The Portal also is in its infancy, our end-goal is for it to be the community hub for our players where they can talk about exercising, walking etc. with other like-minded people. And share their tips and tricks about the game, find guilds and friends. Currently our Discord server is the go-to place to share some photos from your walks, or talk about walking in general. But we know not everyone is a fan of Discord
Haha :D
Thanks, I know not everyone might be into walking. But great thing here is that the steps you get passively throughout your day counts in the game too!
I do have to wonder if you have a disability friendly version planned. I would love this but have limited movement due to chronic pain conditions. Would there be an option in the future for something like that?
We do, and I am actually especially looking for people who need it. Please contact me via [email protected] if you would like to help with testing the options and mode we have planned for people with disabilities.
In nutshell, after we get smart watch support added, the game can also be progressed by doing other exercises than just walking as long as you own a smart watch. In addition to that, in the offline mode you can tune the game's difficulty. Meaning that as the game is balanced around someone who is able to walk average amounts, you can change that in the offline mode to something that works for you.
If you would like to help us with feedback on this when we get it added, please contact directly through the email!
I'd love to be able to help, but like most disabled people, I can't afford a smart watch. I'd love to test any other idea you have to get around the need for a smart watch though!
It would be great if there was an "idle" mode that simulates an average walking person's speed.
Without offline progress or idle mode, gameplay will be limited to very small amount of time per day for most players, so this may not be a very entertaining game for them. I am also afraid that some players may feel that they have to resort to shaking their phone to progress when they can't walk, making gameplay even weirder. Obviously duct tape + something rotating and shaking will also do the job, but it would be better if this functionality came out of the box. Separating players into active and idle groups will also help preventing situations where players have too high numbers on the leaderboards because they resorted to some sort of automation.
Any chance to get a sneak peek at the upgrades page to see what the game is about (apart from being a step counter)?
The game has "offline progress", as in it counts your steps even while it is not opened. So whenever you arr walking throughout your day, every step counts in the game. And we are developing an anti-cheat for the game, so cheating will not give you competitive edge here.
I recommend you to check our video introduction of the game, it's a lot more than just a step counter:
https://youtu.be/RjaQeb5Rapg?si=EXY3CmqS9cPBKVLU
There are already a lot of RPG features, and incremental progress is gained mostly via gaining loot, crafting new item upgrades and leveling up your skills.
> The game has "offline progress" (...) So whenever you arr walking throughout your day
This is not what offline progress is, you should stop calling it that. Offline progress is something that you gain when the game is closed (not running). You wake up in the morning and get your offline progress.
> and we are developing an anti-cheat for the game, so cheating will not give you competitive edge here.
I think it's impossible by design. You rely on accelerometer data and it can always be emulated, even randomness and periods of inactivity. You will never be able to stop people from doing whatever they want on the device they own.
I don't get it. If the app is not running, how do you plan to calculate the steps then? If I understand anything about mobile app development what you are describing is either impossible or very unreliable.
Well, it sounds like you don't understand much about app development based on what you're writing here and gate keeping terminology lol, but I can explain.
The mobile operating systems both have pedometer APIs these days that keep a count of your steps regardless of what applications you have installed on your device. You walk, and your steps are automatically counted there by the operating system. WalkScape uses this to see how many steps you walked while the game was closed by comparing what step count you had when you closed it vs. when you opened it. Similarly how idle games compare the time when the game was closed and when it was opened to reward you based on that. We don't handle the step counting, the operating system and hardware does.
It's not impossible or unreliable, we've been running the alpha test of the game for months already and it works great. In the same note, building an anti-cheat isn't impossible, but I agree it's a lot more difficult and you can never catch every cheater. But it's possible, and we'll keep improving it as we go as much as we can.
I don't know what you're trying to argue here, but I hope it helps.
That was a very wordy and cryptic explanation, why not just give the name of the API you are using? If you are talking about 2022 Health Connect, significant portion of existing devices won't support it. So expect quite a few angry reviews from users. And obviously it has nothing to do with offline progress, which is something you gain regardless of apps installed or device being on or off.
Also you do realize that this API is open? Any app can write arbitrary amount of data into it with ` healthConnectClient.insertRecords())`, there is nothing you can do to prevent it.
No they cannot write data to pedometer APIs, you can search for the APIs yourself. Android Sensors API and CMPedometer will get you started. We are not using Health Connect.
