It’s time. Can’t explain how excited I am for us to complete our first big milestone - but I’ll try to express some of my own feelings at the end! Let’s get started!

Game is available for download for wave one

The game is now available for download to everyone who is in wave one of WalkScape (meaning that the Portal account page indicates that you have been accepted). To find the download link, navigate to the account page in Portal using your phone.

Account page on Portal

Once you have downloaded the game, you can start it. However, please note that the game is currently in maintenance mode, which means that you will not be able to access it. Maintenance mode will be lifted at 20:00 UTC+0, after which you will be able to start playing.

IMPORTANT!

As mentioned, the Closed Beta characters will be wiped at the end of the Closed Beta. Characters in Closed Beta might become playable in the offline mode afterwards. I know it is unfortunate that we need to do it, but it’s necessary in order to provide players equal footing when the game becomes accessible for everyone in Open Beta.

There’s also a possibility that due to technical issues we might need to wipe the progress more than just once. We’ll avoid this to the best of our ability.

Wave two

We are currently planning to expand the player base once the first update for the game is ready. This process is expected to take around 3 weeks, depending on the number of bugs or other critical issues found in the initial build of the game.

If you have supported us after the first cutoff, you will gain access to the game in the second wave. Additionally, we will be accepting players who have applied to the closed beta during the second wave.

More information will be provided about this in a few weeks after the release, once we have a clearer understanding of the number of critical issues that need to be addressed.

Closed Beta roadmap

Another thing that many of you are probably interested in is how we plan to expand the game after its initial release.

It's important to note that this first release of WalkScape should not be considered a full release. It's a closed beta version with missing features and potential critical issues or bugs.

Here is our current plan for updates, although please keep in mind that these plans might change based on our available resources and workload:

• Over the Air content updates and minor patches: These updates will occur every 1-3 weeks. They will introduce new content and balancing adjustments to the game through our OTA system, so there is no need to update the game itself from app stores.
• Minor feature updates: These updates will occur every 1-2 months and will introduce new features. Examples of minor features include smartwatch support, in-game multiplayer world events, and achievement systems.
• Major updates: These updates will occur once every quarter (approximately every 3 months). They will bring significant additions to the game, including new content, features, and mechanics. The first major update we have planned is the addition of the Farming skill, along with other supplementary mechanics. In the future, these updates may also include the introduction of entirely new regions to the game, such as Wallisia, Galeforge, Wrentmark, each with their own unique mechanics that add more variety to the gameplay.

We believe we can stick to this three-tiered update plan with our current resources. This would ensure that the game is updated frequently enough to keep our players engaged and hopefully alleviating you from feeling that the development is too stagnant. Developing the game to the level we promised is a lengthy process, and we want to maintain player interest by providing frequent updates, even in the early stages.

Our plan is to start this update cycle around the time when wave two is accepted into the game. Before that, our focus will be on fixing bugs/issues and adding some polish to the game.

Additionally, we want to maintain transparency in the development process, as we have done so far. Therefore, we will be polling players on the Portal and in the game itself to determine which new features to prioritize. We are currently considering that players will decide on one feature for us to add in the updates, and then our development team will decide on supplementary features for the same update based on what is feasible and aligns with the players' decision.

We welcome any feedback or suggestions regarding this approach. We are also considering how to proceed with development blogs. Our current plan is to release monthly development blogs, with smaller blog posts in between. This way, we will still have two posts every month, as we did before.

Regarding the open beta, we anticipate that the game will be ready for it after a few of these major updates. But currently, I don’t want to give any exact time, as things might be changing a lot in the following months based on player feedback.

Online requirement

The version of WalkScape delivered during Closed Beta will be the online mode of the game. To maintain the integrity of this game, there’s a requirement that you need a connection to interact with the game. To be clear, your phone pedometer will count steps even if you are offline, but you will not be able to open the game without your phone being connected to the internet. We realize that this can lead to some non-ideal scenarios if you are going for extended hikes or trips without service, and we are committed to provide a better way to gain progress for those scenarios in the future. One feature we plan to introduce is an adventure mode where you can set your character up on a long in-game adventure. This would be optimal to set your character to do during longer hikes or times when you can’t connect to the internet.

