DevUpdate #18: First Year Of WalkScape!

2025.01.19 08:30 schamppu DevUpdate #18: First Year Of WalkScape!

First Year Of WalkScape! Welcome to the special development update! We’ve reached a significant milestone - WalkScape is now one year old!
To celebrate this, I’ll write here all the significant things that have happened so far, and also share some testimonials and interesting statistics. Let’s dive in!
The Timeline

We had originally hoped to release the Closed Beta earlier, and after a lengthy crunch, I managed to get everything ready for the release during the 18th. However, Apple's review process took a surprisingly long period of time. After multiple hours of waiting, the first version of Closed Beta (0.1.0+72) was released around 6 AM Finnish time. It was a long night! The first wave of WalkScape had a little over 800 players.
Gotta say that I was very tired during this trip, having just spent the last few weeks staying up all night finishing all that was needed for initial Closed Beta release, and then flying to London straight afterwards.
With Wave Two, our player count increased from 750 to almost 5,000. We also released a pretty large content update to the game that went live with the Wave. This Wave focused on activities for the transformation skills, as well as plenty of beloved unique items spread throughout Jarvonia and GDTE.
During the first few months, even after this update, a lot of my time was spent on trying to perfect the pedometer in WalkScape. For the most part, we had difficulties on fixing weird pedometer behavior for Android devices. Sadly most of this work was also wasted, as Google released a fix to it with the introduction of Recording API.
After spending a couple weeks on review process, we hired a new developer to WalkScape - myzozoz! Our increased Patreon & BMaC support finally allowed us to hire another pair of hands to work on the game. Before this, I was the only developer working on the game, and floursifter worked on community management & content design, and maxchill worked on art.
Around this time, another fix to pedometer issues was released as well.
A couple of weeks before this, Google had released Recording API. I had worked around 2 months at this point trying to perfect the Android pedometer on my own, and suddenly Google released an API that fixed it overnight.
Also, the website was reworked from scratch, and Wave 2.5 date was released.
After a couple of months spent on the pedometer, we were finally back to adding new features to the game. We released Friends system, WalkPedia, major content rebalance, Shop rework and Adventurers Guild with a few new locations and a bunch of new content to the game.
Another update released, adding the achievements system to the game. The team also went for Summer vacation around this time, and it was my first vacation I had had in years, so I was very happy!
Our most massive update was released, adding Consumables and a ton of new content, including a new realm to the game. At this point, we started to feel that our internal development tools and engine were starting to get stretched to their maximum, and they urgently needed improvements. The update was actually pushed out from an airplane while me and myzozoz were flying to Gamescom.
The company I founded for WalkScape had completed its first year! It was a lot of learning for me how to run a business, and I had at this point worked on WalkScape full-time for around 8 months.
We had been at four conventions at this point — PGC Helsinki 2023, W Love Games 2023, PGC London 2024, Gamescom, and now PGC Helsinki 2024. We won the best indie game audience award from PGC Helsinki, which was a huge deal for me personally.
We released a series of minor patches to WalkScape and added translations to the game. Many of the issues here were mostly content-related, which were a result of our outdated internal development tools. When I started this project, I thought it would be enough that I create tooling that only scales for one person who is using them — me. With the project scaling up massively, both with the team size increasing and the game getting more complex, the engine and tooling started to show that they needed more work.
With most of Syrenthia-related issues now fixed, I started to work on reworking the game engine. This process is now almost finished, with the reworked engine hopefully released very soon. Floursifter and maxchill started to work on our next content update, while myzozoz worked on Party system.