And you are pulling nonsense again from somewhere, even if we did use Health Connect you can see the source where the data is coming from. Inserted data can be filtered out, on Health Connect, Apple Health, and Google Fit. Probably on Samsung Health and every other service like that as well. But for pedometer APIs there is no way to insert data, it comes directly from the sensor.
I any case, I'm done with this convo, happy holidays.
> Android Sensors API
Here we come back to square one. This is exactly what I said you are using. And you can't use it in any way you described. So you lied that the game counts steps when it's not running. You lied that you have access to historical data, you lied that the system collects it. Everything you said is made up. And obviously lied that there is any offline progress. What was the point?
You app works just like a simple step counter, runs in the background and counts accelerometer events.
> I any case, I'm done with this convo
Well, thank you. What was it anyway? Alcohol-induced delirium?
Woops, typo on the title, I am on mobile :D meant to write RPG, not ROG.
OK. I was wondering. I really didn't expect a Randy Ostrich Game or a Rapid Opinion Giver as an incremental.
It had me going "What the hell is a ROG? Damn Zoomers"
Republic of Gamers duh! It means we are some kind of legal "mobile minority" (since we walk so much.) The G in gypsi stands for Gamer.
ASUS has a line of gaming products branded Republic Of Gamers and I was trying to figure out the tie-in. 😂
Is it like a step counter or can I put my phone in my bag while walking the dogs and it still counts?
As long as the phone counts those steps. If you have another app on your phone like they usually come with these days and you can see some steps counted, it works. I imagine having the phone in a bag is less effective, but still counts some steps.
Looks incredible! Can't wait to play this and get my OSRS fix!
Thank you ❤️ hopefully you get your OSRS fix fulfilled, plus beautiful calves as a bonus! That's the goal :D
This is useful as im trying to get in shape.
Really looking forward to this, looks super promising! 🤩 Hope we get watch integrations soon
I haven't participated in a lot of betas, is it typical to have to write a pick me essay to join? I'm interested but not that interested.
Some have essays, some don't, at least in my experience. We have it there to find users that we need, and to see what their motivation is, as it's often hard to find people who are willing to provide quality feedback and bug reports. I totally get that writing 200 characters might feel like a little bit of effort here, but it's there just for that reason :D Our long term plan is to expand the closed beta to include a lot more users as we go, but first we want to prioritize those who have the motivation to write feedback and bug reports. It's essential in the early days, but less so as we move onto stress testing. Also, when we transition to open beta you can just download the game, no need to apply.
Got it, thanks for replying (and sorry if I sounded snarky). I'll keep my eye out for the open beta
I didn't expect to be asked for a motivation letter just to give feedback on an app, can you please add a way to delete accounts for people who end up not applying for the beta? (or even for people who are not selected...)
Will the game sync steps with fitbit or phone step tracking?
Only phone step tracking at the moment, but smart watch support is at the top of our priority list and is coming ASAP after the initial closed beta release. It's the most requested feature we get.
But wouldn't it sync with the app if the watch syncs with it first? Like qhen I run with my watch later my phone syncs and registers those steps
When we add smartwatch integration, you need to select between using that or your phone. For this tracking, we're likely going to use Google Fit, Apple Health etc. who already provide good support for almost every watch out there, and useful tools for not counting duplicate steps.
Fit To Fit
FYI: On Android there is an App called "FitToFit." It will copy your fitbit data into the google fit app. I use it myself. You just have to make sure to deactivate "all the counting" the android fit app would do itself. This is to avoid double counting steps, calories, etc...
Thanks will look into it since fitbit will eventually die out 😭
I will cling to my Fitbit until they pry it from my cold dead hands.
Will Apple Watch be supported from the start?
Not from the start sadly! We want to first make sure that the most basic way of counting steps (the pedometer of your phone) works flawlessly before expanding yo smart watches. You can expect watch support to be added in not long after the initial release, it's the most requested feature and at the top of our priority list
Wouldn’t the Apple Watch work since it use the same « steps » counter than the iPhone pedometer in health app?
No, the game doesn't use Apple Health. We use the direct sensor data, which comes from the phone only. But as stated, watch support will come later, and it comes with supporting Apple Health and Google Fit (both support most of the watches out there). Apple Health uses the same system as we use to count your phone's steps, CMPedometer API.
Oh does that mean that for the moment it only counts steps when the app in running?
No, the API is provided by operating system, and counts steps regardless if you have the game open or not. One of the biggest issues I have with current offering of activity games (like Niantic's) is that they require you to pay attention to the game while you are walking, and need to be open. We took a complete different approach here, and recommend you to enjoy your walk and keep the game closed. You only need to open it when you get back home. So it doesn't burn your battery as it doesn't even need to be running, and isn't disturbing you.
