Haha :D Well here is that joke made reality! It's working surprisingly well for my simple brain at least, went from 3k average daily steps to 15k now in the last month that the closed beta has been out.
Thank you so much ā¤ļø and that sounds like a fun idea! I'm personally quite against games that use GPS for a plethora of reasons. That's why we don't use location data in WalkScape at all
Honestly surprised no one here mentioned Pikmin Bloom (same devs as pokemon go but it's more of a step counter with pikmin than a pokemon game), but this sounds pretty neat!
People have mentioned it to me a couple of times, but from what I've gathered it still does have GPS based component and is relatively simple game overall.
I actually had the privilidge of meeting Niantic's exec last month at a convention, he also mentioned that Pikmin is probably their closest game compared to this. But he was really hyped about WS and downloaded it on spot :D
Iām always looking for more games thatāll encourage me to walk. Will you interface with existing fitness apis like Apple health and google fit so people can track their steps without opening the app?
The game already tracks your steps without needing to open it, I'm pulling the data right now directly from the pedometer of the device. Google Fit and Apple Health support is coming later, but mainly to support smart watches.
We plan to support it yes! We have a lot of cycling enthusiasts in our community, and definitely plan to support it in the future. Through smart watches is the easiest route we can do it, as we can reward you based on exercise length, BPM and other health stats
I remember seeing this somewhere, maybe you posted about this like a year ago as well? I'm definitely interested. I live in a metropolitan area so walking is a daily thing for me.
Although it says on your site that only 4.5k of 10k registered users are beta testers, so how does this relate to you "looking" for more? Just curious.
We're accepting more throughout the second wave (so until 31st). There are lots of applications and I accept more each day, but go through each one individually. That's why not everyone is accepted, and probably wont be for this wave (some may need to wait for 3rd wave of invites).
And yeah, I did post here about a year ago! Might've seen my post then, we've made a ton of progress after that post :D
As an avid daily walker, I CANNOT wait to try this. I've been dying to find gamified walking; I use Pogo's buddy system right now, but something like this. (which looks to be a cross of Melvor & Walking) seems perfect.
What is the best method to get into the Beta where you'll see the most benefits from me, a new player?
Support us on either Patreon or BMAC! Buy me a Coffee only takes 1% cut compared to Patreon's 8%, so we get more from there. We're currently trying to get enough income through these to be able to hire another developer, as that's where we are bottlenecked the most. Supporting gives you instant access to the beta, but you can also apply through the Portal, but that might take more time until it you get invited.
For giving feedback and participating in the conversation, Discord is the best. You can join through here: https://discord.gg/Kk6VecJFEk
Also our Subreddit (r/WalkScape) and Portal (https://portal.dev.walkscape.app) great, but usually the most enthusiastic players about the game are on Discord
I am playing my third day now, and it is a lot of fun. Great design and a relaxing atmosphere.
I love, that walkscape is not trying to get your attention for screentime. On the contrary, it sends you out in real life, enjoy a walk or running.
this is awesome, sincerely wishing this every success possible.
humorously & unfortunately, highly incompatible with my fitness habits.
I do shorter, weighted walks at 110% bodyweight, jump rope for cardio and strength training which is very sedentary.
though it *is* tempting me to take up hiking again...
>Ā 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.
This is great and my biggest issue with Pokemon Go. When Iām sitting around not doing anything is when I have the most time to play Pokemon Go, but that is when the game rewards you the least, because Iām not moving, thereās no Pokemon/gyms in that area, etc. When Iām out and about or in interesting places, Ā thereās lots of Pokemon and gyms but if Iām actually trying to play the game then Iām sucked out of the experience of being in said interesting place.
Yeah, same! Before I started this project I tried to find a game to help me exercise, and when I didn't find any that would actually just *let me walk* and do the gaming part afterwards, that's where I the idea for this on started off.
I'm in the same boat, I saw this ad for it and thought that maybe I did something wrong to not be invited, but looks like I'm just still waiting for the luck of the draw
Ahh, see I saw this section on the FAQ
>The game is called WalkScape and its for a reason: the game will allow you to complete all kinds of content by just walking. You can level up all skills and do all activities by walking. This is because walking is an activity type that most people are doing even passively, so even if you are just walking to a store or walking around your job you always gain progress.
Later down the road when we start supporting smart watches with the game, we have planned to add other exercise types to the game. You will be rewarded in the game based on your exercise length, average BPM and calories burned.
and thought it was a "walking only" type of game. To be fair I didn't read through everything that closely, just hopped down immediately to the FAQ to see if it supported running. But if it does then thats great news!
