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DevBlog #1: Promises and the Idea of the Game

Posted: November 28, 2022

Summary: Year summary

Source: Original post

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The promise and idea of the game

Welcome to the first blog post of WalkScape! First of all, I'd like to list some disclaimers:

• Everything that is being discussed in the blog posts and development updates are subject to change, as is usual in game development. Something may feel right at some point, but may change in the future.
• Suggestions and constructive criticism is highly appreciated! One of the reasons for creating this subreddit is to interact with people who are interested in the game and its development and hear their opinions in order to make the best game possible.
• I am not a native English speaker, so it's very probable that I make mistakes. If you see some typos or errors in the game, be sure to tell me so I can fix it!

Also, if you want to be participate more actively in the development, be sure to join the Discord server here: https://discord.gg/Kk6VecJFEk

The Idea

The idea of the game is to be non-intrusive or distracting mobile game inspired by classic MMORPGs which also works as a fitness app. A very strange combination of things, but hear me out!

In the game you are set in an open-world where your main objective fundamentally is to grind your skills up and craft things. Other objectives include finding the rarest items, completing all quests and achievements or gathering a lot of money. Its an open ended game, just like some classic point & click MMORPGs, but everything is tied to your skill levels. Skills include things like woodcutting, mining, cooking, fishing, agility and such. Combat will also be introduced into the game later.

How the main gameplay loop actually works is that you can select from a number of activities in your current location what you would like to do, and then each action requires a certain amount of steps that you must walk in real life. The game utilizes your device's step counter information. A simplified example:

You are currently in Nomad Forest, which naturally has a lot of trees, so there are a few different woodcutting activities. You want to gather some logs, so you choose to do some woodcutting. Each chopped tree requires 100 steps in real life, so you put your phone into your pocket and take a long walk. Come back home and you have chopped 50 trees and got a few woodcutting levels!

When you are at home, you can choose to sell your logs (selling to the global marketplace won't probably be location dependent, so you can empty your inventory from wherever you want by selling), or you could take another walk to get to a city where you can process the logs to something more useful, like to planks or to a better hatchet.

The core gameplay loop is quite simple, and the main idea is to skill up to get better gear so you can get stuff done more easily. Higher levels and better mean less steps required per action, so your walks will always get more profitable! Certain skill levels are required in order to progress the main story of the game and to complete quests. Crafting yourself good combat gear is also very important in order to complete dungeons etc.

The Features

Here is a list of features which I am aiming to have in the "completed" version of the game. Also, this is a project that I would love to keep updated even after it is completed. First version of the game will probably be released as early access with limited amount of features, and then it will be updated with more content.

• At least 20 different skills to grind. These include at least following:
  • Woodcutting
  • Carpentry
  • Agility
  • Mining
  • Smithing
  • Foraging
  • Fishing
  • Cooking
  • Fletching
  • Alchemy
  • And more to be announced!
• World Map. There is a world map with a lot of varying places to visit, adventures to seek and secrets to find!
• Questing. Locations will offer you quests. I will try to find a way to make some quests that would also offer good story moments.
• Achievements. There will be plenty of achievements to unlock which will give you collectibles and rewards if you complete them!
• Tasks. There will be region specific tasks that will unlock you special powers if you complete them all.
• Main Story. There is going to be a longer main quest line that will take the player to see the different continents of the world.
• Items and loot. As is usual with these types of games, there will be lots of items and materials to collect. As a bonus to spice the game up, I will include very rare special items to even the more basic activities like woodcutting so players always know that they have a chance to get something really special!
• High scores and leaderboards. Can you walk your way to have the biggest total level?
• Trading on a global market place. You can sell your items to other players on a global market place and also be the richest player in the game!
• PvP and PvE combat. Can you climb the leaderboards of the Arena? Or beat the toughest dungeons?

The Promise

I as a game developer have quite a lot of disgust towards the current mobile game industry. This is why, from this first blog post forward, I'd like to make a few promises about the game that I intend to keep:

• No ads, no greedy monetization. If the game is completed and gets some traction, I have planned to include a paid and affordable subscription model to it (the servers must be paid for, and it would be awesome to be able to develop games full time). You can start the game as a F2P player and have a lot of content to do even before subscribing to the game and unlocking all content there is.
• Transparency and zero tracking. The game could at some point require GPS information for anti-cheat (to see that you are really walking, not just shaking the phone), but any information that could potentially violate player's privacy will not be saved. I am a very privacy focused individual and would hate to make a game that wouldn't let you keep your privacy.
• Non-intrusive. The main idea of the game is that you can passively play it while walking, and then do all the in-game "active" stuff when you get home. When you go to a walk, I want you to be able to enjoy the nature and being outside, not be glued to the screen. This is one of the main design principles of how the game functions. All notifications for levels ups etc. will be opt-in if the player wants to have it that way. My objective will not be to maximize user's session & screen times, quite contrary I want the players to feel that they can do stuff quickly and easily and enjoy the game in the background.
• Community first. The game will be developed largely based on the feedback of the community. I will try my best to hear feedback and suggestions and pick the best approach for the game to make it as good as possible for the players. You can join the Discord server in order to give your feedback and suggestions even to the smaller things which I will be polling there.
• Awesome interface and user experience. I am a sort of perfectionist when it comes to UI and UX, so I am really trying to make it as good as possible!

Feedback from users

In the last few weeks many people have given me lots of feedback and I would like to address one thing here publicly.

Some people have said that they aren't really interested in the online/MMO style features and would like to play it offline. Based on this feedback I am probably going to include a completely offline way to play the game (with options to save your stuff to cloud if you want to make a backup or change your phone).

For people who want to play offline they would have the option to just buy the game (so no subscription needed, but single payment). People with subscription can also play the full offline version if they want to in addition to the online version. There would be a F2P offline version as well which will be similarly limited to the online F2P one, so the players can first try it out and then purchase if they want to.

What next?

This blog post was more of an introduction and more general description of the game and what it will include. I will try my best to make biweekly dev diaries (always on monday, so next one is going to pop up 12.12.2022, 12:00 GMT+0300), and next time we'll dive deeper into the gameplay itself! The next blog posts will all go deeper into the details of the game's features.

If you have any questions or feedback please tell!