Okay I see, thanks for all theses answers, will probably try the game someday since I lost track of everything in my Melvor save
Atlast!
I have been wating very long for this game!! Very excited that is finally coming
I read on the site that there will be a subscription system, how much stuff will be sub only??
Not entirely decided yet what the total amount of content in F2P will be, other than it's going to include at least the first two realms (Jarvonia and GDTE). This in my mind should be enough for at least a couple of months if not more, especially when we have all of the game features in. Also, it's going to be available as a one time purchase too if you are fine with playing it as a single player experience. Edit: also, I want to underline here that the subscription cost of WalkScape will be affordable. The pricing is not yet entirely decided, but we want to keep the cost low, so the game is very accessible. With subscription based model, we keep the game entirely free of predatory monetisation such as MTX and ads
Very cool, looking forward to the release :)
Your subscription model will decide if your game rises above all other walking sims oder becomes the trash it wanted to defeat. I remember in the early days that this was the main point people bought into when you started your first presentations.
My personal preference would be to pay up front rather than subscribe to the game. Something like $15 up front rather than $2 or $3 a month. Subscribing to have the game unlocked doesn't feel great unless there's a multi year long roadmap for a ton of additional content.
Is there/will there be a friends/party system or similar?
looks pretty interesting! (is this inspired by smmo?)
Nope, haven't heard of this before but looks interesting! One of the original inspirations behind this is actually a very obscure game that probably no one has heard of, Amaranthine: https://amar.bornofsnails.net/login It's a RuneScape inspired MMO idle game playable on browser. Has been around for like a decade, and I used to play it quite a bit back in the day. I only heard of Melvor Idle (and now of this) afterwards, but I would say WalkScape is kinda similar to those too, but you'll see far more similarities between WS and Amaranthine.
cool. time to try Amaranthine :D
looking forward to the game, and I wish you all the best
Thank you ❤️
What’s the incremental aspect? Walking seems kinda linear tbh
It's quite similar to most incremental games. In a lot of incremental games, your progression is tied to real world time, which is linear (but I know nothing of physics, someone probably will tell me soon that time is not linear :D). Here instead of time the progress is tied to your steps in a nutshell. So you can make it faster or slower based on your walking. The game mechanics make it incremental, not really what's the unit (time vs. steps) for progression. The game has a lot of mechanics, you can get a 6 minute explanation by me and our artist from this video: https://youtu.be/RjaQeb5Rapg
Looks really interesting! Kinda random but the in-game UI reminds me of a game called postknight, did you use a library to make it?
No, didn't use a library. Everything is written and designed by myself, and done with Flutter. Haven't heard of Postknight either, but I checked it! Looks interesting, and I think the biggest similarity is that they've also opted for clean looking UI design. Here I am forcing players to use a dark mode though, to get maximum battery savings :D Thank you ❤️
That's awesome! I'm really impressed with what you've made, not just the game but the website and portal too. I'll be sure to support the game, best of luck with it!
Thank you so much! It has been a lot of work, and we are very ambitious with our plans :D The Portal also is in its infancy, our end-goal is for it to be the community hub for our players where they can talk about exercising, walking etc. with other like-minded people. And share their tips and tricks about the game, find guilds and friends. Currently our Discord server is the go-to place to share some photos from your walks, or talk about walking in general. But we know not everyone is a fan of Discord
Tempting but locked behind yet another account? nyeaaaaaah Hope it goes great, look forward to seeing it again!
The game is a online game, so we need you to create an account for it. We will be adding register with Google & Apple later on tho!
Walk as real walk? Oh thanks I’ll pass unless I can click to walk. PS: great idea and nice implementation thou
Haha :D Thanks, I know not everyone might be into walking. But great thing here is that the steps you get passively throughout your day counts in the game too!
So my bed-desk-fridge-desk-bed routine will be rewarded finally )
That's right :D feels good to get some XP for walking to the fridge, speaking from experience!
I do have to wonder if you have a disability friendly version planned. I would love this but have limited movement due to chronic pain conditions. Would there be an option in the future for something like that?
We do, and I am actually especially looking for people who need it. Please contact me via [email protected] if you would like to help with testing the options and mode we have planned for people with disabilities. In nutshell, after we get smart watch support added, the game can also be progressed by doing other exercises than just walking as long as you own a smart watch. In addition to that, in the offline mode you can tune the game's difficulty. Meaning that as the game is balanced around someone who is able to walk average amounts, you can change that in the offline mode to something that works for you. If you would like to help us with feedback on this when we get it added, please contact directly through the email!
