Thank you so much!

Depending on how the legislations now post-DMA go, it might be possible to also handle payments throughout our Portal instead of app stores. The app stores, especially Apple’s, has still a bunch of rules in their ToS about this where they might remove the game entirely if you’re not using their payment system. Android is slightly more lenient on this regard though.

The cuts Patreon already takes (a whopping 14% in total, after which we then play VAT) already affects us enough that I would definitely love to rather have my own systems, but also they offer a lot of convenience to the users that we couldn’t at this point.

But overall it would be great if we could provide a direct payment system straight from Portal, as we could price that one also significantly cheaper than using Google’s or Apple’s systems when we don’t need to pay their cuts. It’s something I really want to do to be able to make the pricing as affordable as possible, and everything depends on if it’s both feasible and allowed by the app stores. But can’t promise this, as there are a lot of factors in play whether it’s feasible to provide our own systems and if it’s allowed by the biggest stores.

When it comes to direct APK downloads, maybe if we can get a good pipeline for those. I think the most realistic option is that we’ll pick the one for an “extra release pipeline” that we can automate most easily to our current systems. Could be Aurora Store, F-Droid or some other depending on what kind of automation options they offer.

We already have an anti-cheat in the game and it’s being developed further, although not exactly a priority at this point of Closed Beta. But it’s shown great promise of detecting cheating. In can’t disclose how it’s working, as that would make circumventing it easier.

There are already a bunch of activities in game that have been designed for people who hike and gain a lot of steps during it and don’t have service. Also, the offline game mode will not require service at all, so it’s possible to manage it even while hiking. In addition to the current activities, we also have special “Adventures” planned that can take tens of thousands of steps without needing to open the game.

Combat system also will pretty much work as “piling up the rewards” in addition to the core gameplay. You gain combat points for each step you take, and there will be a large cap to those. Then you can play the combat system and spend those points and gain a ton of combat progress fast if you’ve got a lot of points saved up.

Thank you for the feedback!

Thank you! The very first post I ever posted to r/WalkScape covers this and I promised that there will be no ads and no MTX, and we’re going to keep what we’ve promised. That’s also why I’ve turned down every investor and publisher, as those could compromise this by having a stake at the company.

Exactly my thoughts! I was just approached at Gamescom by somebody who was pitching me to put limits to the inventory in order to sell expanded inventory space. He said it’s cool, as it’s just selling “utility” to the player. I think it’s designing your game to be annoying so people would pay more for it, and I like to put game design over anything else. As a game developer, I’m proud of designing things well and would feel disgusted by intentionally designing crap just to make more money.

Also I think the best cosmetics in games are those you earn through gameplay, which is why all of the cosmetics (which there are a lot in WalkScape) are earned by putting hard work inside the game. And also the players are proud to put the rare cosmetics on their characters to flex that they’ve achieved something. I think that’s a lot more cool than just being able to pay real money for it.

Not to even talk about what you just mentioned here. All kinds of MTX, be it cosmetics only, really take advantage of people who can’t limit their spending. They’ll pay a lot more than they should and it encourages unhealthy spending habits.

But this game is tied to fitness and also has competitive elements to it. Imagine you can buy yourself faster progress here, when it’s all tied to physical activity. It would completely ruin the game and any competitive aspects in it, and devalue the feeling of achieving things in it, if players with bigger wallets gain advantage. When there’s only an affordable subscription, there’s a ceiling to spending and no one can gain unfair advantage by paying more than others.

Microtransactions overall pretty much always compromise game design. Games usually make the grind or progress much slower than what would be actually good to drive the purchases of MTX.

I’m also personally very against MTX and ads, I think they’re the worst invention in gaming and I hate when game design is now revolving around what kind of mechanics can make people open their wallets as often as possible instead of what’s fun and cool.

We don’t have an official community here (at least, not yet). And I’m quite hesitant to add one, as we already have our hands full with Discord, Reddit and WalkScape Portal communities.

When it comes to monetisation, the model we’ve planned is what seems both the fairest and most sustainable when compared to any other alternative, which is why I chose it as our plan. You can either buy it once to gain access to the offline “ironman” mode, or pay an affordable monthly subscription to play the online mode - both of which will be free to try out, so you’ll know if it’s worth your money before paying anything.

Going with single purchases only isn’t as sustainable for an online game. It’s much harder to keep it supported and expanding it long-term (and pay for servers) if we’re relying on single purchases, and it would tie us into needing to plan expansions that bring extra revenue to keep things running. By having an affordible subscription, we can keep content coming rapidly without needing to consider what kind of expansion pack and price tag do we need to put these new features behind, which I feel is much better from both game design and player perspective.

Microtransactions and ads are something I’ve clearly stated we’ll never be doing, as those also compromise game design and are predatory or come with privacy concerns.

If you’re OK with spoilers, check out wiki and map tool. Also our Discord has a plenty of people who are really helpful on giving eaely game tips.

My personal recommendation would be to unlock enough achievements for 20AP to unlock Adventurers’ Guild, and then farm enough of their tokens there to get some chests. Their chests have great tools for new players. Then, unlocking GDTE and then Syrenthia.

Smart watch support currently is dependent on Google’s process on Health Connect. They’re killing Google Fit API, which was our plan for smart watch integration. Health Connect as of now is too buggy to use, but likelt will get better before the end of the year according to Google.

Thank you, and have a fun time walking ❤️