Edit: After a weekend of work, I just added achievements https://lemmy.zip/post/69007248

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I originally made the game to go on walks, unfortunately I sat even more in front of my PC to develop it.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
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    7 days 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
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      7 days 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.

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
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      6 days 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.

      • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Wow that automatic installer check is really shitty from Google, I wonder why I never saw outrage about that, it will close access to most apps in degoogled operating systems

        • Sidyctism II.@discuss.tchncs.de
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          3 days ago

          Probably because most people with degoogled android get most of their apps over f-droid anyway. I have like 3 play store apps, and two of those are messengers

  • milk@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 days ago

    I see a couple people asking for an F-Droid release which would be great, but would require the app to be open source. Just thought I’d let you know there’s no obligation for you to open-source your app if you dont want to. If you’d rather keep it closed source that’s okay too

  • antiR@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I have tried it. So far, I had to open the Google Maps app while the app is open so it will exit “Waiting for GPS.” Maybe for it to trigger the location service. Also, I think the map will be friendlier if it can be rotated based on the compass or manual rotation by pinch. The current setup would be fine only if you are already familiar with the roads in the area. But, for a free app, I like that there is an alternative i can use for Pokemon Go or Ingress.

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
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      6 days ago

      Darn, were you on the latest version? I did improve the GPS with update 1.2.10 (as it sometimes had trouble getting a location fix on resuming the game).

      I did want to add rotation to the map, but unfortunately with the art style it’s just not possible :-/ If I just had roads and flat terrain then sure, but with the procedural terrain you can’t really rotate it. Or if you only rotate the street map and not the terrain it would look terrible (in my opinion) and not like an actual world map. Open to suggestions though!

      • katze@lemmy.4d2.org
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        5 days ago

        I did want to add rotation to the map, but unfortunately with the art style it’s just not possible :-/

        Just for the record, another GPS game, “Resources”, also never implemented a rotating map; possible for similar reasons.

      • antiR@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        I guess Google play hasn’t served me the latest version yet. I will wait for it and try again. I am on version 1.2.11

        • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
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          6 days ago

          Sorry, that’s the latest, I fat fingered the version (:

          Was this on just your very first app start (with the tutorial) or later on too? The first start needs a very good location fix, sub 50 meters (so indoors it’s a bit tough), otherwise the tutorial spawns, you jump and it becomes a mess.

          As soon as the tutorial is done all further game starts should be much faster, hopefully.

          • antiR@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            It was on my very first start. I tried closing then opening the app but it didn’t fix the issue. I know opening Google Maps will fix this because this also happens on Pokemon Go when the GPS location is inaccurate. Opening Google Maps seems to trigger a better algorithm for GPS. Not sure if this is device specific though or due to power saving mode.

            • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
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              6 days ago

              GPS can be fiddly unfortunately. But great that it works now, if you get any issues on the next few starts please let me know 💚

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
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      6 days ago

      For now I removed the Google Play store protection, so you can download it over Aurora (Starting with version 1.2.11).

      F-Droid won’t happen for a while, as the game would need to be 100% open source for it, sorry!

  • [email protected]@lemmy.zip
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    7 days 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
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    7 days 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!

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
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      7 days ago

      Lovely. If you run out of street map as you travel, just hit the map button again. It will hopefully offer you the download for the new area :)

        • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
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          1 day ago

          Just a quick tap should work :)

          Heh, for a moment I thought you teleported. Have fun!

          If you enjoy it, please leave a review, the game has plenty of positive ratings, but Google hides them until I get to 5 written reviews :-/

  • HollowNaught@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    This looks great! I’m downloading it on Aurora rn, but if an f-droid version comes out I’ll be very excited!

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
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      5 days ago

      Let me know if it actually works from Aurora. I had to strip out the Google protections so it doesn’t crash on launch (:

  • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world
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    7 days 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
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      6 days 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
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        6 days 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
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          6 days 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
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                6 days 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!

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zipOP
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      5 days ago

      Yes, pretty much. There are some harvest minigames for collecting.

      You also find various events. With the ingredients you brew potions, sell them and then spend the money you earn :)

  • Impractical_Island@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    By GPS enabled, does that mean this is like my fit bit and I can level up through masturbating rigorously? Asking for a friend.

  • datavoid@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    I downloaded the game and got my city’s street map added. Now I really want to test it… hopefully the dense smoke goes away before summer ends 😢

  • nullify3112@lemmy.world
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    7 days 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
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      7 days 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 ^^’