WalkScape
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Hello! Welcome once again to the WalkScape dev blog.
For the past week or so, following our most recent update, I've been laying the groundwork for our Quality of Life (QoL) improvements. Before introducing any new QoL features or changes (with Gear Sets being the first on our list) I decided to start by optimizing and overhauling the game engine itself. This has been in the planning stages for quite some time and will likely take a couple more weeks to complete.
I know we have many programmers and game developers in our community, so this dev blog will feature some technical details especially geared towards you. I hope you'll find it interesting! But before we dive into the tech stuff, I've got some teasers and general info for those who prefer the less technical side of things!
Teasers and general info
Alright – let's start with the teasers! We have two new skills coming to the game, hopefully in the next major content update. Here's some art to help you figure out what they might be:
The design and art process for these new skills, related activities, and items is already underway. However, it will take at least a few months to complete, as much of the designed content depends on the Quality of Life (QoL) updates.
In general news, if you missed it, we released a minor update and hotfixes to the game last week:
These fixes addressed many of the remaining issues, though a few minor ones still persist. We'll tackle those in future updates.
Lastly, myzozoz has been hard at work creating and designing the "Party system." Progress on this front has been great!
Why the engine overhaul is needed?
There are four major reasons for this overhaul:
- To improve game performance, reducing loading times and eliminating UI lag.
- To enable processing the game loop for notifications, on the server and potential future companion apps (such as for smartwatches) more easily.
- To enhance stability and introduce elements that increase the game's scalability and flexibility for planned features and content.
- To address the issue of uncounted steps by implementing a game state rollback feature when step loading is interrupted (e.g., by closing the game or losing internet connection).
Currently, the main cause of lag (especially when loading a bunch of steps) is that the game processes all heavy calculations on the same CPU thread that renders the game (Flutter Isolates provides more information). This approach worked well for a long time, as the game loop's calculations were simple enough to avoid lag. However, as the game's complexity has grown, particularly when loading thousands of steps, it can now cause several seconds of "freezing."
The solution? Run the processing on a separate thread while optimizing the code as much as possible.
Game loading time
I've begun this overhaul by reworking how the game loads, which will likely be the most significant "visible change" for our players upon release.
By implementing multi-threading, I've reduced the game's loading time from a 5+ seconds to be around 500ms (excluding server calls, which I'll optimize soon). Previously, the game's data had to be processed synchronously (loading one file at a time). Now, using multi-threading, or "isolates" in Flutter, we can load all game data simultaneously. This approach doesn't compete with the UI thread for resources, making it even faster in practice. Our goal is to reduce the loading time so the game is ready before the Not a Cult logo fades away, as long as there's no update to download and you have solid connection.
The main limitation of using isolates in Flutter is that they don't share memory. This means the game needs to load in the isolate, which saves the data to its memory and then sends the necessary parts back to the UI thread for rendering. This brings us to our next point: decoupling!
Decoupling game logic from the application
Previously, the application and the game processing logic were tightly coupled. This is common in many games, as decoupling isn't always necessary, although it is a good practice. For WalkScape, several factors have necessitated decoupling the logic from the game into an entirely independent module.
The primary reason for decoupling is to enable notifications. We can then run the game loop quickly in the background to process steps and provide accurate information about your progress. This can also be used in things like home screen widgets, smartwatch companion apps, and whatnot. Additionally, we can move some game processing to the server side where necessary. Since WalkScape server also uses Dart (the programming language for Flutter), sharing the code is seamless. This approach allows us to process everything locally for the single-player version of WalkScape as well.
To achieve this, I've created a separate module (known as packages in Flutter development) for the game. This self-contained module includes all the game's classes, logic, and messaging between the main thread and the "game processing" isolate threads. We can add this package to any application, effectively sharing it between the game, development tools, server, and potential future companion apps.
The main challenge in creating such a module is ensuring that it remains agnostic to what's running it, thus achieving proper decoupling. Moreover, when the server processes game logic, it must be able to handle multiple players concurrently, necessitating a stateless design (for a detailed explanation, see this Stack Overflow comment). The concept that can tie it together is called an Event Queue, which you can read more about here.
