This is device dependent bug, so we missed it. Seems to happen on Nothing Phones and maybe some others. We will be fixing it soon!
Last time we dived into some of the stuff about the new bank. Now I'm happy to say that it's already in testing, and hopefully ready to go soon along with the new update. Let's take a look & I'll be sharing a few other news here as well!
Reworked bank
The reworked bank is now in our internal testing, and while feature-wise it's almost completed, there are still some issues and polishing that needs to be added. I was originally planning to have it released this week, but currently it's looking like we have it ready for release some time next week.
The list of features that the new bank has right now:
- Tabs & categories. You can organize your items into tabs, and further subdivide them into categories.
- Automatic filters for both tabs & categories. You can setup tabs and categories to have automatic filters, meaning that new items will get automatically placed to those when deposited.
- Default layout & three layout slots. For most people, we recommend to just use the default layout. But for those who want to tinker with their own layouts you can create up to three bank layouts and switch between them. You can also export & import layouts, meaning that if you got a good one made you can share it with the community.
- Filters, sorting. You can add sorting or filter items in your bank. For example you can only show items that grant you work efficiency and so on.
- List & grid views. You can switch between a condensed grid view and a list view (that has buttons to quickly withdraw items from the bank with just one tap).
- Bank settings. You can customize the behavior and how the bank renders stuff a bit from the bank settings.
- Much improved search functionality.
- Placeholder system. Even if you withdraw an item entirely from your bank, the bank will remember where you had your item when you deposit it. You can also while dragging items around also see where the placeholders are or move them around too. You can also disable seeing the placeholders if you don't want to see them.
- And a lot more that I probably forget here - and I'm still trying to add some more.
Right now, apart from some of the missing minor things I still want to add, I think the new bank is a massive improvement over the old system. However, in testing we noticed that for long-time players with a lot of items it might feel a bit hard to find some items at first. The new bank migrates your old bank and organizes everything to the default layout, so at first you might get a bit lost there if you have a ton of items. But I recommend to drag them around a bit & organize them yourself, so it's easier to remember where everything is.
For new players, the new bank starts practically empty or with very few items, and it fills up "incrementally", making it much easier to remember where your items are and to organize it further when new items are being added there.
Release timeline for reworked bank
We're currently aiming to release the reworked bank next week. Content update might get ready for release around the same time, but we can't yet promise if we're able to release both at the same time. But stay reassured, I'm not going to my vacation before we have all that we planned released!
YLE article
For those who were interested in the news coverage that WalkScape and I managed to get in the national Finnish news, here's the full article:
You can use the translate to English browser feature to read it. We also got coverage in the TV news and radio news, which was quite intense start to the week (the stuff got released on Monday).
No DevBlogs until 3rd of September
As said in the previous DevBlog, I'll be heading off to Summer vacation (and myzozoz is already enjoying his!). This means that there won't be DevBlogs on 6th and 20th of August and the next one will be on 3rd of September. Because we're back from the vacation don't expect anything massive on this DevBlog - it'll likely be a bunch of vacation photos and what we'll be doing next as the vacations are over!
However, as the update is going live before I'm heading to my vacation, there is very likely going to be a DevUpdate that covers changelogs & more on the bank once the update is going live.
Until next time
That's all for today! I hope you all enjoyed it and you're enjoying the Summer. I'm already itching to start my Summer vacation, as I've planned to once again do a massive multi-week hiking trip around the Europe to get some serious steps in.
Keep walking and stay hydrated! It's been very hot lately, so don't forget to drink water :D
Hello, and welcome to DevBlog #89!
As many of you might remember from last Summer in Finland we have the annual summer vacations. We've now locked in those plans, and will be covering the details of when (and how) we'll be on our vacations and how it affects update schedule.
We also have a bunch of progress in the reworked bank that I'll be showing and we got some content teasers. Let's dive in!
Reworked bank
Please keep in mind that a lot of the things, especially UI, might still change quite a bit. A lot of things you see here are still work-in-progress.
One of the things I wanted to improve before fully committing to the quest system development was reworking the bank. I've tried to combine as many of the ideas, suggestions and feedback we've received on the old bank.
Key goals were:
- No more reliance on search. You can find the items you're looking for intuitively.
- Give you the control of setting it up the way you want. But for starting players and casuals, providing a default layout they'll be fully happy with.
- Improve the performance a lot to avoid ANRs on bank.
- Make it look better. Add a bunch of nice QoL to top it off.
After designing this for a while, the system I ended up going for practically divides the bank into two layers: tabs and categories. Getting this UI to fit on a mobile screen was quite a struggle, as there's very limited space.
On the left side of screen you have your tabs. Currently these are Materials, Gear, Tools, Consumables and Misc.
Under each tab, the items are further separated into categories. For instance in Gear they're categorized by the different slots, in tools by the different skills, and in materials to logs, planks, bars, etc.
