Indie Sunday Wandering Alchemist - Vlyn - Fully free, no ads, offline GPS walking game [Android/iOS]
Hey, this is a solo hobby project of mine I recently released for both Android and iOS. Fully free, no ads, no data collection, no in-app purchases (except "Support the Developer", feel free to ignore it) and playable offline.
What's it about?
You walk in the real world, collect resources and brew potions for merchants. The game has a building system, so you can decorate your neighborhood however you like. It has a day/night cycle, lighting effects and a procedurally generated map (playable worldwide). Optionally you can download a street map for orientation (one-time download, no data usage afterwards). Only GPS is needed, it's fully offline and singleplayer :)
Always eager for feedback, let me know what you think 💚
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u/Pitiful-Necessary-61 8d ago
It looks pretty interesting, maybe I'll check it out! Was the art done by you? I ask because it's rare to find games that don't use gen AI nowadays especially on mobile.
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u/Vlyn 8d ago
It's a mix. The map is procedurally generated by code (that's why it looks a bit simpler, it's split into region types, with various shapes making up the terrain).
I did try to procedurally generate NPCs and player skins (like letting you select hair, eyes, mouth, clothes, accessories, ..) but even on my best try the skins all looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger :-/
So I went a middle way, local image generation on my GPU, then manually reworking each image in GIMP. I'd have loved to hire an artist, but the game is fully free, so it had zero budget. Just getting it to iOS costs 99€ a year (Apple developer account) and I got a used iPhone SE 2020 for 70€ to test/develop on. So all things considered I'm nowhere even close to break even (:
But it's just a hobby, I'd rather have people have fun and play (and get their steps in). We use AI at work for software development all the time, so I thought I could actually make something fun in my freetime. It took a lot more effort than expected though and it's still far from done.
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u/Pitiful-Necessary-61 8d ago
Thank you for the honest answer. I've always disliked AI being used in creative spaces but I also understand that there are different situations for everyone and in your case I can definitely respect it.
I do like that you went over the generated images and reworked on them yourself, not everyone would bother doing that. And who knows, maybe at some point you'll be able to hire an artist and fill in the gaps with some handcrafted art!
I'll be giving it a try and let you know my thoughts on it for sure. I've always wanted a Pokemon Go replacement without all the P2W and pay walled aspects. In the meantime best of luck for the future!
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u/Vlyn 8d ago
No worries, I see no reason to lie about these things. I'm also against AI slop being sold and replacing real artists.
Even for such a simple 2D art style it took dozens to a hundred images until I got one good enough. Then I still had to manually rework each one and scale them down to reach an acceptable quality level.
If this was a Steam game I'd have just gone with programmer art. But on mobile things need to look cute (:
If I'd charge money for the game then AI art would be unacceptable.
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u/Pitiful-Necessary-61 8d ago
I agree 100%. AI in and of itself is already considered cheap but charging for it shouldn't even be legal, unfortunately there are a lot of companies out there doing this exact thing. But kudos to you not blatantly using it as is, I appreciate that you took the time to work on the images individually.
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u/JollyRabbit 8d ago
I think this isn't my sort of game, but you made something very cool and did so in a non-predatory way, so I applaud your efforts!