I started working on Fantasy Walk about three months ago. I built it for people who love fantasy RPGs and need a little extra nudge to get outside and walk more often.
The core loop:
- Pick a character
- Your real-world steps advance you on a fantasy map across different villages
- Along the way, you discover creatures, complete quests, and fight battles
Combat (Steps vs. Heart Rate):
For combat, I decided to offer two different approaches: you can fight either using your step count or using your heart rate.
My personal theory was that the heart-rate option would finally trick me into doing more cardio workouts.
Well... it didn’t work on me at all. But maybe someone else will find it motivating!
Monetization:
I initially set up the additional content as a monthly subscription, but quickly realized that was premature.
I haven’t implemented features that actually justify a recurring fee (like competitive ladders or multiplayer events, which only make sense with a large user base anyway). So I scrapped the subscription and made the extra content a simple one-time purchase.
Tech & How it was built:
- Stack: Built with Flutter for Android.
- Experience: I’ve been programming for about 20 years and have been working with Flutter pretty much since its early beginnings.
- Step Tracking: Syncs steps via Google Health Connect - easiest way for now
- AI-assisted development: Even with my background, building an entire game solo — from mechanics to assets and integration — is a massive undertaking. I heavily paired with GPT models throughout the process. Honestly, without AI as a multiplier, I never would have tackled a project of this scope on my own.
- Along the way, I created my own skills for Flutter layouts and architecture. It took quite some work at the start, but now it works good. I wanted it to look like my own code, so I can easily navigate and fix things if something goes wrong. (or at least understand why things goes wrong)
That’s about it. I still have a long list of ideas I want to implement, and I hope some of you find the idea and its execution fun and worth checking out.
Nice job~ TIL that "Walking RPG" is an actual genre!
Small bit of feedback - the bg removal tool you used failed to delete the background in the top half of the scout's bow so it looks a bit odd on the landing page.
Hi HN!
I started working on Fantasy Walk about three months ago. I built it for people who love fantasy RPGs and need a little extra nudge to get outside and walk more often.
The core loop: - Pick a character - Your real-world steps advance you on a fantasy map across different villages - Along the way, you discover creatures, complete quests, and fight battles
Combat (Steps vs. Heart Rate): For combat, I decided to offer two different approaches: you can fight either using your step count or using your heart rate. My personal theory was that the heart-rate option would finally trick me into doing more cardio workouts. Well... it didn’t work on me at all. But maybe someone else will find it motivating!
Monetization: I initially set up the additional content as a monthly subscription, but quickly realized that was premature. I haven’t implemented features that actually justify a recurring fee (like competitive ladders or multiplayer events, which only make sense with a large user base anyway). So I scrapped the subscription and made the extra content a simple one-time purchase.
Tech & How it was built: - Stack: Built with Flutter for Android. - Experience: I’ve been programming for about 20 years and have been working with Flutter pretty much since its early beginnings. - Step Tracking: Syncs steps via Google Health Connect - easiest way for now - AI-assisted development: Even with my background, building an entire game solo — from mechanics to assets and integration — is a massive undertaking. I heavily paired with GPT models throughout the process. Honestly, without AI as a multiplier, I never would have tackled a project of this scope on my own. - Along the way, I created my own skills for Flutter layouts and architecture. It took quite some work at the start, but now it works good. I wanted it to look like my own code, so I can easily navigate and fix things if something goes wrong. (or at least understand why things goes wrong)
That’s about it. I still have a long list of ideas I want to implement, and I hope some of you find the idea and its execution fun and worth checking out.
Nice job~ TIL that "Walking RPG" is an actual genre!
Small bit of feedback - the bg removal tool you used failed to delete the background in the top half of the scout's bow so it looks a bit odd on the landing page.
https://fantasy-walk.app/images/characters/scout.webp
Thanks, you had a good eye for that! Will change it...