You're also able to move things around as much as you like, create your own tabs or categories, and you can even share your layout to other players just like with Gear Sets. You're not locked into the "default layout" that the game comes with - you can remove these tabs and categories and do whatever kind of layout you want.
In addition to these, there are several QoL additions, such as:
- Filters. You can for instance filter so that items with certain attributes only show up.
- Sorting. In addition to the order you've put the items in, you can switch to alphabetical, quantity, value (in coins), most recent, and so on.
- The bank remembers the order you've organized the items to. Even if you withdraw all of the items, the bank creates placeholders so that when you put items back the order stays the same inside categories.
- You can switch to special tabs for Favorites and Most recent.
- You can switch between the grid and list modes. List mode is handy if you want to quickly withdraw a bunch of stuff, whereas Grid is good for organizing and finding items.
- The bank remembers all of your settings, which tabs you had open, etc. throughout your sessions.
- Automatic filters in categories for new items. For instance if you gain a new fish and have a category that has automatic filter for raw fish, it'll automatically go there instead of going to uncategorized category.
Many of these are still not done, but WIP. Some might not make it in time, but I'll be trying my best to get as many of them ready for the release of this new reworked bank.
With these improvements I think the bank will be something people will find much more usable especially towards the late game.
We're aiming to release the reworked bank before heading off to Summer vacations!
Summer vacations
Alright, then to the very happy topic of Summer vacations!
Unlike last year, now with our added workforce we won't have any disruptions to the support email. So customer support will be available even during the vacations.
I'll be on vacation from 3th of August until 21st of August. Myzozoz is having some overlap with me during this with vacations, but starts his a bit early. Crushy is having his vacation later during this year.
During the period while I'm on vacation, there won't be updates to the game (unless there's something very critical). DevBlogs will also be paused, so the one going live on 23th of July will be the last before there's going to be a break. In other words: there won't be a DevBlog on 6th of August and 20th of August.
But before we take a break and recharge our mental batteries, we'll be doing an update that's going to add the reworked bank and new content to the game.
But the good thing here is, that the work doesn't stop. Although development will slow down while some of us are on vacations, most of the time there will be some progress!
Other news
Also I'd like to share some smaller news!
YLE article: The journalist called me twice this week. The article is still coming, but as it's going to be a big article it has taken much more time than I thought. Hopefully it gets released next week! I'll be sharing a link to it while it goes live on Discord and on a DevBlog for anyone who was interested reading it.
Trading: The actual trading mechanic worked for the first time this week, and the first trade ever happened on 8th of July 14:24 Helsinki time.
While the mechanic itself is now getting closer to being ready, there's still one big thing left: we need to add a lot of things for data collection on the trades and in-game stuff. These will be used for the trading and to balance in-game economy more effectively. We expect that this part of the work is going to quite some time, but it's hard to estimate how long exactly. The good side is that while that one is in development, we'll already begin testing the trading in our development server with our testers and means that the trading mecanic will be tested while data development is on-going.
Portal threads & comments: This has been removed from Portal as we stated in a previous DevBlog.
Until next time
Alright, that's all for today! I hope you all have an amazing Thursday, and see you once more in the DevBlog #90 before we head to our Summer vacations on 23rd!
Hello and welcome to DevBlog #88! This time, we'll focus on the Mailbox that's going to be released (hopefully) very soon. Let's dive in!
Mailbox is finished!
Like mentioned on the last DevBlog, we've been testing out the new Mailbox feature and now we're finished with the testing and the feature feels like it's ready to ship.
We're currently aiming for the Mailbox to ship during next week. There should be no maintenance on this update. There are a few QoL things, bug fixes and content we're still adding, which is why we're not entirely sure on what day the update will release.
And just to clarify here: trading is not going to ship as a feature with the Mailbox. Trading is still being developed, and we need to try out the Mailbox feature in production, which is why it's being shipped as a standalone feature. It'll be used on some fun stuff even without the trading, which I'll cover in next section!
What is the Mailbox feature?
Mailbox in practise is a new type of Service in the game that you can find in every location that has a bank. You can check your Mailbox from any location just like you can do with your Bank but you can only claim stuff in your Mailbox while you're in a location that has one.
As we've covered in DevBlog #87 and DevBlog #85, Mailbox is a prerequisite for the trading mechanic and it's what we've consider as the second phase of building the trading system. Basically whatever you receive through trading goes to your Mailbox after the trade has completed.
But the Mailbox isn't just that! We've also planned to use this for Events and more in the future. Through Mailbox whatever rewards you gain from the Events will be sent to your Mailbox.
The Mailbox feature will also be shipping with some fun stuff but we want to keep these as a surprise for the release ;)
Other news
Mailbox isn't the only feature we're currently working on! I've been working on quite a lot of stuff, but there's now been progress on the Bank UI rework. I'm estimating that the Bank UI rework is still going to take at least few weeks, as it's quite a massive change to how it functions. Once there's more to show on that, we'll be sharing the details in the DevBlogs.