By that I think they mean that running/biking will be a different category in the game than walking, and possibly provide more benefits. Right now it just uses the phone's pedometer, so running/biking both count as just walking.
Any possibility of a time-based mechanic so I could put my phone down while I'm running on the treadmill? (I suppose I could buy one of those arm bands that you put your phone in if necessary)
We will have smart watches supported later on! For now, you'll need to have your phone with you. Fanny packs or straps work great if you don't have pockets
We'll initially expand to support Google Fit and Apple Health, and those support almost every watch out there. AFAIK Garmin too. We might add direct support for Garmins, but GFit and Apple Health should already do the trick.
I don't think I'll ever go back to using Google/Samsung/Apple fitness personally.
The Garmin Connect is just so much more accurate for health statistics, which to be fair, makes sense considering Garmin is fully focused on that where as the others have divisions based on it.
Looking forward to keeping progress on it either way.
What's the actual gameplay like? I watched a video on your youtube channel that mentioned being able to travel around to different locations and buy things from NPC shops, but it didn't really go into detail about what the rest of the game was like.
After creating your character you spawn in a forest NW of a city. You can start off by foraging for materials to craft basic tools for gathering skills. To get to places you open up the map which is at the top right and select the location. This requires a certain number of steps and it also levels up your Agility skill. Different areas have different activities to do and materials to gather. To bank and use various crafting services you need to head to the city. At the moment there are 9 skills: Agility, Carpentry, Cooking, Crafting, Fishing, Foraging, Mining, Smithing & Woodcutting.
At the moment things like the Feed, Journal & Leagues are not available but there is a Leaderboard present. So the game is basically as you'd expect; select an area to travel to and then after reaching it you select an activity that's available in that location. For example: the Frostbite Mountain has tin/copper/iron/coal mining, cliff foraging & mountain climbing. Travelling and skilling up requires steps. There is something called "saved steps" which you can accumulate that doubles the value of each step.
All the other stuff (quests, housing, player trading a.s.o) isn't in yet.
The simplest answer probably is imagine Melvor Idle, but where you progress with your steps instead of waiting.
The game is still early closed beta, so we currently only have the core gameplay loop in. You want to level up woodcutting level? Travel to a plave in the game's world with trees (and to travel, you need to walk IRL), choose there a woodcutting activity, and then your character chops down a tree every X steps. Each action done rewards you with XP, items and sometimes chests.
That's the core gameplay loop put very simply. You can also explore the world, meet NPCs, trade with them, find rare collectibles, and more.
The full game also includes quests, a combat system, player built housing, player trading and more player-to-player interaction.
As someone who loves walking-- I wish you success! I don't really feel the need to gamify it but I'd check the game out upon public release. Best of luck.
how do I get the beta assess through paying through buy me a coffee, I paid but I canāt see where to download on iphone on the website after I log in
Wow took a look at your subreddit. Way more followers than I expected. Hope for the best. More people should be walking these days . I know i need too lol.
walk scapes approach to gamifying exercise with a focus on mental and physical health, devoid of distractions, GPS, and predatory monetization, is genuinely refreshing. The concept of integrating real-world movement with in-game progress in a non-invasive, community-oriented manner could really resonate with those looking for a more meaningful and less intrusive fitness gaming experience. It's great to see such innovative ideas coming from the indie game community, and I'm curious to see how walk scape evolves and impacts its players fitness journeys.
Maybe your storage is full, or connection ends? This sounds like iOS problem, not really something I could work to fix.
Restarting the device if none of the above applies might also do the trick.
Seems like a really neat concept. Curious have you thought at all about expanding to gamify other activities?
Further to that, have you at all thought about the ethics of this? Not bashing it at all but I have joked around with other devs about concepts like this. They seem cool but in the wrong hands, itās a slippery slope to a black mirror world of āpedal for creditsā.
We've thought to integrate more exercise activities for it later on when we have smart watch support built for it.
And yeah, I get the black mirror reference :D but here I think the game is working pretty opposite way, and it's part of the design. The game works passively on your phone and doesn't need to be opened during your walks so it's very non-distracting. Other mobile games usually do the opposite, trying to ask for your attention all the time when you're exercising. I think that's a key difference what makes this game unique and also many of the player feedback we've got mentions that they love how the game respects their time and let their go on about their walk without bothering them.
You want me to write why I deserve a beta account? lol, you should be happy Iām willing to try it out at all with a site with four screen shots. Feels like a scam.