I again want to stress that while you are walking, the game requires no internet connection and the main premise of WalkScape is that you do not need to open it while out on a walk. The game is balanced in a way that you can walk a lot of steps before you’re starting to run out of inventory space. And if you did run out of materials, the Saved Steps feature comes in handy to not make you lose steps.

Key reasons for this requirement are the following:

• Makes it nearly impossible to create modded .apk's of the game, where the game could be modified and played on an unofficial client.
• Ensures that every online player is playing the game on the same version with the server. Meaning that everyone will be playing with the same balancing and features. Without this requirement it would be possible to play on an older version of the game. That could lead into competitive advantage by using old versions to use previous game balancing and exploits.
• Enables us to run server side anti-cheat to validate that players are not gaining fraudulent steps, and instantly flag or ban players that have been cheating.
• Allows us to put the server into maintenance mode, where players are not able to play the online game mode (but you can still gain steps while the game is in maintenance, they’ll be loaded in when the maintenance is lifted). This is necessary when exploits are discovered, so we can temporarily disable the online game mode while quickly working to fix the issue.

The ability to do the above is absolutely necessary for fair competition and a trustworthy in-game economy, and is a key reason why MMOs require a connection to play. We’re doing our best to balance things in a way that we think works best for the players, and what’s required to have a fair MMO. This is why we’re making sure that you can progress in the game even while you don’t have a connection or the server is down, but in order to interact with the game, you need it so we can validate that you’re playing on the correct version and not doing anything that might lead into an unfair competitive advantage.

We’ll be releasing the offline mode later on, which can be played and accessed without ever needing internet connection.

Giving feedback, current issues, and my plans

So first of all: we really appreciate reporting any issues you might be facing in the game. It’s currently what I would still consider very early build of it, and I had to do some massive changes just before this launch which we weren’t able to properly test given the time constraint of the release date.

Setting up new infrastructure for the game, specifically for over-the-air content updates, online requirements, and game validation, has consumed a significant amount of my time over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, this has resulted in less time available for adding new content, features, and polishing as initially planned. However, we are actively addressing these issues and are already working on the next update.

I want to inform you that I will be attending the Pocket Gamer Connects event in London from January 21st to 26th. Regrettably, this timing is less than ideal since we just launched the game, and I will be unable to work on it during this period. Nevertheless, I anticipate that the first update, addressing fixes and providing additional polish, will be released shortly after my return.

Currently, there are a few things that need attention in the game:

• We've added a tutorial mechanic, but it's not fully fleshed out yet. It's a temporary feature designed to help players get familiar with the different functions of the game. So, you'll only come across it in a few places for now.
• We've noticed some UI mistakes that are quite common. Some of the design elements are a bit confusing, and we didn't have enough time to polish them up for this build. We would really appreciate your feedback on these, even though we already have a long list of things we want to improve.
• We've encountered some bugs with game validation, OTA updates, and other recently added features. The error messages can be confusing at times, and the system might fail occasionally. Usually, a simple restart or reinstall of the game should resolve the issue.
• Android users might face a small problem when it comes to counting steps. If you restart your phone, it resets the pedometer back to 0 steps, and the game won't register any steps afterwards. We have a solution in the works, but it will take some time to implement. In the meantime, we suggest opening the game before and immediately after restarting your phone to ensure your steps are counted.
• There's a lot more content that we have planned for the game. We added a ton of content during the alpha phase, but we weren't able to include everything we had in mind. The good news is that we now have the OTA system to regularly deliver more content to you, and we have big plans to do that in the coming weeks.
• Achievements and Consumables didn't make it in time for the launch, but they are our top priorities after the release. They're almost there, just a few final touches and they'll be ready to go.
• The game hasn’t been optimized, so there can be some performance issues. Because of the nature of the game, this shouldn’t be a huge problem to have fun with it, but it might be annoying for some. The game currently is working a lot smoother on iOS because iOS already uses the new rendering engine (Impeller) provided by Flutter. But Android is still using the old rendering engine, and for low-end phones this might result in some lag. When Flutter releases Impeller also for Android, the performance should improve a lot, and I also plan to make the game a lot more optimized in the coming weeks to fix anything that is currently causing some performance hiccups.
• Localisations and settings are currently missing, and some quality of life (QoL) features aren't fully functional. You might come across a search bar that doesn't do anything yet, and there aren't any customisable settings in the game. These were features we had hoped to include, and they will be added in the coming weeks. Our translators would also love to see their translations in the game, but currently, there's no option to switch to a different language.

