this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
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I just released my first fully free Android game: Wandering Alchemist (GPS walking game) (play.google.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by Vlyn@lemmy.zip to c/games@lemmy.world
101 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Edit: After a weekend of work, I just added achievements https://lemmy.zip/post/69007248

It took quite a while, but it's finally out. Fully free, no ads, no in-app purchases (besides a "Support the developer" option), no data collection and fully offline playable. All you need is your phone and GPS :)

I originally made the game to go on walks, unfortunately I sat even more in front of my PC to develop it. It is what it is. Hopefully it motivates some of you to get your steps in ๐Ÿ’š

General idea of the game: Collect ingredients, brew them into potions and sell them to merchants. With the gold and reputation you get you can buy things and decorate your neighborhood. Other players see the same map and resources (so you can indirectly play together), but the game world fully belongs to you (singleplayer only).

General roadmap right now:

  • Adding achievements
  • Adding buildings you can improve over time (tavern to attract merchants and an ingredient tree you need to grow)
  • More minigames and improving the existing ones
  • And of course bugfixes, please let me know if you run into issues :)

For any questions and suggestions I'm always available!

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[โ€“] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 55 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Looks cute. I like the art style.

Ya gonna open source it and put it on fdroid?

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 25 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

No plans yet, I might look into that in the future.

I'd rather focus on bringing it to iOS, having a few people who already asked for it. Not an Apple fan, so still thinking about getting an old used iPhone for testing..

[โ€“] magikmw@piefed.social 21 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You can probably emulate iOS in xcode but you are unlikely to build anything for it without MacOS and xcode. Yeah, lovely environment.

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 21 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Yes, you need a Mac for XCode (can't emulate that). Then you also need to pay Apple $99 a year, even if you just want to release a free app.

I could simulate an iPhone for testing, but for a GPS game this would be messy. Even on Android I'm still struggling a bit with getting GPS to work reliably. You pretty much need a real phone to test that :-/

[โ€“] magikmw@piefed.social 7 points 2 weeks ago

Oh right, forgot the GPS, welp.

[โ€“] amzd@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Xcode actually has pretty good gps emulation, you can set routes for it to walk.

What tech is this using? Is it a html5 game?

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Oh, it's Godot.

I know you can simulate GPS, but it's way too clean and predictable. With a real phone you get much weirder behavior. Besides the whole permission topic on real devices.

One player complained about GPS jumping 100 meters away, but their Google Maps had the same issue. So I had to say "I can't do it better than Google Maps" :D

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[โ€“] Allero@lemmy.today 37 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Seconding the F-Droid request.

Also, the app is not available in Russia, is that by design?

In any case, good luck with it and thanks for sharing something like this!

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 30 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes, sorry. I had to limit a handful of countries due to laws.

For example Japan forces you to register a business there.. similar to Vietnam. Russia has sanctions. And so on :-/

[โ€“] Allero@lemmy.today 10 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

I see! This is understandable for a small indie dev.

But I'll always be happy to see other avenues for distribution :)

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[โ€“] nameisnotimportant@sh.itjust.works 28 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Interesting concept and I wanted to try it. Downloaded from Aurora (because my phone is degooglized) and was kicked out of the game upon launch because google play isn't enabled.. Disappointing and I'd love to have it on F Droid too

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 35 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Ah, sorry, by default Google seems to inject some kind of Google Protection into new apps. You're the third person asking about F Droid, I'll have to take a look :)

I might need to do custom builds for that though (strip out Google plugins), I'll put it on my todo list.

[โ€“] adolei@aussie.zone 12 points 2 weeks ago

+1 for f-droid pls :)

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 17 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Found it, Google injects by default an "Installer check" that blocks the app from running without Google Play.

I disabled it, try to get the newest version of the game (1.2.11) over Aurora and see if it runs :)

F Droid is a lot more messy, the game has to be 100% open source for it, which is not something I'm working on right now. I'd rather get it to iOS first.

[โ€“] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

What's the problem with 100% open-sourcing? Third party libraries?

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[โ€“] lemonhead2@lemmy.world 23 points 2 weeks ago

well, I don't have any interest in this game. but, since it's free with no data collection I'll try it, and give it 5 stars

[โ€“] MrPinder@lemmy.world 18 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is so cool and I immediately downloaded it. I look forward to trying it out and dontaing to you! I rather my money go to a donation than a store. Thanks for sharing and developing!

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 19 points 2 weeks ago

Thank you ๐Ÿ’š

But please only donate if you're rich. Otherwise just enjoy the game and if you want give feedback :)

Times are hard enough for everyone, I made the game in my freetime and have a job, so no worries!

[โ€“] velma@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is really cool! I'll def download it and send some support :)

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks ๐Ÿ’š Let me know what you think about it!

[โ€“] Cricket@lemmy.zip 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Looks great, thank you for developing it and for releasing it for free without catches! I hope that you will eventually release it for iOS.

Have you posted this to Mastodon or any other social media yet? I hope that word will spread and make your game popular. :)

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Just on Reddit, but it's a ghost town with zero interactions, lol.

