DevBlog #25: Update on Closed Beta progress, WalkScape team grows, and content work!
Hello! The past two weeks have been a whirlwind. As a game developer and software engineer, managing a business has been a steep learning curve. However, the business side of WalkScape is critical to the long-term success of the project, and I want the community to be able to experience the game long into the future. This has had a large impact on my time for development over the last two weeks, but there are many exciting announcements on the business side below. I will also try my best to clearly articulate the state of development as we quickly progress towards having the Closed Beta ready.
As a side note, I also got a free course from the government where I’m getting some personal guidance on how to manage a business. It starts on this Friday. I know most of you are probably more interested in the development, and not as much in how I’m now also running a business. But it’s something that also takes a lot of my time, and as mentioned, important for keeping up the development of the game going forward for years.
Closed Beta To-Dos and Plan
The launch of the closed beta test is a special moment in WalkScape's history, and one that we need to take advantage of. The closed beta includes what we call “the core gameplay loop”, meaning the most essential gameplay mechanics for progression.
The elements of this loop are the following:
- Select an activity and walk to complete the actions over and over again until you select a new activity, gaining experience, materials, and chests.
- When your inventory fills up, travel to bank or sell the items in NPC shops.
- Craft new tools and loot gear from chests to enhance your progress and outputs from in-game activities.
- Travel and explore the world.
- Complete achievements.
When we can perfect this loop - the possibilities for where we can go are endless, but it's very important that this loop exists within the game during the first test. All of the additional features in game that are coming after the closed beta release require these features to work, which is why it’s crucial we have them working perfectly before adding more stuff to the game.
Without the full list of things needed for the core gameplay loop, the game will be seriously lacking in some way, and this experience will not reflect an accurate new-player experience.
With this in mind, here is the updated to-do list for the closed beta launch.
The To-Do as of now
As you can see, we’ve been tackling and focusing just on this list of necessary things in all of the previous development blogs. The only new thing added was the NPC shops, which caused a delay to our original plans, but as explained in the NPC shops development blog post, we realized it’s necessary even for the initial release of closed beta.
I really want to underline that we're doing our best to get this into your hands ASAP. I also hope the community can have patience, and understanding. This is a massive game to create for such a small team, and we’re doing our best. We've done our best to get rid of anything that is secondary to the core gameplay loop in order to get this in your hands by the end of the year, while still letting it be an enjoyable experience. From this list, you can expect updates on more content and item banking come next devblog posts.
Once all the features above are complete, we will communicate a launch date to the community. Expect less than 2 weeks between the completion of the features above and this announcement date. In between the announcement and launch, we will do our final polish before this is rolled out to the community.
Now that this is out of the way, let’s move onto what we’ve done in the past couple of weeks!
WalkScape team grows
We are excited to announce a new addition to the WalkScape team! Currently, our development team consists of the following members:
- Me (schamppu, the developer)
- maxchill (our High Priest of Arts)
Now, we have expanded our arts department by recruiting an intern named Sorgo:
Hi everyone!
I’m Sorgo and I'm thrilled to announce that I’ll be an intern in Not a Cult Oy for the upcoming months! I successfully finished my bachelor in graphic design and currently I’m studying game design. I’m mostly specialized in digital illustrations, but I’m also proficient in video editing, animation and publication design.
I'm a person with a big love for art, games and pets! I’ve been drawing for quite some time now. I usually draw in comic style and I recently started my adventure with pixel art. I’m open minded and always happy to chat. I have a bit of experience in streaming so hopefully I’ll be able to share my learning experience there.
I’m excited to become a part of the WalkScape team. I can’t wait to learn new things and put all my skills to contribute to the game and community!
To celebrate my joining the WalkScape family I’ve prepared a little team portrait of me and a Not an Octopus 🐙
Sorgo's team portrait
We'd like to also announce the establishment of the Walkscape community team. We've been lucky to have a couple of community members step up and provide exceptional support for the dev team in various ways. If you've been on our Discord you've probably seen them in action, but we are happy to have the following members:
- Hexalyse (working on the Portal & backend)
- floursifter (working as the community manager and in various other roles)
So why did we decide to expand the arts team and hire an intern? During a conversation with IGDA Finland’s representative at W Love Games, I learned that there are many game development interns in Finland seeking job opportunities. Since we have a company now, I thought it would be a great opportunity to help some individuals land their first job in the game industry. Therefore, I opened a position for a 2D artist and we were fortunate enough to find Sorgo on the same day.
Due to financial constraints, we are not yet able to hire more full-time staff, so internships are a better fit for us at this stage. We chose to focus on arts because the art required for the closed beta is already completed, allowing maxchill to dedicate time to training the intern. While our main bottleneck is currently programming speed, recruiting a full-time programmer for WalkScape before the closed beta would be time-consuming for me and could result in further delays. That's why we decided to seek help in the area of 2D arts, as talented individuals can contribute even with limited professional experience. On the other hand, professional experience is crucial when it comes to programming, especially for a project like WalkScape.