While most games implement a similar structure, and WalkScape's engine already had a comparable system, it wasn't fully decoupled or stateless. So, our next challenge is: how do we achieve that?
Making a stateless Event Queue
I've been preparing the engine for this overhaul for months, as such a massive change couldn't be achieved quickly. Most components needed modification to become stateless.
To achieve statelessness, every Event in WalkScape (such as "complete action," "gain item," "arrive at location," "open treasure chest," or "gain XP") is its own, isolated function. These then receive a state (typically the Player Character) and return the updated state. Here's a simplified example:
- Player loads 1000 steps.
- This is sent to the Event Queue with the current Player Character as “Load Steps” Event.
- Event Queue processes the "Load Steps" Event with the received Player Character (currently doing the "Cut Birch Trees" activity for example) and 1000 steps as inputs.
- It processes "complete action" Events, forwarding the Player Character and returning updated versions as needed.
- After processing all steps or encountering an interruption (e.g., becoming overencumbered), the Event stops and returns the fully processed Player Character.
- The updated Player Character is then saved to the server, stored locally, and sent to the UI thread to render the new game state.
This approach pretty much guarantees that as long as a Player Character is given as input it'll work similarly anywhere and allows simultaneous processing of multiple Player Characters.
Other considerations and optimizations
That was a rather technical explanation, and I hope some of you find it interesting!
All of this comes with some considerations and caveats, as seasoned programmers might already know.
- For many game events, the order of processed events is crucial (avoiding race conditions). To address this, I've implemented two event queues: ordered and orderless. The ordered event queue maintains the sequence and links events to other events that they're dependent on. If an error occurs, all linked events are cancelled, and the system returns to the original state with an error.
- In WalkScape, events are completed asynchronously (on a separate thread or server), so the UI must account for this. If the response with an updated state takes a significant amount of time, the UI needs to reflect this. Some events, like loading steps, must also be able to block UI interactions during processing.
For players, this overhaul not only makes the game load and run faster but should also fix the remaining issues with step loading. Currently, if you interrupt step loading by closing the game, putting it in the background, or losing internet connection, the steps are often lost entirely. With the new system, if an interruption occurs during processing, the game state won't change or save, ensuring the steps will load correctly the next time you open the game.
I've also implemented some basic but effective optimizations. When I started working on WalkScape, I used many ordered lists as data structures. This was convenient and wasn't problematic when the game had less data to process. However, as the game's complexity increased, these lists began to contain hundreds of objects, causing performance issues when searching for items (which takes linear time, O(n)).
A simple fix for this is using key-value maps for data structures where we're not searching, but only getting or setting values. This reduces operations to constant time, O(1). For data structures that require searching, using ones that allow for logarithmic time operations—such as binary search trees, for which Dart's closest equivalent is SplayTreeSet—makes a huge difference in performance.
Until next time
Phew, that was a lot of technical stuff! I hope you found it interesting and useful. As always, I'm happy to answer any questions or address comments you might have. And even if the tech details aren't your cup of tea, I hope the teasers made it worthwhile!
Happy walking, everyone, and don't forget to stay hydrated! ❤️️
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Hello!
I was asked to create one here on Lemmy as well, so here we go!
We already have our hands full with our other communities, so I can't promise that I'll be as active here, but I'll do the best I can. The best place to ask for any urgent help about the game and our most active community is on Discord.
Some useful links and information here:
Official website. Has links to Discord and to our newsletter among other things.
How to sign up for closed beta & FAQ. FAQ has actually some important questions answered, so I recommend to check it out!
How to support the game. This game is entirely community funded with no publisher or investors. Supporting us helps us to scale and make awesome stuff faster!
WalkScape Portal Community. This is our official Reddit-alternative to post bug reports and talk about the game.
Youtube introduction video where I explain the game.
Important! The current Closed Beta wave ends on October 6th. If you support the game before that, you'll gain access immediately. If you beta application gets accepted during the wave, you'll also gain access. Access to the game that has been granted at any point of Closed Beta will remain until Open Beta when everyone will gain access to the game.