My thoughts I'm super happy with the progress we've had in our year one. There are also a ton of things I didn't include here — we made a license agreement with Jagex, we started Wave 3.5, I overhauled the UI of the game, we released a merch store, we had an intern Sorgo joining our team for a few months, and a lot more. With a tiny team, and with just community funding, we've got a lot of things done in our first year of operation.
There were also a lot of lessons learned during the year. A lot of my time was also spent on company bureaucracy stuff, fixing the pedometer, and now the last 3 months have been spent on reworking the game engine. This engine work has been a massive time sink, but I'm very pleased that it was done. Now the game's code is finally properly organized, it uses multi-threading, we have new server technology to support multiple times the players we could before. Most of all, the technical debt has now been paid that was mainly caused by rapidly expanding things.
Also, the first year was unsurprisingly a year of many firsts. I've never run a company before, I've never sat at the other end of a job interview table (which was a local pub actually, we didn't have an office at that time), I've never needed to write privacy policies, pay salaries, do accounting, represent a company at game conventions, hold board meetings, and so forth. Working as a game startup requires you to really wear dozens of different hats. And I'm glad we've made it through without any major issues.
After the engine work is done, we're looking forward to getting back to releasing new features more rapidly. We also need to rework our internal development tools, as one of the biggest pain points for us during and after Syrenthia was how messy creating content for the game got when its complexity increased.
My wishes for 2025 For 2025, I'm definitely most excited about getting the game to Open Beta. That's our biggest priority.
Our largest bottleneck for getting things done more rapidly is that we still only have two developers. One of my greatest wishes would be hiring a third developer for the game, but our finances at the moment don't really allow it. Not a Cult had revenue of 62k euros during the first year, with 2k of profit. So there's little to no extra left after paying all of the costs that go towards the development.
I'm hoping that our revenue would increase so that hiring one more developer would become possible! The money we get from Patreon & BMaC goes directly into making the game better and speeding things up, and every bit of support helps. And thank you all who have been supporting us and helping us over the first year. It would've never been possible for me to quit my previous job, put my university studies on indefinite pause, and hire another full-time developer to the project without the support.
Numbers & testimonials Let's dive into some numbers and some player testimonials we've had during the first year! We've asked these people who are included in the testimonials for permission to use their testimonials.
During the first year, our player count increased by 3,282% and the number of registered players by 955%. For those who wonder why we have had the Wave system even for our supporters: with almost 50k registered people and just one person (me) reading and answering the customer support emails, it's been one of the reasons we've managed to make so much progress between the waves. During the waves, most of our time goes to customer support and marketing.
Our players together have now walked over 8.1 billion steps. And I must say, that one of the best things of our first year has been all of the feedback, testimonials, and community interactions we've had. It always makes my day to hear that the game has helped someone greatly — that's something much greater to me than just making a game. And I'm very thankful for everyone who has been cheering for us, translating the game, and providing invaluable feedback or helping in other ways throughout the year. So thank you, WalkScapers!
Here are some testimonials we’ve had:
Some of the player testimonials we've had!
Let’s make 2025 even better year for WalkScape That's all for this development update! 2024 was a great year, and we learned a lot about how to make the game even better. Our goal is to use all we have learned and make 2025 the best year for walking and playing the game. It was also a huge change for me personally, going from an IT consultant and university student to full-time entrepreneur. We'll keep working as hard as we can to deliver the best possible fitness game there is. I'm hoping our community keeps being awesome and providing us with their feedback to guide us on this task. And most of all, we'll keep walking.
Thank you ❤️
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2025.01.19 08:30 -Tenko- New player help please.