Myzozoz has already been working on the Trading system itself and progress on that is looking very solid. It's still too early to share any concrete estimates on when trading is going to be finished, but we'll share those as soon as we know.
Content team has also been busy, and there's going to be some light content additions in the next update, which we estimate is shipping next week!
Until next time
That's everything for this week! I hope you enjoyed the DevBlog and you're ready to receive some mail once the update drop. I've been itching to send you all something nice...
Keep walking and stay hydrated everyone!
Welcome to DevBlog #87! This time we'll be covering how the progress is going on with Trading, what's been going on with the patch and changes that we'll be doing to Portal very soon.
Mailbox for Trading in testing
Alright, let's kick off (feels really cool to use this phrase now with the Fifa world cup going on :D) by looking into how the Trading system is progressing!
Myzozoz has just now wrapped up work with the Mailbox feature. We've now started testing this internally, and there is still some UI polish left to do so that the whole system feels and looks nice, but these shouldn't take much time. But the work overall on this has actually been quite a lot faster than we imagined. We're currently thinking that testing this feature thoroughly is going to take a week or two. But the feature is likely ready to ship to production in a few weeks.
This also wraps up the second phase of Trading work, and Myzozoz has already begun the work on the last (third) phase of implementing Trading. It's too early still to give any rough estimates on when that's ready to ship, but right now things are looking really good in this regard. We'll keep giving updates on how all of that work goes and sharing some screenshots once we have things to show!
Upcoming patch & why fixes has taken more time
The past two weeks have been really busy for me in personal life. Probably the biggest thing was that I moved to a new apartment last week, and the moving is still a bit work-in-progress as I haven't had time to unpack & clean up the old place yet. This has taken me time from work. I've already fixed a lot of the issues that people found from Gear Sets, and we're working to release these ASAP. If I wasn't busy with the moving, we would've likely been able to release these last week. But a lot of cool stuff also happened: we were interviewed by the Finnish Public Broadcast company (YLE), and they're working on a story about me. From what I've heard, this article might be released next week. The article is going to be in Finnish, but I think a lot of our Finnish players here might find it very interesting. And for non-Finnish speakers I think using browser translate feature might do a decent job so you'll be able to read it as well!
All of the moving related stuff should be done this week, and then I'll be able to return to the regular work schedule. I know a lot of people have been waiting us to patch these problems and I'd just like everyone to know that on normal circumstances I would've been able to ship them a lot quicker like we normally do. But sometimes life comes in the way, and this is why it's taken longer.
The patch also introduces some tweaks by Crushy to improve camera controls on the world map. We're aiming to release this patch ASAP!
Changes to Portal
One more announcement: we'll be doing some changes to WalkScape Portal very soon!
We're already stretched quite thin as a small team in terms of providing quick & good customer support. A lot of issues, feedback etc. gets posted on our Portal, but as we already have our hands full with the Discord, Reddit & our support email (support@walkscape.app), the stuff posted on Portal have often been neglected.
This is why we've decided that we'll consolidate our customer support a bit by removing the ability to post & comment from Portal. And instead we'll add a new button there that directs people to use the channels that we're able to monitor effectively.
The absolute best way to get any of your issues resolved quickly is to contact us via the support email (support@walkscape.app). When it comes to feedback, bug reports, or just getting help with the game our community is often the quickest way to get some help. Our Discord server is very active and we have dedicated channels there for feedback, bug reports and more! Another great place to report bugs, have community discussions and to provide feedback is our WalkScape subreddit.
I'm a bit sad that we have to close down the messaging capabilities of Portal, but as we had discussions about this it seemed the only option. We don't want people to end up posting there and expecting us to help through that, so it's just better for everyone that we direct people more effectively towards our support email and active social media channels so they can get better support a lot quicker.
Until next time
Alright, that's all for today!
I'm very excited with all of the progress we've had on Trading, and it's been awesome to get things moving very quickly with it now that our OTA systems are mostly completed. And in personal life, I'm really happy to finally have a new apartment for myself. My last place was just 26 square meters and the new place is whopping 43 square meters! :D I can finally fit a couch in my place, which is going to be awesome.
Keep walking and stay hydrated everyone!
Welcome to DevBlog #86!
Today we're releasing a new update to the game that includes various bug fixes and introduces some new Quality of Life features to the game. This devblog mainly will include changelogs for that and also a shoutout to our community member J who is doing a fiendly wager for the so-called "Small Step Big Cape Club". Let's dive in!
Changelogs for update +657
Important: The update is releasing today, as soon as the App Store reviews are done!