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Patch & Hotfix +342, fixing some final minor things and adding a bit of new content! And the poll results!
(self.walkscape)
Hello!
As promised, one (and hopefully the last!) hotfix to Syrenthia. It was originally planned to release early this week, but we wanted to add a bit extra to this hotfix, as the next update will be at least a couple of weeks away and should include the first Quality of Life improvements.
Let's get started!
+342 changelogs
Added
- Added a new shop to the game.
- Added a new NPC to the game.
- Added a second way to unlock the Mysterious G achievement.
- Added couple of new recipes to the game and related items.
- Added some new achievements to the game.
- Added some new unlockable PFP options to the game.
- Added Portuguese, Turkish, Chinese (Simplified) and Swedish languages to the game. If you want to help translating to these languages, please check https://wiki.walkscape.app/wiki/Localization
Changed
- Changed how the Saved Steps cap is calculated. Now the Saved Steps cap is 10k between character levels 1-10, after which it will increase by 1k each character level.
Fixed
- A couple more hardcoded strings added to localisation files.
- Fixed the job reward collection error text, which always pointed to Kallaheim incorrectly.
- Multiple fixes and improvements to consumables.
- Fixed the text padding on Gear page.
- Fixed the extra padding on traveling activity when it was referenced to as a text tag.
- Fixed the missing rarity colors on WalkPedia and elsewhere.
- Multiple fixes to existing content in the game.
- Fixes crafting activity validation when requirements are not met.
- Fixes to how shops using special currencies work.
Poll results
We had 512 responses to the poll, and here are the results!
Plan based on the poll
Based on the poll, here's the rough plan on how we're going to be implementing the major QoL additions that we asked your opinion on. As an important note, the plan is not final and might change depending on what makes sense at which point, but for now the following plan follows both what were most wanted and what makes sense from a development standpoint.
- Gear sets were voted as the most important feature, with Travel + 1 coming as a close second. From a development effort standpoint, gear sets are one of the easiest, and that's why I'll start with that. Also, having it done is going to make it easier to integrate with Travel + 1 and Crafting Overhaul.
- Travel + 1 will be the second feature. It is the most "work-heavy" out of all of these, as it also requires a rework on how activities work in the game. While working on that, we'll make the necessary changes to be able to use the new system with Notifications and optimize the calculations and clear the way for some more diverse activities to add in future content updates.
- Travel + 1 will likely include some major improvements to the main navigation of the game.
- Crafting Queue & Crafting Overhaul and Banking & Inventory Overhaul will be after Travel + 1.
- Lastly, Notifications, Tracking & favoriting, and WalkPedia will be implemented along with adding some minor QoL tweaks around the game.
Thank you all for voicing your opinion, and it was great to hear which features meant the most to you! Happy walking ❤️️
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Hello and welcome once again to WalkScape development blog!
This time, the dev blog is going to be fairly short, as there's not a lot of new stuff - but there's something that I am super excited of!
Delay with hotfixing, but multiple Portal fixes
Sadly I caught the good old seasonal flu last week, which took me out of office for the entire week. Original plan was to release hotfix patch before this development blog.
Although I didn't manage to make hotfixes to the game yet, myzozoz has released a bunch of improvements and fixes over WalkScape Portal and our server:
- It's now possible to login using username + password instead of email + password (works in the game as well)
- Patreon/BMAC status is now properly updated
- A ton of under the hood changes and stability + security improvements
- Error messages have been improved and made more clear
- The email verification is now redone, and it's possible to resend the verification email
We won! (And other stuff about conventions)
Both me and myzozoz have been busy this week at conventions. We're right now at W Love Games (which is the last convention this year, finally no more conventions!) and will be here tomorrow as well. W Love Games is a free gaming convention at Oodi library in Helsinki. Today we're here 10.00-15.00 and tomorrow 10.00-13.00. If you're in Helsinki, come say hi (we have salty liqorice!).
The last two days we've been at Pocket Gamer Connects, and we had a blast - and also we won both 3rd place in Very Big Indie Pitch (congrats to myzozoz, he was pitching this time!). Also people at the convention voted for the best game, and we won the Audience Award! I was really hoping to get that, and I'm so glad that we did.