I think I might have made a wrong choice somewhere. For context, I'm playing a Power Staff Thief and currently progressing through the PoF storyline. However, I've only been offered healing gear, specifically the Marshall's Elonian set. I don't recall ever choosing this stat line, and now that I've completed that set, it's offering me Sagal's, which again only has gear with healing power.
Could this be because I chose to side with the Sunspears? When I searched for the best quest line for my character, the advice was to pick the back piece I liked the most, with no mention of stats.
Sorry for the noob question, and thanks :)
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2025.01.19 08:30 AzazaMaster How do we promote games now with the TikTok ban?

How do we promote games now with the TikTok ban? submitted by AzazaMaster to IndieDev [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 Cleetus99 Struggling with Household Responsibilities and Communication – How Can We Move Forward

I’m (34) looking for some advice on a situation with my husband (35) that escalated yesterday, and I’m feeling really stuck and frustrated. I’m hoping someone might be able to offer insight or advice on how to approach it.
I’ve been selling clothes on Vinted for a while, and my husband asked me to sell some of his items over the past few months which i have done. I’ve been handling all of the updates, offers, and shipping for him. After a while, I suggested he set up his own account to manage his sales, which he did, and I helped him get started. All seemed fine, he was even updating me and getting excited about a sale he had made.
However, yesterday, I asked if he could post a couple of my vinted parcels for me since he was already heading to the recycling center (we only have one car). He initially stopped speaking to me and was from that moment very off with me. When i asked him if i had done something wrong. He said it was about the parcels. He was refusing to post them for me saying that I had “cut him off” by suggesting he handle his own selling, and he wasn’t going to help me because of that. He also mentioned that he feels like he does everything around the house and gets little help, and that asking him to do this felt like just another thing added to his plate. Admittedly I blew up, as I felt this was extremely petty and I didn't appreciate being made to feel like I don't do enough for our family life. He left and came back several hours later. We tried to have a discussion but he can't move past that he still feels like I should have continued to sell his items due to everything he does for me.
This left me feeling really hurt. I do try my best to juggle everything—while also supporting him through his recent autism diagnosis. He does the majority of the housework, like laundry and the weekly cleaning, and I take care of the cooking, the kids, and everything to do with their school life (including things like birthdays, Christmas, homework, etc.). My 14vyear olf daughter also helps by doing her chores, the dushwasher, hoovering and washing. I also organize most of the family fun—date nights, family holidays, and cozy nights in—since he’s usually focused on getting the household tasks done.
However, I have my own mental health struggles to contend with. Last year, I was diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder, largely due to having to help my mother escape an abusive situation. I’m now also checking in on her regularly, as she’s living on her own for the first time and dealing with severe mental health issues. I am an only child and am her only support. On top of everything else, I feel like I’m constantly juggling these responsibilities while trying to stay on top of my own mental health, my role as a mother and wife, and caring for my mum.
I’ve suggested that we sit down for an honest conversation about our responsibilities—perhaps writing down what each of us does in a typical day or week so that we can see what’s really on each other’s plate. I think that with my husband’s autism, seeing things written down might help with recognizing the responsibilities on both sides. I’m just afraid it might turn into a tit-for-tat argument, as there’s clearly some resentment building on both ends. I want to find a way to have a productive conversation without it turning into an argument where one person feels like they do more than the other.
Overall, we have a good relationship, but communication is definitely our downfall. When my husband is upset or annoyed, he tends to shut down and stop speaking to me, which I find really stressful. This inevitably leads to the issues coming out in a big blow-up.
I believe we both have our strengths and have naturally fallen into certain roles in our daily lives. He’s more task-focused and likes the house to be clean and tidy before he can relax, while I’m more of the organizer and family-focused, in addition to being the family chef. I’m also very passionate about cooking, and I often prepare elaborate weekend meals like nice brunches, Sunday roasts, and handle meal planning and grocery shopping. I try to take pride in creating a warm home environment, but it feels like the balance isn’t always there.
I would really appreciate any advice on how we can approach this conversation constructively, so we don’t fall into a cycle of resentment and arguments. I’m just so eager to move forward without feeling like we’re stuck in this cycle of who does more and not being able to communicate effectively.
Thanks so much for reading, and any advice would be greatly appreciated.
submitted by Cleetus99 to Marriage [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 Mission-Mammoth5623 Is what I’m experiencing an autistic meltdown?

Content warning for mention of bad mental health!!
(Posting this on an alt account for reasons)
Hello all you wonderful and extremely attractive people
I read a Reddit comment a while back that piqued my interest. It was from an autistic person talking about what triggers their meltdowns. It was a very specific and mundane thing that to a neurotypical would be a strange thing to get upset about. (Not stating specifically what it was here, both because I don’t want to reveal to much info and I don’t want to put that info out there without the consent of the person who posted that comment.)
For context, I’ve been diagnosed with ASD since I was little (A person on the autism subreddit is autistic!? Shocker!! /s).
When I was young, like maybe 7, 8 or 9 years old, whenever I would watch YouTube, if a comment had a swear word or an inappropriate joke, I would get really upset. I would hide in my room and cry, and sometimes have thoughts of taking my own life. Also, I would stop watching whatever specific YouTube channel the comment was left on (even though it wasn’t their fault at all that comment was there)
I remember when I was that age seeing a “bad” comment under a video. The video in question was by a music channel I really liked, like I drove my parents absolutely insane by listening to those songs over and over and over again. But I saw that comment and it was like a switch was flipped, I stopped all interaction with that channel. (The comment wasn’t even bad, just a silly, immature joke probably made by some dumb kid. Think a kid finding the word “Uranus” funny, that sort of thing.)
I outgrew this when I was around 9 or 10 or so, I can’t pinpoint my exact age. (I can proudly say that I’ve dropped more than a few f-bombs and even made a few raunchy jokes during my time on the internet /hj)
I don’t have any issues from those things anymore, of course. I have new things now that cause the phenomenon I described. I even gained a new one recently. I listen to a lot of music from foreign countries, (and my special interest is history/geography) but since I got that new, specific trigger (for lack of a better word), I just can’t listen to music from a specific, seemingly random selection of countries. (Of course, this is no way related to the culture or people of those countries, some of those countries are some of my absolute favorites on Earth.) That means I can’t listen to some of my favorite songs anymore.
The phenomenon I described is not as extreme as when I was younger, I mostly get anxiety and a feeling I can only describe as dread/sympathy. >!and sometimes suicidal thoughts Is this an autism meltdown? It’s not as bad as descriptions I’ve heard of other people’s meltdowns, maybe it’s something else to do with my autism?
Thanks for reading, this ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would. I hope it doesn’t sound too incoherent.
submitted by Mission-Mammoth5623 to autism [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 Youdontknowmewell- Yakuza 6 platinum

