It took quite a while, but it’s finally out. Fully free, no ads, no in-app purchases (besides a “Support the developer” option), no data collection and fully offline playable. All you need is your phone and GPS :)

I originally made the game to go on walks, unfortunately I sat even more in front of my PC to develop it. It is what it is. Hopefully it motivates some of you to get your steps in 💚

General idea of the game: Collect ingredients, brew them into potions and sell them to merchants. With the gold and reputation you get you can buy things and decorate your neighborhood. Other players see the same map and resources (so you can indirectly play together), but the game world fully belongs to you (singleplayer only).

General roadmap right now:

  • Adding achievements
  • Adding buildings you can improve over time (tavern to attract merchants and an ingredient tree you need to grow)
  • More minigames and improving the existing ones
  • And of course bugfixes, please let me know if you run into issues :)

For any questions and suggestions I’m always available!

  • nameisnotimportant@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    16 hours ago

    Interesting concept and I wanted to try it. Downloaded from Aurora (because my phone is degooglized) and was kicked out of the game upon launch because google play isn’t enabled… Disappointing and I’d love to have it on F Droid too

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      3 hours ago

      Found it, Google injects by default an “Installer check” that blocks the app from running without Google Play.

      I disabled it, try to get the newest version of the game (1.2.11) over Aurora and see if it runs :)

      F Droid is a lot more messy, the game has to be 100% open source for it, which is not something I’m working on right now. I’d rather get it to iOS first.

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      ·
      16 hours ago

      Ah, sorry, by default Google seems to inject some kind of Google Protection into new apps. You’re the third person asking about F Droid, I’ll have to take a look :)

      I might need to do custom builds for that though (strip out Google plugins), I’ll put it on my todo list.

  • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    12 hours ago

    So interestingly, my phone downloaded and is playing it fine. We went to search it up on my husband’s phone, and his phone isn’t supported? Which is wild to me, as my phone is older/generally the one that doesn’t find apps!

    Also maybe for the future, an idea! It’s very odd to me I can’t move the map at all. No swiveling around and looking, it’s always just looking northish I suppose! Maybe I’m more use to games like Orna where you can swivel and move and look around the map though.

    So far I do like it! I look forward to more!

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      6 hours ago

      Edit: Wait, forgot about the main topic, what phone does your husband have? There shouldn’t be any restriction on Android version (if it’s one of the newer ones), but maybe I really messed up somewhere.

      Yes, the map only has zoom for now (pinch in and out). As it’s a fantasy world I didn’t want to provide too much “looking around” options, the only thing that has to do with the real world is the street maps, which is an optional download ^^’

      A little bit concerned people will do stupid things like go into private property, if I give too much freedom there. But I’ll think about adding a two finger move or something, the big question is just how to recenter again afterwards (button? There already is a double tap to reset zoom).

      • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        5 hours ago

        So I can say mine is a Galaxy A12 with Android 12 I think. I’ll edit this is a few hours when he’s awake and I can look at his phone!

        • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          4 hours ago

          I had a look at the topic, if his phone is from that era and was a budget phone, then maybe it doesn’t have 64-bit support (32-bit only). Unfortunately I can’t ship the game with 32-bit support :-/

          But let me know the exact phone and I can tell you more!

              • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                2 hours ago

                Wild mine is 64 bit and his isn’t! Mine is a laggy crashy thing now and his is okie dokie. Well, unfortunate. We need to get new phones, but don’t have the money, alas. Maybe for the holidays!

  • Cricket@lemmy.zip@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    17 hours ago

    Looks great, thank you for developing it and for releasing it for free without catches! I hope that you will eventually release it for iOS.

    Have you posted this to Mastodon or any other social media yet? I hope that word will spread and make your game popular. :)

  • makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    18 hours ago

    Just read your comments about OSM data etc. Fantastic! Well done.

    About to head on holiday to Europe, so have downloaded it and will play as I go.

    Thank you!

  • Allero@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    36
    ·
    1 day ago

    Seconding the F-Droid request.

    Also, the app is not available in Russia, is that by design?