It's been really awesome to visit gaming conventions, although quite exhausting as well. I really love meeting with our fans, and we've been able to connect with people in the industry. Hearing feedback of the game in real life and seeing people getting excited about the game is lovely.
Until next time
Alright, this time not much else to share! After W Love Games is over, we're back to office and I'm aiming to release the hotfix and start working on our next update ASAP!
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Important information: WalkScape Invite Wave 3 is currently on-going. You can gain access instantly by supporting us on Patreon or Buy Me A Coffee. You can also apply for beta access on our portal, we will be inviting people from those applications sparingly over the invite wave period. Wave 3 will last until 6th October and everyone supporting us during this period will receive access to the WalkScape for whole Closed Beta time. More information on how to play WalkScape can be found on our website - https://walkscape.app/help
Hello everyone, hope you’re all enjoying the new Syrenthia update, running around doing jobs, earning faction reputations, and finally consuming those wines and beers. This time, it’s me, maxchill, writing this because schamppu and myzozoz are busy promoting WalkScape at the largest gaming convention in Europe – Gamescom 2024.
WalkScape has now been in development for almost two years, and it's starting to shape into a more full and immersive experience. For the past few weeks, the team has been working hard to achieve this, and while there's still a long road ahead with many steps to take, I wanted to praise the work of schampu, myzozoz, and floursifter, as well as everyone on the alpha tester team who have helped immensely to find all the funny, annoying, and critical bugs!
When I was given the task of writing this, I wanted to reflect over what WalkScape has become and why I have such passion for both working on the game and also playing it. I hope this serves as an intriguing guide to the undecided reader, and provide an insight for already existing player. To better express myself I came up with a list of 5 reasons to play WalkScape:
- Improve your daily walking habits
- Progress your character in classic MMORPG style
- Explore the vast world of Arenum
- Play and compete with friends and others
- Enjoy non-predatory, non-intrusive gameplay
Improve your daily walking habits
Alright, let’s dive into the first reason, because we now actually have some data to back the claim that playing WalkScape has positive effect on your daily walking habits. Just this week we ran a quick survey on our discord where we asked players to compare their daily average steps before playing the WalkScape and after. To me the results were quite shocking, because I of course hoped that our game provides positive effect on players daily walking habits, but I didn’t expect it to be to such high extent. Let’s look at the data down below.
Here we can see that the daily step count of survey respondents has increased by ~80%, from 6,331 daily average steps to 11,413. You can also notice how with each subsequent wave we get more casual daily steppers (lower daily average) and that they actually have the most increase at 97%.
Of course, not everyone will see such a high increase, but those for whom the game clicks can expect a very impressive daily step increase. Also, don't be discouraged if you don't observe a staggering increase in your daily stepping amounts, because even if you stay at your current activity level, WalkScape still adds a bit of fun to your daily life. Over the closed beta period, we have received a lot of feedback, most of it being positive, so I also want to share some of the testimonials we have gathered since the game has been available to players.
Progress your character in classic MMORPG style
It's no secret that WalkScape draws inspiration from one of, if not the most well-known, MMORPG called RuneScape. I personally have played OSRS for only a few hours, as World of Warcraft was my MMO of choice, but from my observation of similarities, it's mainly the skill system where you can level up all skills without being locked into a specific class. Also, a big part of the game is non-combat activities like woodcutting, mining, crafting, etc.
As you can see from my character screenshot, currently there are 9 skills, but many more are to come later in development. Increasing the skill levels is the main part of the game, but there are also many more things to chase — like achievements, special profile picture unlocks, legendary items, and so forth. The game is enjoyable to both min-maxers and casual players alike.
It's also important to remember that you're not only progressing in the game, you're also progressing in real life, improving your health by walking and moving. I often forget while being happy about my WalkScape character progress, that I should also be happy about my own body and its healthy improvements. The best players in WalkScape are not the ones who have the privilege to sit at a computer/console all day, but the ones that move their legs the most.