Added
- Removed all of the remaining AI assets from the game, reducing the application size by 31mb
- Collectibles now show up as the first items under action completed and have special styling
- You can now deposit only some items from a selected inventory slot
- Added a loading spinner to WalkPedia and made it open the page faster
- (World Map) Added more realms
- (Keywords) 2 new keywords and 2 new search keywords (one is "weight medium" keyword which stacks at 100)
- (Locations) ISO art added for Halfling Campgrounds, Halfmaw Hideout, Bog Bottom, Bog Top, Old Arena Ruins, Red Coast and Bilgemont Port
Changed
- (World Map) Re-enabled location search (we fixed it :D)
- (World Map) Made location icons visible from further away
- Double action no longer uses consumables on the extra action
- Gear set equipping behavior changed - empty slots are now not unequipped. Instead the character keeps whatever is already equipped in a slot if you are equipping a set with empty slots
- When withdrawing gear sets from bank, the withdraw option no longer withdraws items that you already have in your inventory
- Withdrawing gear sets also checks for items you have equipped and does not withdraw items that you have already equipped
- Import & equip button now also closes the gear set page
- Ordering of gear changed in gear sets to follow the same order as gear view uses
- (Locations) Blackspell Port renamed to Blackspell Harbour and icon updated
- (Keywords) "Light" and "Ultra Light" keywords changed to stack at 1000 and 10 000
- (Locations) Noiseless Pass has been taken over by Trellin for the GDTE - rejoice
- (Locations) "Snowy" location keyword applied to Disenchanted Forest, Azurazera, Kallaheim, Frusenholm, Barbantok, Centaham, Port Skildar, Coldington, Sanguine Hills, Nomad Woods, Casbrant Fields, Norsack Plains, Frostbite Mountain, Noiseless Pass, Fort Of Permafrost, Beach Of Woes, Winter Waves Glacier, Horn Of Respite, Black Eye Peak, Winter's End, Nurturing Nook Springs, and Pit Of Pittance
- (Items) Birch skis keywords for regional and Jarvonia search removed in place of snowy search
- (Items) Birch skis attributes for while in Jarvonia realm changed to while in a snowy location
- (Items) Pine skis keywords for regional and Jarvonia search removed in place of snowy search
- (Items) Pine skis attributes for while in Jarvonia realm changed to while in a snowy location
- (Items) Oak skis keywords for regional and Jarvonia search removed in place of snowy search
- (Items) Oak skis attributes for while in Jarvonia realm changed to while in a snowy location
- (Items) Bert's super skis keywords for regional and Jarvonia search removed in place of snowy search
- (Items) Bert's super skis attributes for while in Jarvonia realm changed to while in a snowy location
- (Items) Ectoplasm scraps now have hide and medium weight keywords
- (Pets) Changed camel to use location keywords for "desert" for XP/attribute requirements in place of "Wrentmark"
- (Pets) Changed reindeer to use location keywords for "snowy" for XP/attribute requirements in place of "Jarvonia"
Fixed
- (World Map) Moving camera to locations/player no longer overshoots if triggered while inertia is present
- (World Map) Realm borders (last zoom level) were redone to work on all devices
- (World Map) All realms now have icons
- (World Map) Improved Bottom Sheet behaviour
- Fixed overflow issues with tags inside text
- Fixed being able to do bank deposits from any location
- Deposit button is now only shown when at a bank location & the item can be banked
- Fixed that using abilities from item view closed the bottom sheet
- Fixed the this gear set no longer exists error when equipping imported set
- Withdrawing geat sets now takes quality into account. It withdraws if a higher quality than current in inventory is found, but does not if same quality or lower is found
- Fixed using phone navigation not dismissing the world map when you have a bottom sheet opened
- Fixed that GDTE was not wrapping to 2 lines on location info view
- Fixed the validation error when doing travel + 1 with a summoned pet change
- Fixed that you could only do one transaction when buying PFP options and needed to re-enter the shop to buy more
- Player Icon not being centered in away screen
- Fixed the problem with pet summons when traveling to Kildome cross
- Now instead of showing 1 000 M steps when not being able to travel, steps until arrival shows N/A
- Import & Equip now checks if the item is already equipped, and skips if that is the case
- Fixed getting the same error message twice on incorrect travel pathing
- Fixed that changing to correct requirement when seeing queued action having invalid requirement now updates the validation
- Fixed that having incorrect requirements for an traveling activity did not cancel the action
- Fixed the stack overflow issue happening when summoning pets to queue
- Fixed the incorrect locale link for WalkPedia loading
- (PFP Options) Fix mummy outfit not hiding headwear
Small Step Big Cape challenge
First, to quote @J's original post on our Discord server:
Hey everyone, we're having a closed beta friendly wager in #small step big cape club (Discord thread) - anyone who makes CoHA in 1.1m steps or CoFA in 4.5m steps gets to pick a pet and we will name our pet in your honor. (@MixHagelslag @barosepha @squigglyruth and me, @J).
For the last few months we've been discussing various strategies for achieving minimal step capes so even if you don't participate the discussion might be interesting!
