Tip of the day
Being overencumbered only slows down your activities, but doesn't affect travel.
Devupdates/2025
From Walkscape Walkthrough
Posted on June 6, 2025.
- Announced update +478, focusing on critical step-loading issues and smaller interface fixes.
- Improved total statistics displays, including highest 24-hour steps, and allowed crafting materials to be tapped in the crafting view to inspect their details.
- Included a changelog covering cosmetic display corrections, text and layout fixes, improved scrolling on small screens, and updated community translations.
Posted on May 26, 2025.
- Announced version 0.3.0-beta+473, with maintenance planned for May 26 from approximately 15:00 to 16:00 UTC.
- Included a changelog covering smart watch fixes, step tracking improvements, new content, and quality of life changes.
Steps and smart watches
- Repaired step graphs and the 30k step achievement, updating the achievement's wording and adding a highest 24-hour steps statistic to the character page.
- Steps recorded before the engine rework would no longer appear in the updated graphs.
- Fixed fatal iOS errors involving Apple Watch and unintended switching from a watch back to the phone as the step source.
Interface and accessibility
- Added direct WalkPedia access from activities, items, and the current activity's skill button.
- Crafting reward items could be tapped to inspect their details.
- Added a loading overlay to prevent rewards being revealed before the "while you were away" popup.
- Added nine language options, including Thai, Japanese, Russian, and English (US), alongside sprite rendering and interface fixes.
Content
- Expanded the world with a new location, activity, routes, buildings, NPCs, shops, items, and cosmetics.
- Adjusted shop prices and corrected job board, reputation, loot, and recipe issues.
- A submitter comment explained that content descriptions were deliberately kept vague to preserve discovery and community discussion.
Posted on May 2, 2025.
- A server error granted early Closed Beta access to 871 supporters.
- Existing invitations were honoured, and immediate access was extended to anyone who supported before 23:59 UTC on May 2.
- Later supporters would wait for the planned Wave 4 launch on May 15 at 12:00 UTC.
Technical cause
- Wave start and end dates were cached separately to reduce database calls.
- The end date refreshed before the start date, temporarily combining the new end date with the previous start date and making the server treat the wave as already open.
Remaining work
- Limiting early access was intended to preserve development time and avoid delaying Wave 4.
- Step graphs, the 30k step achievement, and iOS smart watch support still needed fixes.
- A hotfix addressing major issues and adding some content was targeted for the same day.
Posted on April 25, 2025.
- Announced iOS smart watch support in update #457, with community testing needed to identify issues before Wave 4.
- Release depended on Apple TestFlight and Google Play approval, followed by an estimated 1–2 hours of maintenance.
- Included a changelog covering new content, localisation improvements, settings changes, and bug fixes.
Wearable support and testing
- Initially allowed all wearables and health-sync apps, with a later whitelist planned because some sources lacked sufficiently detailed data for reliable anti-cheat checks.
- Requested compatibility reports identifying the wearable, syncing apps, reproduction steps, and relevant Apple Health step-data screenshots.
- Opened a wearables forum channel on Discord for testing feedback and device reports.
- Submitter comments clarified that only one step source could be active at a time, avoiding a competitive advantage from combining sources. Players could switch sources through settings at any time.
Settings and localisation
- Reworked in-game settings, resetting existing settings to their defaults.
- Improved language selection and added a preferred grammatical gender option for supported languages.
Wave 4 preparations
- Critical wearable issues were the immediate priority.
- Fixing inconsistencies in the steps graph was the remaining task before Wave 4 once wearable support was stable.
Posted on April 1, 2025.
- An April Fools' post presented a fictional UI redesign built around a single terminal-style menu.
- Login would take place through the terminal, with character creation and customisation displayed using ASCII art.
- The redesign was a joke rather than a confirmed interface change.
Posted on March 25, 2025.
- Released +435 with WalkPedia improvements, quality of life features, and fixes intended to resolve the remaining Trinketry update issues.
- Development focus was shifting from post-update support to smart watch integration.
- Included a changelog covering a new activity, translations, balance adjustments, and interface and rendering fixes.
WalkPedia improvements
- Added skill pages showing progression statistics, unlocks, and short guides explaining how to begin training each skill.
- Skill pages could be opened directly by tapping skills in the Character view.
- Added links within text to supported WalkPedia pages, allowing players to inspect referenced items, activities, skills, and locations directly from requirements and descriptions.
- A submitter comment proposed adding guides for core mechanics before the next beta wave.
Clearer item and service information
- Redesigned service icons with visible tier indicators.
- Displayed item keywords in item views and WalkPedia, making it easier to identify equipment that satisfies requirements such as light sources.
Posted on March 17, 2025.
- Announced Trinketry as WalkScape's tenth skill, with the update planned for March 18 at around 12:00 UTC.
- Players were not expected to lose steps during the update.
- The content was built rapidly using the new development tools, demonstrating faster content creation even before the tools were fully finished.
Trinketry
- Trinketry uses a new service, the Trinketry Bench, which would be scarce in Jarvonia but more common in the Grand Duchy.
- The skill was designed to be demanding to level, requiring substantial material gathering and offering relatively low experience per step.
- Some existing rings, amulets, and other items were converted into new items. Any that were no longer equipment would be unequipped and removed from gear sets.
Posted on January 19, 2025.
- Celebrated the first year of Closed Beta, reviewing major releases, community growth, and lessons from development.
- Closed Beta participation grew from 752 players in Wave 1 to 24,683 in Wave 3.5, with 47,290 registered accounts and over 8.1 billion steps walked.
First-year development
- Reviewed additions including Friends, WalkPedia, the Adventurer's Guild, Achievements, Consumables, Syrenthia, and translations.
- Android pedometer troubleshooting consumed several months before Google's Recording API resolved the main reliability problems.
- Community funding enabled myzozoz to join as a second developer, expanding the team's development capacity.
- WalkScape received the Best Indie Game audience award at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki.
Engine and development tools
- Growing content complexity and a larger team exposed limitations in tools originally designed for one developer.
- The nearly finished engine rework reorganised the code, introduced multithreading, and improved server capacity.
- Reworking internal content tools was the next technical priority to make content creation faster and more reliable.
- Wave-based access helped manage customer support and marketing demands, leaving time for development between waves.
Open Beta and funding
- Open Beta was the main goal for 2025, with Trading, Combat, Quests, further quality of life improvements, and better development tools still needed.
- Hiring a third developer was desired but unaffordable. Not a Cult reported first-year revenue of approximately €62,000 and profit of €2,000.
- Submitter comments described a planned free-to-play region with subscriptions for later areas, although the extent of free access remained undecided.
- Discounted subscription pre-orders were being considered to help fund the transition from voluntary support to Open Beta.
- A submitter comment clarified that the Jagex agreement concerned trademark use and did not give Jagex control over WalkScape's business decisions.
Posted on January 7, 2025.
- Announced the migration of WalkScape Wiki from Miraheze hosting to a more powerful server set up with the wiki community.
- The move would give the wiki community full control over customisation.
- Maintenance was expected to last 2–3 hours, but a submitter comment confirmed it finished much sooner than anticipated.