Can i do all the substory’s in premium adventure? Or do i need to do them before finishing the story?
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2025.01.19 08:30 LeishMeish I am not new, only clueless 😂

Does this mean I need to evolve to floragato and then level up to 1500cp? And that will make it #2 when battling in great league?
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2025.01.19 08:30 Itserp Tesi Triennale in un meno di due mesi?

Ciao! Vi scrivo perché sono un po' indietro con la tesi triennale e avrei bisogno di un parere realistico sulla mia situazione. Mi dovrò laureare lingue e letterature straniere con una tesi di letteratura e il limite di questa sessione di laurea per la consegna è il 10 Marzo.
Ad oggi, non ho né la bibliografia né l'indice ma ho solamente letto l'opera su cui vorrò lavorare ed un saggio molto corposo, delineando a grandi linee la direzione che il progetto seguirà. La tesi sarà all'incirca di cinquanta pagine.
L'idea di documentarmi ancora di più, fare una ricerca approfondita, leggere altri saggi e consegnare il lavoro entro il 10 Marzo è utopistica o è all'effettivo fattibile?
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2025.01.19 08:30 rushan3103 Turbak Khan's Invasion of Assam One of the first confrontation between Ahoms and Bengal

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2025.01.19 08:30 alexruelas Question

Is Prab still thinking about me? Does she like me romantically? Will we keep hanging out since the last two hangouts were really fun for the both of us and were like dates without the label.
submitted by alexruelas to freepsychicreadings4u [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 Ok-Camp7102 How do I leave my emotionally and verbally abusive “boyfriend” ?we have a 1 year old

My partner (28M) is very emotionally and verbally abusive towards me. He has been nasty for awhile, but it’s been getting worse as of late. For abit of context, I am a stay at home mum as of right now, which we both agreed to before our baby was even here. Which means I do house duties whilst he goes to office. My partner when angry will make comments to me such as I don’t do anything, all I do is clean and look after the baby whilst he goes to office all day and works hard. He doesn’t not appreciate anything I do for him whatsoever. Recently we had an argument about something little and I was told firstly to kill myself, secondly that what I am aspiring to do with my life (recently got into uni so I can get a decent job eventually and help out with money) is embarrassing and a subject people do for their GcSEs (psychology).
Now I know I am with a complete narcissist, but I am so conflicted with that to do, I do not want to be a single mother whatsoever, I would have never had a child with this man if I knew I would be treated this. I do love him even though I am extremely hurt. I really don’t know what to do anymore, any advice would be really appreciated.
Thank you
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2025.01.19 08:30 evilmousse GENTLEMEN.

GENTLEMEN. submitted by evilmousse to marvelrivals [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 DHEDAN_8 If you stay up late, what’s the most comforting sound you could hear, and what’s the most disturbing sound you might hear?

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2025.01.19 08:30 Euphoric_Party_7035 Raw Fish and Iron Overload

Raw Fish and Iron Overload So it is a thing, I was doubtful BUT this woman is drinking alcohol no issue soooo……sorry what??
submitted by Euphoric_Party_7035 to BelowDeckMed [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 Infamous_Piccolo3994 Misdemeanor DUI and blue card/work visa application

I was coming home from a festival and we were stuck in traffic for 2hrs when the driver wanted to get something from the pharmacy, I felt sober and kept the car moving along when 5min later we went through a police checkpoint, the reason for the traffic. I had taken a quarter of an ecstacy 24h prior and thought I would be fine but I guess not.
I received a low-level driving under the influence (MDMA) misdemeanor (not criminal) charge which resulted in a €500 fine and 1 mo driving ban. How much does this affect a work visa application?
submitted by Infamous_Piccolo3994 to berlinsocialclub [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 Intelligent_Flan_178 [RANT] The bad server killed my dino