Notable runs so far:
- @MixHagelslag CoHA at 750k steps prior to hunting/tailoring update and again at 830k after the update, and CoFA at 5.53m steps
- @barosepha CoHA at 1.31M steps past hunting/tailoring
- @galrock0 coming up on CoFA once a rare pet drops, around ~5.5m steps
- @squigglyruth currently on a CoHA challenge run via rushing tortoise, which just reached adulthood at 467k steps
To make it interesting, I'll be gifting a 1mo culitist sub for the first person to hit 4.5m step CoFA. (If the goalposts move due to new achievements getting added, I'll adjust it to a new reasonable threshold)
If you want to join the challenge, you can join the very active discussion on our Discord server! The discussion on this is under Challenges -> small-step-big-cape channel.
For a long time, we've also been thinking of hosting a similar challenge officially, but having one done by the community is even more fun for us to follow! For any runner ups in this challenge, we'll also throw in as rewards to whoever becomes the 2nd and 3rd place runner ups a reward of 1 month Cult Supporter (including all of its rewards) Patreon subscriptions.
We're hoping you'll have a lot of fun trying to overcome this challenge!
Until next time
That's all for today! We're currently working on the upcoming big stuff (as mentioned in the previous devblog), so this update is mostly just some new QoL and a bunch of bug fixes. I hope you all enjoy it!
Keep walking and stay hydrated everyone!
Pssst: it's also Ice Hockey World Championship (IIHF) going on right now. Finland will be playing against Czechia in less than an hour. Let's hope Finland wins gold this year...
Hello and welcome to DevBlog #85!
In this devblog, we'll give an update on the two big features that we are working on now and explain why we've been quiet about their development. This is going to be a lengthier DevBlog, so be prepared! This can be considered as a response to the Reddit post that was posted.
Last week we released the refreshed World Map. It's the first feature our new developer Crushy has been working on, and we'll probably be updating it with few more things and doing some polish in the next couple weeks.
Also today is the Ascension Day which is another public holiday, so happy Ascension Day everyone! Feels like during this time of the year there are public holidays every other week in Finland :D
Why there haven't been updates on the big three features
Last year we noticed that when we talked about certain features or other additions that we were working at that time, some people misunderstood those as promises that those things would be released very soon. This is why we felt that for our own sanity we should only publicly announce new stuff when they're very close to being released. We have internal deadlines when it comes to aimed release of a feature/update and we adjust those weekly based on how the situation develops.
A lot of the time when we're in the early phase or mid-development of something new our priorities change over time. Then we might need to delay the thing or work on something else and then jump back to the thing that was the primary focus. Also being committed to something being released at a fixed and publicly announced deadline (especially if the thing was still in mid-development when we announced it) often lead to situations where we were too optimistic on when a thing would be ready and then we had to do overtime for multiple weeks. This wasn't very good for our health or especially for me as I was sometimes working 24/7 for couple of weeks straight.
We decided that we would change from that to only announcing release dates when we're very close to release so we can stick to those and we won't end up needing to overwork ourselves when eventually something doesn't go as planned.
This has especially been the case for what we've been working now for a long time: trading. Trading is being worked in three phases and the first phase was already completed (OTA, over-the-air content updates). Also, we have completed the work on OTA being able to also send art assets and other types of media but there's some client-side work that needs to be done until it's fully ready for production.
What we are working on right now
Right now, we're working on two of the so-called "Big Three Features" (which has also changed a bit as will be discussed in the next chapter of this post). As explained in detail in the previous chapter: don't take these as promises that they'll be released in couple of weeks from now. The big features take months to develop and it's very hard for us with a very limited development team to give any exact timelines on how long any of these take to release.
Myzozoz is currently working on the Phase 2 of trading, which is adding a Mailbox feature to the game. This is a new service type in the game where you can receive items from the server. Prior to trading, we are planning to use it a bit to for example send some complimentary items during server downtime. And maybe small birthday presents for you character whenever it's their birthday (which is the day you created the character).
But the main thing about the Mailbox feature is that it's the second foundational piece for enabling transactions, as with that you'll be able to receive items when trading with other players. In our current trading plan, Mailbox is also used as a bank-like storage where you'll put your items that you might want to trade with other people, and if a trade deal goes through, the items will be sent from your mailbox to another player. This also enables that you can do trading regardless of your character's current location in the world.
When it comes to me (schamppu), I'm currently primarily working on Bank rework. The aim with this is to massively improve the performance and UI of the banking interface. But as is often with me, I constantly get dragged to some small bugfixes and other stuff, so it's hard to say exactly when this will be ready.
Once the Bank rework is completed and released, I'm moving to work on the Quest system. Our initial goal with this is that I make the system fully work, and we'll ship it with one quest that will work as the new tutorial. After that, we'll be adding more quests to the game. All initial quests will be aimed to work as something that gives a good direction for players that struggle with how open-ended WalkScape is at the moment.
Crushy is currently working on doing post-release support for the new World Map, after which he'll be doing some trials in order to make the location maps more interactable. We're not sure yet if we'll be doing it right away as the time commitment or technology needs might be too big, which is why he'll start by doing some trials from which we can gather information about how much work there would be to actually making the location maps work like we've imagined.