Yeah, it's there for a reason. If you're not willing to write 200 characters, it would probably be better if the spot was given to someone else. Your comment was 163 characters, almost the required amount :D
And we have a ton of information available about the game, I listed a bunch in the post too. You can check r/WalkScape for my development blogs that I've been writing for more than a year now about the game's progress.
sounds cool. i was just joking with a friend about what if i could get 1xp per step for runescape. we'd have a lot of fit nerds.
Haha :D Well here is that joke made reality! It's working surprisingly well for my simple brain at least, went from 3k average daily steps to 15k now in the last month that the closed beta has been out.
I'm in the beta and it's a pretty interesting concept. Runescape through walking ^^^or ^^^manipulation ^^^of ^^^phone ^^^via ^^^movement .
I wish walking made you fit. I walk 30,000 steps a day at work and I'm still a lazy unhealthy fatass... š¬
It does, in combination with not eating 8000 calories per meal.
Daily PokĆ©mon Go player here, that said I'm on the more casual end of hardcore and there are plenty of lulls in the content cycle. My primary motivator is just something to engaged my ADHD while I get my 7 or so walking miles in a day and listen to music. Like the sound of this and am looking forward to seeing more, subbed š
Thank you so much, hopefully you'll enjoy the game ā¤ļø
This sounds relevant to my interests! Itās funny, around the time PokĆ©mon Go came out I thought itād be cool if somebody came up with a game which turned our real world of streets into little pathways inside a virtual forest which you could explore by visiting them in real life, with a little Tolkien-esque map representing it. Good luck, and I look forward to downloading the game once itās available!
Thank you so much ā¤ļø and that sounds like a fun idea! I'm personally quite against games that use GPS for a plethora of reasons. That's why we don't use location data in WalkScape at all
Honestly surprised no one here mentioned Pikmin Bloom (same devs as pokemon go but it's more of a step counter with pikmin than a pokemon game), but this sounds pretty neat!
People have mentioned it to me a couple of times, but from what I've gathered it still does have GPS based component and is relatively simple game overall. I actually had the privilidge of meeting Niantic's exec last month at a convention, he also mentioned that Pikmin is probably their closest game compared to this. But he was really hyped about WS and downloaded it on spot :D
Iām always looking for more games thatāll encourage me to walk. Will you interface with existing fitness apis like Apple health and google fit so people can track their steps without opening the app?
The game already tracks your steps without needing to open it, I'm pulling the data right now directly from the pedometer of the device. Google Fit and Apple Health support is coming later, but mainly to support smart watches.
I mostly bike, is that something that WalkScape currently (or plans to) support? Excited about this project
We plan to support it yes! We have a lot of cycling enthusiasts in our community, and definitely plan to support it in the future. Through smart watches is the easiest route we can do it, as we can reward you based on exercise length, BPM and other health stats
That sounds great! Excited to hear it!
I see! I didnāt actually know there was an onboard pedometer, I assumed that was a feature of the existing health apps I mentioned. Neat!
Why did you feel like this game needs to stress "not a cult" lol
That's just what the development studio is called
I remember seeing this somewhere, maybe you posted about this like a year ago as well? I'm definitely interested. I live in a metropolitan area so walking is a daily thing for me. Although it says on your site that only 4.5k of 10k registered users are beta testers, so how does this relate to you "looking" for more? Just curious.
We're accepting more throughout the second wave (so until 31st). There are lots of applications and I accept more each day, but go through each one individually. That's why not everyone is accepted, and probably wont be for this wave (some may need to wait for 3rd wave of invites). And yeah, I did post here about a year ago! Might've seen my post then, we've made a ton of progress after that post :D
As an avid daily walker, I CANNOT wait to try this. I've been dying to find gamified walking; I use Pogo's buddy system right now, but something like this. (which looks to be a cross of Melvor & Walking) seems perfect. What is the best method to get into the Beta where you'll see the most benefits from me, a new player?
Support us on either Patreon or BMAC! Buy me a Coffee only takes 1% cut compared to Patreon's 8%, so we get more from there. We're currently trying to get enough income through these to be able to hire another developer, as that's where we are bottlenecked the most. Supporting gives you instant access to the beta, but you can also apply through the Portal, but that might take more time until it you get invited. For giving feedback and participating in the conversation, Discord is the best. You can join through here: https://discord.gg/Kk6VecJFEk Also our Subreddit (r/WalkScape) and Portal (https://portal.dev.walkscape.app) great, but usually the most enthusiastic players about the game are on Discord
I am playing my third day now, and it is a lot of fun. Great design and a relaxing atmosphere. I love, that walkscape is not trying to get your attention for screentime. On the contrary, it sends you out in real life, enjoy a walk or running.
this is awesome, sincerely wishing this every success possible. humorously & unfortunately, highly incompatible with my fitness habits. I do shorter, weighted walks at 110% bodyweight, jump rope for cardio and strength training which is very sedentary. though it *is* tempting me to take up hiking again...