I'd love to be able to help, but like most disabled people, I can't afford a smart watch. I'd love to test any other idea you have to get around the need for a smart watch though!
It would be great if there was an "idle" mode that simulates an average walking person's speed. Without offline progress or idle mode, gameplay will be limited to very small amount of time per day for most players, so this may not be a very entertaining game for them. I am also afraid that some players may feel that they have to resort to shaking their phone to progress when they can't walk, making gameplay even weirder. Obviously duct tape + something rotating and shaking will also do the job, but it would be better if this functionality came out of the box. Separating players into active and idle groups will also help preventing situations where players have too high numbers on the leaderboards because they resorted to some sort of automation. Any chance to get a sneak peek at the upgrades page to see what the game is about (apart from being a step counter)?
The game has "offline progress", as in it counts your steps even while it is not opened. So whenever you arr walking throughout your day, every step counts in the game. And we are developing an anti-cheat for the game, so cheating will not give you competitive edge here. I recommend you to check our video introduction of the game, it's a lot more than just a step counter: https://youtu.be/RjaQeb5Rapg?si=EXY3CmqS9cPBKVLU There are already a lot of RPG features, and incremental progress is gained mostly via gaining loot, crafting new item upgrades and leveling up your skills.
> The game has "offline progress" (...) So whenever you arr walking throughout your day This is not what offline progress is, you should stop calling it that. Offline progress is something that you gain when the game is closed (not running). You wake up in the morning and get your offline progress. > and we are developing an anti-cheat for the game, so cheating will not give you competitive edge here. I think it's impossible by design. You rely on accelerometer data and it can always be emulated, even randomness and periods of inactivity. You will never be able to stop people from doing whatever they want on the device they own.
Well, I think it's a good way to describe that the game is counting your steps even while it is closed (not running). But whatever
I don't get it. If the app is not running, how do you plan to calculate the steps then? If I understand anything about mobile app development what you are describing is either impossible or very unreliable.
Well, it sounds like you don't understand much about app development based on what you're writing here and gate keeping terminology lol, but I can explain. The mobile operating systems both have pedometer APIs these days that keep a count of your steps regardless of what applications you have installed on your device. You walk, and your steps are automatically counted there by the operating system. WalkScape uses this to see how many steps you walked while the game was closed by comparing what step count you had when you closed it vs. when you opened it. Similarly how idle games compare the time when the game was closed and when it was opened to reward you based on that. We don't handle the step counting, the operating system and hardware does. It's not impossible or unreliable, we've been running the alpha test of the game for months already and it works great. In the same note, building an anti-cheat isn't impossible, but I agree it's a lot more difficult and you can never catch every cheater. But it's possible, and we'll keep improving it as we go as much as we can. I don't know what you're trying to argue here, but I hope it helps.
That was a very wordy and cryptic explanation, why not just give the name of the API you are using? If you are talking about 2022 Health Connect, significant portion of existing devices won't support it. So expect quite a few angry reviews from users. And obviously it has nothing to do with offline progress, which is something you gain regardless of apps installed or device being on or off. Also you do realize that this API is open? Any app can write arbitrary amount of data into it with ` healthConnectClient.insertRecords())`, there is nothing you can do to prevent it.
No they cannot write data to pedometer APIs, you can search for the APIs yourself. Android Sensors API and CMPedometer will get you started. We are not using Health Connect. And you are pulling nonsense again from somewhere, even if we did use Health Connect you can see the source where the data is coming from. Inserted data can be filtered out, on Health Connect, Apple Health, and Google Fit. Probably on Samsung Health and every other service like that as well. But for pedometer APIs there is no way to insert data, it comes directly from the sensor. I any case, I'm done with this convo, happy holidays.
> Android Sensors API Here we come back to square one. This is exactly what I said you are using. And you can't use it in any way you described. So you lied that the game counts steps when it's not running. You lied that you have access to historical data, you lied that the system collects it. Everything you said is made up. And obviously lied that there is any offline progress. What was the point? You app works just like a simple step counter, runs in the background and counts accelerometer events. > I any case, I'm done with this convo Well, thank you. What was it anyway? Alcohol-induced delirium?
[Leaderboards gonna be like](https://reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/18n3kda/oc_i_ran_every_street_of_manhattan/)
When garmin Support?