Here are the currently known issues that I personally feel that needs some more focus and fixing. However, aside from those, I am proud of what we managed to achieve in such a short time with only one developer.

My personal experience and thoughts

This post is going to be a long one, lol. I tried to keep it short, but well... there's a lot of things to cover, and this is definitely the most important blog post so far. And thanks to everyone who has read it this far!

So - the last few weeks have been crazy. Because I wanted to add so many things into it at the last minute, I had to crunch some insane amount of hours, and I've often needed to work without having any sleep. So I'm quite exhausted, but also really happy that we're finally releasing it. And a huge thanks to everyone who has been following us <3

It's been awesome, although also very difficult at times, and we're only at the beginning. I'm very excited about where things will go from here and finally being able to take in feedback and ideas from our players to make it even better.

In a few days, I'll be leaving for the convention in London, and I'll try to relax a little bit over there to be able to jump right back into the development after I'm back. But I also can't crunch as much as I have for the last few weeks, and hopefully, there's not as much need for crunching now that we've hit the release date that we promised. I should be able to hit our next milestones mostly by working more normal hours.

Since I was a little kid, I was always really fascinated by games and wanted to become a game developer. This project started as something I was just working on for myself as a hobby to help myself become more active but grew from there. And when I realized how helpful this can be not just for myself but also for others, I became serious about it. And it's been the thing my life has been revolving around for the past months 99% of the time. And I really love it :D Although I also need to learn to take better care of myself too.

But okay, that's what it's been like for me from a personal life standpoint. But from the gaming standpoint, I have also been quite obsessed with it during the alpha phase. I just recently bought myself a walking pad so I can walk while I'm working on it, and I'm seeing some great improvement already in both my health and the number of steps I'm taking every day. And I've had a really fun time playing it with the other people who were involved in alpha testing - and a huge thanks to them, especially floursifter who has been providing testing and feedback vigorously and keeping things organized when I haven't been able to.

And the fact that I've also had a great time playing it in alpha is a great sign for me about the things to come. And based on the feedback from other testers, they've also been quite happy (apart from some terrible issues we've run into :D). Some have even become absolutely hooked on walking. If the initial release version can already be enjoyed and fun, I think we're at a great point to make it even better. And I'm hoping that after we've fixed any critical issues found in the initial version of the game in the upcoming weeks and added more content and polish, it will be even more enjoyable. And we're still talking about a game that's just a closed beta and only has the core gameplay features in it.

Until next time

That was a lot of text! I hope this post provides more clarity on the past, present, and future. I cannot stress enough how grateful I am for all the support, help, and encouragement from the community. We are incredibly fortunate to have started from scratch and kept the game independent and community-funded throughout its development. This is one of our greatest strengths: I have the ability to listen to the community without any stakeholders forcing me to do otherwise.

Anyway, back to work. I assume there will be a bunch of bugs found today, but I hope things will start to go smoothly in the coming weeks. I also hope you have a great time trying it out, and the second wave will have a more polished version to join in on.

Stay hydrated and keep walking!