I'm not really active on Twitter like sites, not my style unfortunately :-/

[โ€“] Cricket@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No problem, I understand. I'll see what I can do to spread the word.

You may want to consider cross-posting this to some other communities on Lemmy though, like !freegames@lemmy.ml and perhaps !openstreetmap@lemmy.ml since this is a pretty interesting use of OSM data. Thanks again.

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Will do, thank you!

[โ€“] Cricket@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 weeks ago

Thank you!

[โ€“] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Just read your comments about OSM data etc. Fantastic! Well done.

About to head on holiday to Europe, so have downloaded it and will play as I go.

Thank you!

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Lovely. If you run out of street map as you travel, just hit the map button again. It will hopefully offer you the download for the new area :)

[โ€“] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 weeks ago

Great tip! Thank you

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[โ€“] milk@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 2 weeks ago

I see a couple people asking for an F-Droid release which would be great, but would require the app to be open source. Just thought I'd let you know there's no obligation for you to open-source your app if you dont want to. If you'd rather keep it closed source that's okay too

[โ€“] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

This looks awesome! Downloaded. I already play Walkscape, which is like RuneScape but works by counting steps. This will be a fun addition.

Is it playable while traveling? I don't know if it's a waste to put down stuff in places to which I'll never return.

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Fully playable while traveling.

Stuff you put down is just decoration (so skip that for places you don't revisit) and currently two functional buildings (garden to plant ingredients, market stall to sell potions for less gold).

When traveling over 12 km/h it doesn't count for walk distance (companion rewards, daily missions, ..) but it's fully playable otherwise :)

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[โ€“] ozoned@piefed.social 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I've never been one to do mobile app type things, and with the Pokemon Go stuff that came out, I'm massively hesitant to. I understand this is offline, but it requires GPS. Is that just for the game locally on the device? I see no ads. Do you collect any data? I love this idea, I'm just honestly hesitant because of the current situation of these kinds of games.

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 21 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's fully offline, so no worries there. The GPS is just for your game to know where you are while playing. No ads, no data collected (besides what Google generally collects over the Play Store).

In theory there is one network connection to Cloudflare: I offer a street map download for all across the world. So for example if you're in Austria like me it looks up which map file you need (simple .json catalog), then offers you to download the map file once (57 MB for Austria). But I don't track anything there either.

Zero interest in handling player data, I'm in the EU, GDPR is a bitch :)

[โ€“] ozoned@piefed.social 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Thank you for taking the time to address my paranoia. :D

I've downloaded the game and going to try it out. First off, I absolutely LOVE the art style. So pretty.

Thank you for creating this and sharing it with us here. :)

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago

Thank you for giving it a try ๐Ÿ’š

Honestly I was a bit afraid no one is going to play it (:

[โ€“] baner@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Please make F-Droid version happens.

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[โ€“] antiR@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

I have tried it. So far, I had to open the Google Maps app while the app is open so it will exit "Waiting for GPS." Maybe for it to trigger the location service. Also, I think the map will be friendlier if it can be rotated based on the compass or manual rotation by pinch. The current setup would be fine only if you are already familiar with the roads in the area. But, for a free app, I like that there is an alternative i can use for Pokemon Go or Ingress.

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[โ€“] iamthetot@piefed.ca 7 points 2 weeks ago

Congratulations and good luck!

[โ€“] MrOtingocni@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Downloaded and gave it 5 Stars

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[โ€“] end0fline@piefed.social 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Iโ€™m always looking for a walking game, unfortunately Iโ€™m stuck on iOS. Do you use OpenStreetMap for your map data? Iโ€™d love to add your game to our wiki if so.

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 weeks ago

I still need to get a used iPhone to look into iOS releases (:

Map data is from OpenStreetMap, then heavily cut down and compressed so people don't have to download so much.

[โ€“] Pattylay@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

Copped!

[โ€“] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

So interestingly, my phone downloaded and is playing it fine. We went to search it up on my husband's phone, and his phone isn't supported? Which is wild to me, as my phone is older/generally the one that doesn't find apps!

Also maybe for the future, an idea! It's very odd to me I can't move the map at all. No swiveling around and looking, it's always just looking northish I suppose! Maybe I'm more use to games like Orna where you can swivel and move and look around the map though.

So far I do like it! I look forward to more!

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

Edit: Wait, forgot about the main topic, what phone does your husband have? There shouldn't be any restriction on Android version (if it's one of the newer ones), but maybe I really messed up somewhere.

Yes, the map only has zoom for now (pinch in and out). As it's a fantasy world I didn't want to provide too much "looking around" options, the only thing that has to do with the real world is the street maps, which is an optional download ^^'

A little bit concerned people will do stupid things like go into private property, if I give too much freedom there. But I'll think about adding a two finger move or something, the big question is just how to recenter again afterwards (button? There already is a double tap to reset zoom).

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[โ€“] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Interesting. I'll see how well my phone likes it.

I'm very bad at both the dragging water to the pot and keeping the fire going it seems! Oh well.

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