Changes to the Open Beta plan
Finally, a big update on the Open Beta plan: we're considering adding in Combat after the Open Beta has launched. For those that are not aware, we've always considered that to release Open Beta we need to have the big three features completed (Trading, Quests, Combat).
We're already going to be stretched quite thin with the work on Quests and Trading, and both of these features will still take several months to be released. If after both of those are completed we'd still need to work on Combat, which is definitely at least going to take as long as Trading did to complete, we would still be very far away from Open Beta release.
This is why some months ago we internally started considering that:
- Quests are absolutely necessary in order to have direction and a good tutorial. It has to be there for Open Beta.
- We only have one server reset planned, which happens when we launch Open Beta. This is why Trading must be released in Closed Beta and be fully tested so we can fine tune the economy with this one chance that we have.
Combat is a massive thing to work on and we can launch Open Beta without it. If Open Beta release is successful and the company could grow that would allow us to have more people working on it. Our biggest bottleneck (in addition to there being just three developers) for Combat is that we have only one artist (maxchill), and the planned Combat will require a lot of art assets. For this reason it would also make more sense that Combat is going to happen after Open Beta is released.
But we do recognize that without Combat in Open Beta WalkScape would be missing the "couch content" that we consider essential for having the full experience of the game. We're considering options such as including a Farming skill that would provide something you can manage while not walking or something else instead. So there would be at least something for the Open Beta that isn't Combat but scratches the same itch and is more realistic for us to complete in a reasonable time frame.
We would like to hear people's thoughts on this topic! After Open Beta we have planned our current development server with its rapid updates to become more accessible to larger amount of people. We would be using that to test Combat and any new massive features thoroughly before they're released to production. This would make it so that even if Combat is going to be worked on after the Open Beta launches we will have the opportunity to make sure it's not going to introduce exploits or critical bugs.
Clarification on server reset and Closed Beta progress
Another thing that we want to clarify here now is that there will be some cosmetic rewards for everyone who has participated in WalkScape Closed Beta. We've talked about these quite often, but I think it's good to have them clarified here publicly.
Also to note: Quests and Trading will take some time to be released, so don't take this as "they'll be released in couple of weeks" as we explained in the first chapter. Once they are released there will still be some time until we do the server reset and move to Open Beta. Mainly this is to do the following:
- Final polishing, optimization, Quality of Life additions to make the game run and feel better.
- Minor feature additions to support the core gameplay loop.
- Setting up much more scalable server infrastructure, so we're prepared for rapidly growing player count.
- Content additions to fill in any blank spots and doing as much balancing as required for the economy to work as intended and that content balancing in general is great.
- All kinds of other preparations that go into moving to Open Beta, which take some time.
The rewards & other things that we promise to deliver for all Closed Beta testers
- We will do a copy of the entire Closed Beta server. Once we add the Offline mode of the game, you will be able to play with your Closed Beta characters on Offline mode. This will take some time to happen after the Open Beta. It's too early to give any estimates how soon after the Open Beta we'll be releasing the Offline mode for the game.
- Your in-game profile will be showing your total steps across all of your characters that you gained during Closed Beta.
- Your title based on what tier of Patreon/BMAC you used to support the Closed Beta development if you've supported us.
- We might publish a copy of the Closed Beta leaderboard and have it available on our website. You can at any time go back and see how well you did during the Closed Beta.
These are the main rewards we are committed to do for everyone who has participated in the Closed Beta. We might add more down the line but we're committed that the rewards include nothing that affects the gameplay. They'll be cosmetic or like with characters carrying over to Offline mode being restricted to not affect the online server.
We'll publish a more complete list of all rewards with more details once we're closer to the actual release of Open Beta.
3rd party API is now available
Link to the API documentation: https://tools-api.dev.walkscape.app/docs/
A message from falarikae, who has been an incredible help to us by creating an API for people interested in making 3rd party tools for WalkScape. Here's the message from falarikae:
Walkscape Data API - now open to community developers
The Walkscape Gear Tool has always been running on top of an API that directly reads Walkscape's assets and localizations and serves them as a JSON API. Starting today, it's open to anyone in the community who wants to build something on top of it - so you can finally stop scraping the wiki.
What's in it: items, skills, recipes, locations, achievements, activities, shops, loot tables, pets, rewards, and a bunch more. Basically all the static game content, queryable by id, searchable by field, and available in every locale the game is shipped in. Some data is still missing (things the gear tool doesn't use), but I can work on adding more in the future.
What it's good for: planners, calculators, Discord bots, anything that needs to know what's in the game. It's read-only and exposes no player data. Unreleased content is filtered out, so you won't accidentally spoil upcoming features.
How to get in: Send a message in the Walkscape Data API-thread on the main Walkscape Discord server. There's a dedicated thread there with full instructions, examples, and a place to ask questions or request endpoints.
Fair use: free for community tools. Please credit Walkscape/Not A Cult, and reach out before doing anything commercial with it.
