Welcome to another WalkScape devblog! This time, we'll dive into our current progress towards Wave 4 and changes to character customization. Myzozoz has also now worked one full year at Not a Cult, so we also hear from him!

Let's get started!

Wave 4 update

Our initial goal was to have everything needed for Wave 4 update ready around end of the month. While it still seems like we might be able to hit this deadline that we had, we've realized that we want to have the iOS smartwatch support tested not just internally, but in the Closed Beta before starting the wave.

Now that the feature itself is completed, we struggle to properly test it and have feedback on it through internal testing (our internal testers mostly have Android phones, and those on iOS don't all have smart watches). At the office, we only have an Apple Watch and a Garmin. Due to this limitation, our current expectation is that the feature is not stable and will have issues when initially released, which is why we want to release and fix any issues it might have in Closed Beta with our current testers before opening the new wave.

We're aiming to ship the iOS smart watch feature to Closed Beta next week, and we would appreciate any of our current Closed Beta players with iPhones and watches to give it a try and provide us feedback and bug reports. The more detailed feedback and bug reports we can get, the quicker we can work to fix anything weird there might be with this feature, and then begin Wave 4 once it's stable.

The reason why this is important is that a lot of people joining the upcoming wave are specifically interested in iOS smart watch support, and I feel that it would be a really bad experience for new players if this feature wasn't working like it should. This is why I think it's necessary that we ship it, have a round of feedback from our current Closed Beta players, fix & improve it, and then open the wave. If we shipped this at the same time as we opened the new wave, we could easily get overwhelmed as we're often very busy during waves with customer support, marketing, and fixing other issues & scaling our server infrastructure.

New timeline for Wave 4

It's still a bit difficult to lock in a specific date for Wave 4, but this should become much easier once we have iOS smart watch support released and get feedback. Two things are certain however:

• Wave 4 will begin in May
• We will have the release date announcement in the next devblog on May 1st.

I know a lot of people were anticipating for the date announcement here, but with the iOS smart watch feature's stability being uncertain until we test it with current Closed Beta players, we'll need some additional time to make sure it works.

One year of myzozoz

Hey everybody! It has now been a full year since I joined the team at Not a Cult and many many things have happened in that time. We went to a bunch of conventions, won some prizes, spent a lot of late evenings working on the game or just sharing ideas and of course released a bunch of updates for you to play. I just wanted to say a quick hi to everybody and thank you for this past year, hopefully the first of many to come. I typically don't maintain a large online presence (just more of an IRL type of guy), but don't worry, I'm having loads of fun working on the game and reading your comments on Discord, Reddit and the forums. Just keep playing the game and we'll keep on working on it. -myzozoz

Two upcoming art changes

Hello everyone, Maxchill here today with an update about two upcoming changes in our game's art. Both of these changes involve moving away from the use of AI-generated art. Currently, you encounter such art in two places: location views and character profile backgrounds.

The current location art will be replaced with isometric pixel art scenes. These will no longer be static images but will become interactive. For example, if a player wants to perform a mining or foraging activity at a location, they will be able to interact with it directly on the isometric scene. I believe this will add another layer of immersion and depth to the game world.

This change will make the overall look of WalkScape more cohesive and thoughtfully designed. We also plan to utilize the isometric location views for more features in the future, such as combat, farming, quests, and so on. The second change is a direct consequence of the first. Without the AI-generated location screens, we can no longer have the dynamic profile backgrounds that changed based on the character's current location. While I know this was a liked feature by many (myself included), we have tried to replace it with something equally cool. Two new profile character image layers will become available to players: background and ornament. First, players will be able to choose from various backgrounds, both basic and unlockable. These will range from simple color gradients to unlockable faction banners and even country flags. In the future, we may even include custom made guild banners.

The ornament layer will be optional, allowing players to display more of their unlocked rewards if they wish to. These will primarily come from activities and crafting, essentially providing another way to showcase your character's progress and achievements to others when they inspect your profile or view leaderboards. These changes will not be included in the next immediate update, but they will be released as soon as they are ready. We anticipate that the background/ornament profile picture feature will likely be released first, followed by the location view overhaul sometime later.

Until next time

That's all for today! I hope you enjoyed this devblog, and we're certainly getting a lot closer to the start of Wave 4. Let's hope that things will go smoothly with testing & fixing the iOS smart watch feature so we can start the next wave as soon as possible.

Stay hydrated and keep walking!