    In any case, good luck with it and thanks for sharing something like this!

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      ·
      1 day ago

      Yes, sorry. I had to limit a handful of countries due to laws.

      For example Japan forces you to register a business there… similar to Vietnam. Russia has sanctions. And so on :-/

      • Allero@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        1 day ago

        I see! This is understandable for a small indie dev.

        But I’ll always be happy to see other avenues for distribution :)

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      ·
      1 day ago

      No plans yet, I might look into that in the future.

      I’d rather focus on bringing it to iOS, having a few people who already asked for it. Not an Apple fan, so still thinking about getting an old used iPhone for testing…

      • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        17 hours ago

        have done game dev on ios… man it’s so much easier on android. objective c and the app store are gigantic pains in the ass. you’ll probably also need to get a macbook or other apple device to build from.

        • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          16 hours ago

          I’m using Godot, so seemingly it could be as easy as export to XCode and build. Seemingly…

          Let’s see, still in the process of sourcing a cheap iPhone SE 2020 or 2022. Everyone I know uses Android, so I can’t ask them if they have an old iPhone lying around (:

          • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            16 hours ago

            I wish ye luck! please do an after-action-review on how that goes, it’s good information for fellow devs

      • magikmw@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        20
        ·
        1 day ago

        You can probably emulate iOS in xcode but you are unlikely to build anything for it without MacOS and xcode. Yeah, lovely environment.

        • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          20
          ·
          1 day ago

          Yes, you need a Mac for XCode (can’t emulate that). Then you also need to pay Apple $99 a year, even if you just want to release a free app.

          I could simulate an iPhone for testing, but for a GPS game this would be messy. Even on Android I’m still struggling a bit with getting GPS to work reliably. You pretty much need a real phone to test that :-/

          • amzd@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            17 hours ago

            Xcode actually has pretty good gps emulation, you can set routes for it to walk.

            What tech is this using? Is it a html5 game?

            • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              17 hours ago

              Oh, it’s Godot.

              I know you can simulate GPS, but it’s way too clean and predictable. With a real phone you get much weirder behavior. Besides the whole permission topic on real devices.

              One player complained about GPS jumping 100 meters away, but their Google Maps had the same issue. So I had to say “I can’t do it better than Google Maps” :D

              • amzd@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                8 hours ago

                Ah okay! I’ve been wanting to make this style of app using webxdc for a long time

                • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  17 hours ago

                  But I had to use Godot Mono (with C#). GDScript was way too slow. Especially for the procedural terrain generation.

  • MrPinder@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    22 hours ago

    This is so cool and I immediately downloaded it. I look forward to trying it out and dontaing to you! I rather my money go to a donation than a store. Thanks for sharing and developing!

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      22 hours ago

      Thank you 💚

      But please only donate if you’re rich. Otherwise just enjoy the game and if you want give feedback :)

      Times are hard enough for everyone, I made the game in my freetime and have a job, so no worries!

  • nullify3112@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    17 hours ago

    I’m on iOS so cannot try it out. Wishing you the best and looking forward to playing it on iPhone if you manage to get to that! Can you tell us more about the assets you’re using? I’m curious how you managed to get a cohesive look. Did you draw everything yourself? (Tip: look into adding ground shadows!)

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      16 hours ago

      Thank you :)

      Ground shadows for which part?

      There’s procedural terrain (fully code generated) for the map. And then there’s the decorations/buildings you can place (low poly assets).

      Originally I wanted to generate all art by code, like your character could pick clothing, eyes, nose, mouth, hair, … but I just couldn’t get it to look good enough (unfortunately, I thought it would be really cool).

      I’m a software developer, not an artist. I can do design work and draw a little, but not good enough. So I used a local image generation model on my GPU, generating each asset dozens of times and then reworking the best one in GIMP until satisfied.

      For the light effects I drew a greyscale map on another layer, which then gets added to the asset at night (colored in with the color the player picked).