Happy building.
-fala
Until next time
Alright, that's all for today! It's a lengthy post, and there's a lot to consider here. We would love to hear your thoughts on the mentioned topics and have an active discussion about these with the community. With that, we think we can do the best final decision on where to go from here.
Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoyed the devblog! See you again in two weeks.
Keep walking and stay hydrated everyone!
Hello and welcome to DevBlog #84!
During the last two weeks, we had an amazing opportunity to gather together (in person and all!) with the entire Not a Cult team. This took some time off from development, but I think it was really great for team building purposes. More on that below!
Also, we are now nearing the release of our next patch, and we're ready to set a release date for it: 6th of May, so next week's Wednesday!
What happened during last two weeks
First off, like said in the last devblog we had some server issues. These have now been resolved, but it took a bit longer than we would've liked to combat the issue. Myzozoz (who is responsible for our servers) was on vacation, which made it difficult for us to get it fixed quickly. But I'm happy to say I only needed to disturb his vacation by like 20 minutes :D
We also had a meetup with the entire Not a Cult team here in Helsinki! The weather was terrible, but that's how it is most of the time. We had a really good time, and I think it really helps us going forward that now we've all seen each other in person.
I'm hoping we could have more meetups with the entire team that is scattered around the globe in the future as well. But I'm so happy this could finally happen. Team building exercises are fun!
World map update releasing next week
We were originally hoping to get the update released this week, but with the server issues, meeting and tomorrow being another national holiday (May Day/Labor Day/Vappu/Vappen) we thought it's better to do it next week.
The next update with the reworked world map is releasing on May 6th, so next week's Wednesday! There should be no maintenance for this update.
The update will include some light content additions, content fixes, a plethora of bug fixes, and the brand new world map. Some of the functionality we wanted for the new world map is still missing, but it should already be much better than the old one. But as always, there is likely going to be some new issues introduced with it that we'll be hotfixing.
As covered in the previous devblogs, the new worldmap will include a lot of new features:
- You can see your friends on the map
- We've cleaned up the routes and made routes that you don't meet requirements for much clearer
- The performance should be much better
- The map shows undiscovered or rumored locations more clearly
- You can see the different regions in Arenum when zooming out
- You can search for locations
- You can toggle visibility for different things
- And more!
We've already ramped up our work towards the next big things that will be coming after the world map update. Stay tuned for those!
Until next time
That's all for today!
I'm hoping you all have an amazing May Day!
Hyvää vappua/Happy labor day/Glada vappen!
Hello!
This time, we'll be covering what's currently going on with the servers and also giving a progress update on our next release.
Let's dive in!
Current server issues
We're currently encountering issues with our server provider, Hetzner. We assume that the problem lies in their systems, as the problems started when they began their maintenance on load balancers, which is still on-going.
I have contacted them, and it's the issue requires some more investigation. Also, myzozoz is currently on a short vacation, which makes investigating this issue a bit more difficult as he's our main server guy.
Currently, the servers are stable - but connecting can sometimes take a lengthy time. We'll try to fix this as soon as we can.
You can also check Hetzner's status on their maintenance here. Our servers are located on FSN1, which is still under maintenance.
Progress on next update
Due to the small chaos caused by servers and everything else that's been going on this week, our original plans for the release of next update is delayed a bit. Last week I was also busy upgrading our development tools for the game, which took some time away from working on this update.
The work on the next update continues, and we'll try to get it out as soon as possible. We're trying to cram in more bug fixes that would ship with the World Map update that's the main thing and already finished.
The world map is likely going to be expanded a bit more later. Currently the main improvements are that it should be much more performant, you can see your friends on the map, routes look much better and cleaner and that it provides more information to the players. We aim to expand on the information that it provides later as well!
The next update will also include some small content additions. We've already started the design for our next content update which I'm hoping we'll finish soon!
Getting rid of all AI-stuff in next update
Our next update will also finally get rid of all the remaining AI-art in the game. Maxchill has been working hard to replace every single location with the new isometric art that we've been showing off in these devblogs.
The work isn't yet 100% complete, but we'll already switch the few remaining ones to use a "work in progress" isometric art location. These should get replaced with proper ones in a month or two. The remaining locations are the most work intensive, as most of them are the city locations found in GDTE.
Even though it was quite a process for maxchill to create all of the locations in isometric pixel art, I personally think it's awesome that the game will finally be completely free of AI art.
Shoutout to Herbert
Last time we also listed a bunch of 3rd party web tools that the community has made to the game, but we didn't include a shoutout to Herbert - our Discord bot made by ParadoxBoxx.
Herbert currently is in charge of moderating verification so that spam bots don't get through to our Discord. And Herbert lets you use a bunch of different commands, like:
/set_flairto set yourself a flair that shows your in game stat, like steps, total level etc. on Discord server./flexto share your WalkScape character on the Discord server. Naturally to flex your levels and steps! :D
We have a dedicated #flex channel on Discord to show off. Herber also updates a #census channel where you can see how many players are in each location.