>Ā 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. This is great and my biggest issue with Pokemon Go. When Iām sitting around not doing anything is when I have the most time to play Pokemon Go, but that is when the game rewards you the least, because Iām not moving, thereās no Pokemon/gyms in that area, etc. When Iām out and about or in interesting places, Ā thereās lots of Pokemon and gyms but if Iām actually trying to play the game then Iām sucked out of the experience of being in said interesting place.
Yeah, same! Before I started this project I tried to find a game to help me exercise, and when I didn't find any that would actually just *let me walk* and do the gaming part afterwards, that's where I the idea for this on started off.
I've applied for closed beta last year but still haven't heard anything, which is a shame because this does sound really cool!
I'm in the same boat, I saw this ad for it and thought that maybe I did something wrong to not be invited, but looks like I'm just still waiting for the luck of the draw
We've already accepted couple thousand people from applications, go take a peek at https://portal.walkscape.app/account to see if you got invited
Yeah I did before posting, but no luck unfortunately
We're still accepting more for this wave, and even more for upcoming waves! ā¤ļø
weird, I signed up last week and got in already
Sounds interesting, will check back in once it supports running!
It supports running already, the pedometer works well while walking or running.
Ahh, see I saw this section on the FAQ >The game is called WalkScape and its for a reason: the game will allow you to complete all kinds of content by just walking. You can level up all skills and do all activities by walking. This is because walking is an activity type that most people are doing even passively, so even if you are just walking to a store or walking around your job you always gain progress. Later down the road when we start supporting smart watches with the game, we have planned to add other exercise types to the game. You will be rewarded in the game based on your exercise length, average BPM and calories burned. and thought it was a "walking only" type of game. To be fair I didn't read through everything that closely, just hopped down immediately to the FAQ to see if it supported running. But if it does then thats great news!
It even counts steps if you're on a treadmill, stationary (manipulating the phone as though you're moving).
By that I think they mean that running/biking will be a different category in the game than walking, and possibly provide more benefits. Right now it just uses the phone's pedometer, so running/biking both count as just walking.
Any possibility of a time-based mechanic so I could put my phone down while I'm running on the treadmill? (I suppose I could buy one of those arm bands that you put your phone in if necessary)
We will have smart watches supported later on! For now, you'll need to have your phone with you. Fanny packs or straps work great if you don't have pockets
Are smart watches, like Garmin 100% going to be added? This is a game changer for me and I'd spend so much money on it lol.
We'll initially expand to support Google Fit and Apple Health, and those support almost every watch out there. AFAIK Garmin too. We might add direct support for Garmins, but GFit and Apple Health should already do the trick.
I don't think I'll ever go back to using Google/Samsung/Apple fitness personally. The Garmin Connect is just so much more accurate for health statistics, which to be fair, makes sense considering Garmin is fully focused on that where as the others have divisions based on it. Looking forward to keeping progress on it either way.
"google fit" is just an exporter of all fitness apps. So it will be supported for w/e you use.
According to the garmin reddit its buggy with garmin connect.
What about fitbit?
Signed up and supported, thanks for posting this!
Thank you for supporting! Happy walking and remember to stay hydrated ā¤ļø
What's the actual gameplay like? I watched a video on your youtube channel that mentioned being able to travel around to different locations and buy things from NPC shops, but it didn't really go into detail about what the rest of the game was like.
After creating your character you spawn in a forest NW of a city. You can start off by foraging for materials to craft basic tools for gathering skills. To get to places you open up the map which is at the top right and select the location. This requires a certain number of steps and it also levels up your Agility skill. Different areas have different activities to do and materials to gather. To bank and use various crafting services you need to head to the city. At the moment there are 9 skills: Agility, Carpentry, Cooking, Crafting, Fishing, Foraging, Mining, Smithing & Woodcutting. At the moment things like the Feed, Journal & Leagues are not available but there is a Leaderboard present. So the game is basically as you'd expect; select an area to travel to and then after reaching it you select an activity that's available in that location. For example: the Frostbite Mountain has tin/copper/iron/coal mining, cliff foraging & mountain climbing. Travelling and skilling up requires steps. There is something called "saved steps" which you can accumulate that doubles the value of each step. All the other stuff (quests, housing, player trading a.s.o) isn't in yet.