After spending hours growing a dino, I log back in after the server reset (logged out safely), get in the game, go drink some water, I start seeing my water meter stop going up and fishes swimming on land. Bam, main menu [Server connection lost] my dino shows as unsafe, I log back in and I get the dino selection screen..... You'd think that despite having the slowest dev time ever, they'd at least have better servers and mechanics around it to prevent things like that, but no, players could abuse it to save their dinos, so instead we'll also punish those suffering from our bad servers. This wasted hours of my day, because hey, dinos gotta take hours to grow too... I love this game when it works well, but when it doesn't, which is often, it'll waste your time like rarely any others. It'd be like having a rogue-like that doesn't save your progression during a run and keeps crashing.
submitted by Intelligent_Flan_178 to theisle [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 CryptographerBorn918 Mai til USA

Er der nogen der ved hvad tid de flyver, så kan man endelig skrive noget uden at blive blokeret efter 5 min 🤣
submitted by CryptographerBorn918 to GossipDK [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 Square-Pressure7392 Concerning housemate with interest in legal weapons

For context this is a HMO (UK)
There's no two ways about it this housemate is not good news. This I already knew about him. However the concerning signs keep coming. I need to make this housemate situation work for the time being but at what point do I take action and risk rocking the boat? Even if I were to take action how would I do so?
I don't know where to begin describing this guy. There is a whole list of relatively minor issues such as not flushing the toilet, not locking the door, not cleaning and just not being house trained in general.
He says he has schizophrenia, he does drugs, sells drugs (only at a small time level, I think he's trying to prove something to himself) and has a concerning interest in being "prepared" and amassing legal weapons. He showed me his tactical flashlight and started talking about how he has a Swiss army knife and power cords (STC or something like that?). Why he was telling me this I don't know. What was I supposed to think?
If what he's freely told me is this concerning, it makes me wonder what he HASN'T told me. He's always been friendly enough but is clearly a nutter. He thinks he's in control of his actions but he is not (since drugs and mental illness) and he does not understand this. This is the most concerning thing. Even people of relatively sound mind aren't truly in control of their actions but that's one for another time.
Keeping legal weapons and being "prepared" while still being of reasonably sound mind is one thing, but combine that with drugs and mental illness and, frankly, outright stupidity, and you have a deeply concerning cocktail. It's a HMO so the landlord decides who to put in the house and he is completely indiscriminate.
I could have a word with the landlord but however I go about it I'd be risking consequences as I'd still have to live with the guy.
I could digress and go on a tangent about how it's seemingly impossible to afford non-shared accommodation despite working full time meaning I'm seemingly stuck living with degenerate morons for life. That's one for another time I think.
Do I sit tight or do I do something about this?
submitted by Square-Pressure7392 to HousingUK [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 Athletica_ai Fitness, form, and function dont come close to matching intervals.icu or strava calculations

Fitness, form, and function dont come close to matching intervals.icu or strava calculations submitted by Athletica_ai to athletica_ai [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 AdrianAlfred01 Is Justin luxury any good and anyone done a lead test ?

I’m trying to buy some stuff for my sister and I want it to be affordable so if you have any other suggestions would love to hear them too
submitted by AdrianAlfred01 to JewelryReps [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 Zestyclose-Aside2168 Help connecting to pc

Hello I am trying to connect my Sony trinitron kv20m42 to my pc. My gpu has a vga connector. Do I just need a vga to composite cable or some type of adapter? I was going to try to play some pc games on it. Thank you
submitted by Zestyclose-Aside2168 to crtgaming [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 kakakarasu トランプ次期大統領に抗議、ワシントンで大規模デモ

submitted by kakakarasu to newsokuexp [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 Fantastic-Session577 Anyone like Japanese models like Rei Kuromiya? 0507abcfd1e21086eb5d01aa6c485049fb58a58538c5cd6612799cba37eb823f07

submitted by Fantastic-Session577 to Melinamsxou_heiss [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 thatguy9684736255 Funny

Funny submitted by thatguy9684736255 to BlueskySkeets [link] [comments]

2025.01.19 08:30 Nahidroll Help

Help Uuuh i cant pass floor 15 i need help What should i do and i am out of resources ap the leveling material everything welp
submitted by Nahidroll to PhantomParadeJK [link] [comments]

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