Explore the vast world of Arenum
The world and lore of Arenum has been crafted by our loremaster schamppu. He's always been very much into crafting the grand scheme of things, which is great, because I'm myself more of a zoomed-in storyteller. Currently, only part of the world is fleshed out and it doesn't have quests or stories just yet, but we can't wait until we can start working on those.
Still, the map itself is exciting to explore. You can visit many different locations where you can enter buildings and meet NPCs, making the world feel quite alive even in its current state.
The world is divided into multiple continents which are ruled by different factions. Players can gain various benefits from doing jobs and quests for these factions. There are also locations that are accessed only by completing prerequisites, making them exciting to unlock and explore.
Although only part of the world is currently filled with content, it still provides players with enough gameplay for millions of steps. Everyone is free to pursue the aspects of the game that excite them most.
Play and compete with friends and others
I always find it exciting to share the journey and accomplishments with others, both the ones I make in games and those that are related to fitness. In WalkScape, you can do both at the same time. The game has online leaderboards for various things like skills, achievement points, and total steps.
It also has a friend system with its own separate leaderboard, so you can gather your friend group and compete with each other. Doing friendly challenges always motivates me to walk more (I did a 50k step day just to beat schamppu in a race), but in the future, you'll not only be able to compete with others but also cooperate by trading, doing dungeons, or bosses together.
WalkScape is currently in its most basic MMO shape, but that will greatly be improved upon, so you'll never feel alone in the huge world. Cooperative PvE, PvP, trading, and many more multiplayer features are coming in the future. And if you prefer to play on your own, don't be discouraged, because WalkScape upon full release will also include a single-player version.
Enjoy non-predatory, non-intrusive gameplay
It's easy to not notice an important aspect of WalkScape — there are no ads, and there never will be any ads. I only realized this because I recently tried out a few other mobile games and was hit by many ads, predatory daily offers, buyable currencies, and all the other stuff that "game makers" do to squeeze money out of players.
WalkScape doesn't steal your time by making you watch time-wasting ads or clutter free space with banners. We're very adamant about keeping the game this way. I personally feel like just because a game is on mobile, it doesn't have to follow the "industry standard" practices.
The game is also respectful of players' time. We don't have the intention of making a game that requires players to spend all of their time on it. The opposite, actually — we want people to be able to enjoy their walks without the need to look at a phone screen. There are no daily mechanics that play on people's FOMO. WalkScape lets you be as engaged with it as you want.
Parting words
Thanks for bearing with me through the DevBlog, I enjoyed the chance to reflect on what WalkScape truly is - an MMORPG that can make your life healthier while providing entertainment through the daily life.
I also want to thank everyone for supporting us through the development, without you we likely wouldn’t be able to maintain full creative freedom which is very important to us.
Happy walking, and until next time!
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DevBlog #42: Wave 3 & Syrenthia release date, job boards, consumables and Gamescom!
(self.walkscape)
Hello and welcome back to the WalkScape devblog! We’ve skipped one development blog from the usual schedule due to my summer vacation, but now we’re back, and we’ve been cooking up a lot of new stuff!
Let’s get started!
WalkScape at Gamescom
We got accepted to promote WalkScape for free at Gamescom, as part of the Creative Media Stands EU initiative. This means that on the 20th-25th, me and myzozoz will be presenting WalkScape at Gamescom business side. Sadly, this free booth we got is on the business side only, so if you’re attending with a regular ticket you’ll not be able to visit our booth.
If there’s interest to meet with us outside Gamescom in Cologne, please add me as a friend on Discord (schamppu) or send an email to [email protected]. I’d love to meet some of our fans while there!
Gamescom provides us a huge opportunity to get the word out about the game I’ve now been working on for two years. This is why we’ve sped up our efforts to get both the next content update and Wave 3 out well before the original schedule.
Wave 3 and Syrenthia release date
In order to have a good shot at Gamescom attracting interest from gaming media, we need to have an ongoing wave. This is why the Wave 3 and Syrenthia update are planned for release between the 19th and 21st. We still have some work to do before it’s ready, which is why I can't say for sure which of these dates the actual release will happen, but it should be at the latest on the 21st when the convention starts. The wave will end 30th of September.