With Sorgo's assistance, we expect to increase our arts output. Additionally, as she has experience with illustrations and larger art pieces, we can incorporate non-pixelart elements into the game, particularly to enhance the lore.
More content
The biggest thing currently missing before release is more content for the game, as visible from the list. This is important for a couple of reasons:
- Adding more content makes the initial version of the game take longer to complete and makes it more enjoyable.
- By making the game take longer to complete, it gives us time to develop the next content update before players run out of things to do.
- The game world will feel less empty. In the initial version of the closed beta, expect the game world to feel a bit empty due to the lack of NPCs, quests, varied activities and online features. This will be addressed in later updates.
Progress has been made on the content development. Here are some in-game pictures to showcase the work completed in the past few weeks:
New mining activities added to the mountains
There's a possibility to also do some foraging in the mountains
In some cities, you can do some litter looting...
Plenty of new crafting recipes have been added
The content work will likely continue until the next development blog. By that point, most of it should be done, allowing us to move on to the final missing features on the list before releasing the closed beta.
Portal updates and supporter Beta Access cutoff
The WalkScape Portal has also received couple of important updates. Most important of these is the new feed feature. You can now see new posts or posts that have new comments in the feed, making it easier to follow anything new that might have been posted to Portal.
Portal’s sorting has also been improved, and there are some minor UI fixes.
Supporters gaining immediate access to the closed beta when its released is also now cutoff (the cutoff happened on November 1st, 00:00 UTC+0). If you have previously supported, but didn’t link your Portal account to Patreon/BMAC, it should still see the date you started your support and gives the invitation correctly.
Huge thanks for the amazing support we’ve received during October! Also, as a reminder, if you’re thinking of starting to support now after the cutoff, you’ll be receiving access in the second wave of beta invites.
World Map rework is “completed”
Next up, some news from the arts department!
Maxchill has been working extensively on the rework of the world map in the past two weeks. We are proud to announce that the world map is now "completed". Take a look at this picture to see the progress:
The worldmap filled with a lot more stuff!
If you have any cool unique location ideas, or other ideas for the map, please either post them below or use this form to post suggestions. All ideas are welcome, we’re looking for more interesting stuff to add to the map!
However, when we say "completed" here, it means that the map is now filled with basic structures and vegetation. The work on the world map is an ongoing process. In the next phase, Maxchill will add more unique details, polish certain areas, and increase the variety. It is important to note that the world map will continue to be updated even after the game's full release. This includes the addition of new unique locations, new lore, and even new continents or islands.
We hope you enjoy exploring the map! There are already numerous smaller details and hints about the lore incorporated into it. Perhaps those with a keen eye will discover some interesting surprises.
Until next time
Time to wrap up this development blog!
In this final segment of the post, I would like to express my gratitude for everyone's patience. We remain optimistic that the closed beta will be released before the end of the year, as promised earlier.
Additionally, we are thrilled to welcome a new addition to our team! I am excited to see what we can achieve with the additional resources we now have.
Thank you, stay safe, and keep walking! <3
Sweet team portrait!
Thanks for the update and welcome to the team Sorgo.
Heeeey Sorgooo 👋👋🥳
Welcome to the team Sorgo! The Not a Cult is expanding 🐙
Thanks for being open about the detailed todo-list. Prioritizing the core gameplay is reasonable. Great choice taking that government-supported personal business guidance course. You're all awesome, including Sorgo!
Well done everyone for your work! Sure its going to be great!!!
👋🏼🍀
A fine Dev update, and congratulations to Sorgo.
Thanks for warm welcome everyone <3
That is all fully understandable, and I appreciate that transparency. It's a lot of work on just two(now three) people! Welcome to the team Sorgo!!
Great devlog, and as someone who recently had a software internship that changed my life, I’m so happy to see you offering this opportunity. Welcome Sorgo!!!
Awesome work. I know you guys are working hard but do you have a rough estimate on when the closed beta will be out? Obviously not asking for a day and definitely not blaming you guys if you don’t make it but what is the best estimate right now? Q1 2024? After that? Looking forward to it!
I missed the cutoff for support for the closed beta! Do you know about how long the second wave of beta testing will be after the first wave?
@kaaskask: Q1 is something I'm 100% sure we can hit. If we don't make it during this year, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to at least set the release date before the end of the year with confidence.
@SturgeonGeneral: I would approximate it's between 1 to 2 months after the first wave. We want to fix any major issues with just the first wave, and when things seems stable, we open it up for the second wave preferably accompanied by a content update.
@schamppu Great news! And the hypetrain continues on! Thanks for being awesome!
Awesome, thanks for the reply!
Absolutely stoked can’t wait for a reason to be out walking in the awful weather 😂