There are also some other features that are coming to Herbert very soon, so stay tuned for more!
If you haven't joined our Discord, you can do so from this invite link
Until next time
That's all for today!
I'm hoping in next devblog we've got some more exciting news to share! And I'm trying hard to get the server stuff fixed ASAP.
See you again in two weeks, keep walking and stay hydrated!
Hello everyone, and welcome to DevBlog #82!
This time, we'll cover a bit of the things with Hunting & Tailoring post release stuff we already released, and we'll give a shout out to some of the 3rd party tools that have been popping up from the community. Let's get started!
Hunting & Tailoring post release
We've released both a smaller hotfix and a bigger patch since last devblog! You can see the full changelogs of the patch that was released here!
As a summary, we fixed a lot of the bugs that were caught by players and we introduced some Quality of Life stuff with fine material + gear crafting, Gear Sets, and minor things in many places of the UI. And we included a small April Fools thingy there as well which many of you posted here about! :D
The patch also improved performance, and aimed to especially help with people who experience ANR's on Pixel devices. While it didn't completely fix the issue, it improved that front quite a bit. We think we've also now recognized the root of the issue, and will be focusing in later updates to fix the problem entirely.
The patch also included some new content, balancing changes and more!
WalkScape 3rd party tools & materials
There's lately been a lot of 3rd party tools released for WalkScape, and I'd like to give a shoutout to them here!
As a note, these tools contain spoilers! If you don't want to get spoiled, I don't recommend using any of the tools.
WalkScape DB
This has a lot of different types of tools in it. It has all of the in-game content searchable, their relations, gear set optimizer, planner, and the WalkScape Map.
WalkScape Optimizer
This tool is another new one that helps to optimize gear sets for different activities and recipes in the game. It seems like it still has some April Fools stuff going on as well! :D
WalkScape Gear Optimizer
Another great tool for optimizing your gear sets for different activities!
Guide: WalkScape "Collector's" Edition
Guide: WalkScape "Collector's" Edition link
Probably one of the most in-depth Guides to follow for WalkScape. 33 pages long, and recently updated for the Hunting & Tailoring update. It is an amazing guide if you like to follow one!
WalkStats
An alternative for leaderboards. Gives you more insight on things like XP gains and has rolling weekly leaderboards.
Arky's Activity Sheet (Bonez565 Version)
An amazing Google Sheet formatted for easily tracking you progress and for optimizing your gear for different activities.
WalkScape Map & WalkScape Gear
Both of these tools have been around for quite a long time already. Map tool is convenient to look up activities and locations, whereas Gear is great for creating gear sets for the game and also includes a gear optimizer.
Next update
We're already finishing up work for our next update that'll bring some major improvements to the World Map. As it's still not completely finished and there's a bunch of Easter related national holidays starting from tomorrow, it's a bit too early to state the exact release timeline for that one.
We'll also be working on the content side to balance things further that were added in Hunting & Tailoring while also adding some new stuff. The next content updates won't be as massive in their scope though - with this one, we were already stretched quite thin considering how massive it became.
Feedback & until next time
That's all for today!
One special thing we'd like you to do is to write as a comment to this feedback on Hunting & Tailoring. On Discord, we've had some great feedback in the threads we have created for the update. We would love to hear your thoughts and experiences now that the update has been out for some time.
Feedback on the content updates is crucial for us to learn from our mistakes and make sure the upcoming content updates will be even better designed. So all kinds of feedback is much appreciated here!
Thank you, and see you in next DevBlog! Stay hydrated and keep walking!
Eric from the community (and a bunch of others) have been making some videos on how to get started. One I'd recommend for beginners is the Ultimate Beginners Guide video.
Also, if you feel stuck you can try https://wiki.walkscape.app and https://map.walkscape.app
Thank you so much! When we get the quest system into the game, giving some direction to the players will be much easier.
Thanks! And actually yes, I've played most of the old school Avernum games :D I'm a huge fan of the original Fallout games, and Avernum kinda hit the same spot for me when I was a kid.
At Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki convention, I actually participated in the "Ethics of F2P" round table talk. One other participant told that they did an A/B test on their players where if they wanted to quit the game, they'll be shown a cute pet who'll tell them that it'll be very sad if the player leaves. A/B test prove that it boosted retention. Mobile games are quite dystopian really, and all of it these days tend to be data driven, not people designing actually good games or pieces of art like (which I consider games to be).
Thank you so much for the post! It's always awesome to hear people are enjoying the game <3
For the bonus question, I'd like to answer that although more of a running game, "Zombies, Run!" has probably been the best that I've played. I played it when it came out years ago, and it helped me to pick up running. But I really don't like Niantic-style GPS based games myself, which is what made me start this project. Also, all of those tend to have very predatory monetization too, which I really don't like.
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iOS already supports these, and from what we've heard Garmin works pretty well for step tracking. Android support for watches is coming later.