As a reminder, if you’d like to gain access to the game immediately when the Wave goes live, you can support us over Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee. If you’ve done so before 30th of September, you’ll gain instant access to the Closed Beta. Also, you can sign up for the Closed Beta on Portal, and we’ll be accepting new players who’ve applied during the wave.
We haven’t had much time between my summer vacation (before which we already released a massive update) and this one. Even though our plan is that we’ll get everything ready on the release date, due to the time constraints this might mean we’ll need to leave certain things out. And while our testing team is working as hard as they can, there’s a higher chance of some bugs slipping through as we don’t have as much time for testing as usual.
When I get back from Germany, I’ll start releasing hotfixes (or if something needed to be cut out, adding them in) and working on the much-anticipated QoL update.
Consumables
Syrenthia update contains few major new feature additions: consumables, faction reputation, and job boards.
Let’s start off with consumables! These have been covered quite many times in past development blogs, but finally they're implemented.
There are two kinds of consumables you can have active at the same time: foods and potions. There are no potions in the game initially, as those will be created with the upcoming Alchemy skill.
The consumables give you attributes while they’re in use, and their duration is step based. This means that you can gather a large stack of consumables, put them to one of the slots and then they’ll be used by your character for thousands of steps.
In addition to these consumables that are used by your character passively while doing activities, there will be some that have instant effects. We’ve already added Memospheres, which practically work similarly to XP lamps in RuneScape, meaning that you’ll gain a small amount of experience for consuming those. Teleportation scrolls are something we’re also planning to be one kind of “immediate effect” consumable along with healing items and more.
And just to make it clear, there will be no consumables that you need to pay real money for. All of the consumables are gained in-game without any kind of MTX.
Job boards
Job boards are the first quest-like feature, although more like repeatable mini-quests than actual in-game stories like we’ve planned for Quests that are coming later.
You can find Job Boards around Arenum, and each job board has three randomized jobs each day that you can accept. You can have 3 jobs accepted at one time, and there is no time limit for the completion of the jobs.
Initially, the offering of varied jobs is very limited, but our intention is to add a few different types of jobs. Mainly, the objectives will be to gather items or give items. As a reward for your efforts and depending on how difficult the job was, you can receive the following:
- Special consumables or items
- Faction reputation
- Coins
- Skill experience
- Chests
The idea behind Job Boards is for them to work as one kind of item sink in preparation for player trading. Additionally, they give you objectives and work as a way to grind faction reputation points.
Faction reputation
The final new major feature addition is Faction Reputation. These are tightly linked to the Jobs and Job Boards, and provide a lot of rewards for your hard work in the different realms, guilds, and factions in WalkScape!
This update includes four factions with their Faction Reputation systems: Jarvonia, Syrenthia, Trellin, and Erdwise. In addition to geographical realms, Guilds will also be using this system in the future.
The Faction Reputation system enables you to level up your reputation in the different in-game realms, currently only granting you some item and cosmetic rewards for doing so. This system was planned mainly as a way to pace the Main Quest progression, as it doesn’t really make sense that you could immediately walk into a castle and start some epic quest when your character basically starts off as a nobody.
Other things that the Faction Reputation is planned to unlock for you are special shops and services, shop discounts, new routes and buildings, and cosmetic things such as titles.
Check out the Faction Reputation track here:
Other features and more!
We also have several more minor but equally useful features and a crazy amount of content in the new update. Let’s cover some of them here!
Friends in game
You’re now able to add other players as your friends, see your friends in-game and manage your friendships. This has been the last step before moving to implementing the Party system.
Privacy settings
We’ve added some privacy settings to manage what you want other players to see about you. You can hide your steps so others can’t see your step data, and also make yourself anonymous on the leaderboards. Both of these are opt-out, so privacy settings will be toggled on by default for everyone, including existing players.
Content
Some numbers of our current amount of new content:
- 100+ new items
- 10+ new activities
- 7+ new locations
- 50+ new crafting recipes
Here are some content showcases:
Until next time
Alright, that was a lot to unpack for this development blog! I hope you enjoyed reading through.
Just a little bit more than a week until the next wave and update should go live! Until then, stay hydrated and keep walking!