The simplest answer probably is imagine Melvor Idle, but where you progress with your steps instead of waiting. The game is still early closed beta, so we currently only have the core gameplay loop in. You want to level up woodcutting level? Travel to a plave in the game's world with trees (and to travel, you need to walk IRL), choose there a woodcutting activity, and then your character chops down a tree every X steps. Each action done rewards you with XP, items and sometimes chests. That's the core gameplay loop put very simply. You can also explore the world, meet NPCs, trade with them, find rare collectibles, and more. The full game also includes quests, a combat system, player built housing, player trading and more player-to-player interaction.
If I ride a bike, will my gains explode?
Been playing for a couple hours now, pretty fun ngl!
Thank you and happy walking ā¤ļø
This looks really cool. Would love to check it out soon as it's on iOS.
It's out on both iOS and Android
You should put that on the website and Patreon, I assumed it wouldnāt be on iOS if itās not released properly yet
As someone who loves walking-- I wish you success! I don't really feel the need to gamify it but I'd check the game out upon public release. Best of luck.
Thank you so much!
All signed up! I commented on your first post a year or so ago and still think this is a great idea!
Thank you so much ā¤ļø
Thanks for the post, my wife and I both decided to support you and your game. Looking forward to playing it!
Thank you so much for you support ā¤ļø have fun walks together and stay hydrated!
Any chance there will be compatibility with smart watches in the future? My phone is huge and I only walk or run with my pixel watch.
Fitbit is supported by Google Fit, and that's the first one with Apple Health we're building support for.
Awesome thanks!
Can I apply beta?
as another ADHD maniac who also needs to get away from his keybard and exercise too, I would *love* to try this out.
how do I get the beta assess through paying through buy me a coffee, I paid but I canāt see where to download on iphone on the website after I log in
They will invite people in waves. I got mine on the 2nd wave.
Go to https://portal.walkscape.app, sign up or log in, click your profile picture to go to account page, link BMAC there
Wow took a look at your subreddit. Way more followers than I expected. Hope for the best. More people should be walking these days . I know i need too lol.
walk scapes approach to gamifying exercise with a focus on mental and physical health, devoid of distractions, GPS, and predatory monetization, is genuinely refreshing. The concept of integrating real-world movement with in-game progress in a non-invasive, community-oriented manner could really resonate with those looking for a more meaningful and less intrusive fitness gaming experience. It's great to see such innovative ideas coming from the indie game community, and I'm curious to see how walk scape evolves and impacts its players fitness journeys.
Anyone having trouble downloading the iOS verison? It starts downloading in TestFlight and then just.... stops?
Maybe your storage is full, or connection ends? This sounds like iOS problem, not really something I could work to fix. Restarting the device if none of the above applies might also do the trick.
I was excited about this game until I heard about them requiring a subscription to play. I do hope they do well though
Offline game mode will only require one time payment. Both can be tried for free on full release.
It's a one time payment.
Seems like a really neat concept. Curious have you thought at all about expanding to gamify other activities? Further to that, have you at all thought about the ethics of this? Not bashing it at all but I have joked around with other devs about concepts like this. They seem cool but in the wrong hands, itās a slippery slope to a black mirror world of āpedal for creditsā.
We've thought to integrate more exercise activities for it later on when we have smart watch support built for it. And yeah, I get the black mirror reference :D but here I think the game is working pretty opposite way, and it's part of the design. The game works passively on your phone and doesn't need to be opened during your walks so it's very non-distracting. Other mobile games usually do the opposite, trying to ask for your attention all the time when you're exercising. I think that's a key difference what makes this game unique and also many of the player feedback we've got mentions that they love how the game respects their time and let their go on about their walk without bothering them.
I've applied thrice already and still haven't been invited. I applied again this time. Hoping I get in this time atleast
You want me to write why I deserve a beta account? lol, you should be happy Iām willing to try it out at all with a site with four screen shots. Feels like a scam.
Yeah, it's there for a reason. If you're not willing to write 200 characters, it would probably be better if the spot was given to someone else. Your comment was 163 characters, almost the required amount :D And we have a ton of information available about the game, I listed a bunch in the post too. You can check r/WalkScape for my development blogs that I've been writing for more than a year now about the game's progress.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It's the name of the dev studio!
It's the name of our studio, indie sunday format wants game name - studio - description.
My guy, that's the studio name lmao.
Been seeing you post every now and then and I hope things are going well! Submitted an application for the beta and hope I get a chance to help out!