Hello again, Lemmy!
It’s been a while since I last posted here, and the reception for the post was really awesome - thank you all for that! I also created a community in Lemmy for the game: !walkscape@lemmy.world where I’m posting every development blog post.
We have a new Closed Beta wave right now, so if you’d like to try out the game, you can follow the instructions available at walkscape.app/help. The wave is running until January 7th.
Since the last post, we’ve now started to add some Quality of Life updates to the game and we’re nearly finished with the lengthy optimization process of the game engine and servers. We’re expecting to release the next update next month!
If you haven’t heard about the game before, I started this project as a personal hobby project to help myself walk more. I tried most of the games available, but I wanted to have something that didn’t need attention while walking and wouldn’t have predatory monetization like most mobile games tend to have these days.
The game is inspired by RuneScape, and you level up skills, craft gear, find loot and so on by walking IRL. We have a short introduction video to the game where I explain and show how the game works in more detail.
Once again, thanks Lemmy for all the awesome feedback we’ve got and for the countless encouraging messages that you’ve sent us. And I’m hoping to see more of you in the game & community!
I’ll answer any questions or feedback here in the comments and in our own community. Happy new year, and happy walking <3
Dave@lemmy.nz 1 year ago
I’m using GrapheneOS and struggling to get the game to count steps when it’s not actively open. Anyone else using GrapheneOS and have any tips?
schamppu@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
I haven’t used GrapheneOS myself, but I’ve heard from others that running it in sandbox works. The game requires Google Play Services in order to count the steps in background, so sandbox with Google Play Services should fix that. The API the game specifically uses is the Recording API.
Dave@lemmy.nz 1 year ago
From my understanding, any app installed directly from Google Play should be in the sandbox and have access to Google Play Services. I haven’t quite worked out where the steps are missing, but it seems when the game is open it’s fine, and when the game hasn’t been killed by the OS it’s also fine. If I go back to the game and it has to launch again from scratch, it doesn’t seem to count steps that happened while the game wasn’t running (foreground or background).
I also see this post where others are seeing the same thing, and are not using GrapheneOS. Maybe my use of GrapheneOS is a red herring and there’s actually something else happening.
It was always odd to me that apps need to be constantly active to get the steps. I don’t get why the phone doesn’t just count in the background then allow you to request “how many steps today” or “how many steps since X date/time” via the API.