      I’d love to hire an artist to redraw everything in a better style, but that’s simply not in my budget. Maybe if the game actually makes some money, which is unlikely ^^’

  • lemonhead2@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    1 day ago

    well, I don’t have any interest in this game. but, since it’s free with no data collection I’ll try it, and give it 5 stars

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      17 hours ago

      Also, the app is not available in Russia,

      it will be released as soon as you leave ukraine :D

      tell putie. I’m sure he’ll listen then.

      • Allero@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        8 hours ago

        Oh yeah, as if I’m personally marching on Kherson in full armor.

        Dude, these kinds of attacks have lost ground a long time ago. Plenty of Russians do not support what’s happening, many struggle themselves under drone strikes, quite a few actively resist. Or did you think large-scale attacks of Ukraine on some of the most crucial military objects happened without any help from Russians?

        If you want to display your active civil stance, do it where you can. With US, Europe, Australia and more following Russia’s footsteps, I’m sure you’ll have ground for political action. Harassing Russians for the sake of being born in Russia is shortsighted and only serves to make you feel morally superior while doing nothing.

        • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          7 hours ago

          Dude, these kinds of attacks have lost ground a long time ago

          like russians in Ukraine lol

          If you want to display your active civil stance, do it where you can.

          I do. Like here.

          Look, I live in the US, I know it suuuucks having a leader you don’t trust, who’s actively fucking your country raw dog. Every time someone says “TRUMP SUCKS THE US IS TERRIBLE” I affirm the premise. If you don’t support the shitbag, good luck with your revolution!

          but as a game dev, I’d wouldn’t publish my stuff in RU until that’s done, and I don’t blame anyone one iota if they aren’t either.

  • ozoned@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    23 hours ago

    I’ve never been one to do mobile app type things, and with the Pokemon Go stuff that came out, I’m massively hesitant to. I understand this is offline, but it requires GPS. Is that just for the game locally on the device? I see no ads. Do you collect any data? I love this idea, I’m just honestly hesitant because of the current situation of these kinds of games.

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      23 hours ago

      It’s fully offline, so no worries there. The GPS is just for your game to know where you are while playing. No ads, no data collected (besides what Google generally collects over the Play Store).

      In theory there is one network connection to Cloudflare: I offer a street map download for all across the world. So for example if you’re in Austria like me it looks up which map file you need (simple .json catalog), then offers you to download the map file once (57 MB for Austria). But I don’t track anything there either.

      Zero interest in handling player data, I’m in the EU, GDPR is a bitch :)

      • ozoned@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        22 hours ago

        Thank you for taking the time to address my paranoia. :D

        I’ve downloaded the game and going to try it out. First off, I absolutely LOVE the art style. So pretty.

        Thank you for creating this and sharing it with us here. :)

        • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          22 hours ago

          Thank you for giving it a try 💚

          Honestly I was a bit afraid no one is going to play it (:

  • Clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    edit-2
    1 day ago

    This looks awesome! Downloaded. I already play Walkscape, which is like RuneScape but works by counting steps. This will be a fun addition.

    Is it playable while traveling? I don’t know if it’s a waste to put down stuff in places to which I’ll never return.

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      24 hours ago

      Fully playable while traveling.

      Stuff you put down is just decoration (so skip that for places you don’t revisit) and currently two functional buildings (garden to plant ingredients, market stall to sell potions for less gold).

      When traveling over 12 km/h it doesn’t count for walk distance (companion rewards, daily missions, …) but it’s fully playable otherwise :)

      • Clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        17 hours ago

        I seemed not to have ingredients near me at first, and I got stuck with no clue what to do. I uninstalled and reinstalled the game to get the instructions to come up again, and made two potions. Is there a way to get back to the help/tutorial?

        • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          17 hours ago

          Not for the very first tutorial (without resetting your app), all other tutorials can be pulled up again.

          The tutorial should give you enough resources to brew your first potion and sell it. Then you’ll have to go for a walk to find more stuff :)

          There’s plenty around, if you’re not in a city just walk your usual route and interact with what you find. There’s some easter eggs too. In a city with blocks you might be able to use the markers to track down resources, but it’s not necessary to play like that.