this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
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I just released my first fully free Android game: Wandering Alchemist (GPS walking game) (play.google.com)
submitted 1 day ago by Vlyn@lemmy.zip to c/games@lemmy.world
85 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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I originally made the game to go on walks, unfortunately I sat even more in front of my PC to develop it.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 ๐Ÿ’š

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!

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[โ€“] HollowNaught@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

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

[โ€“] Impractical_Island@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours 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.

[โ€“] baner@lemmy.zip 6 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Please make F-Droid version happens.

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 4 points 10 hours 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!

[โ€“] antiR@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

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!

[โ€“] antiR@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

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

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[โ€“] antiR@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 hours 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 ๐Ÿ’š

[โ€“] Folstar@lemmus.org 3 points 10 hours ago

we shall watch your career with great interest

[โ€“] milk@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 13 hours 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

[โ€“] datavoid@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 hours 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 ๐Ÿ˜ข

[โ€“] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Looks awesome, I look forward to trying it!

[โ€“] nameisnotimportant@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 14 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[โ€“] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours 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

[โ€“] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 4 points 17 hours ago

What's the problem with 100% open-sourcing? Third party libraries?

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[โ€“] adolei@aussie.zone 10 points 19 hours ago

+1 for f-droid pls :)

[โ€“] Cricket@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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. :)

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Just on Reddit, but it's a ghost town with zero interactions, lol.

I'm not really active on Twitter like sites, not my style unfortunately :-/

[โ€“] Cricket@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

No problem, I understand. I'll see what I can do to spread the word.

You may want to consider cross-posting this to some other communities on Lemmy though, like !freegames@lemmy.ml and perhaps !openstreetmap@lemmy.ml since this is a pretty interesting use of OSM data. Thanks again.

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[โ€“] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 51 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Looks cute. I like the art style.

Ya gonna open source it and put it on fdroid?

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 24 points 1 day ago (7 children)

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..

[โ€“] magikmw@piefed.social 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 20 points 1 day ago (9 children)

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 :-/

[โ€“] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

If you can't afford or don't want to buy a used Mac for this, I recently set up MacOS 26 on a Thinkpad t480s I had lying around. Turns out if you just google specific laptop model + hackintosh, you'll easily find out if it's a well supported model for hackintosh.

However whether or not this would work on a brand new Apple account or you'd just get banned for suspicious activity, I have no idea. My account is old and I have an iPhone, so it wasn't as suspicious to them I think.

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 hours ago

No worries there, I already got a MacBook Air recently (As I needed something portable + for work), so I have that covered. Just ordered a used iPhone SE 2020, that will still get the newest iOS version, so it should do well enough for a few tests :)

[โ€“] Cricket@lemmy.zip 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

One other thought: I believe that it's possible to run macOS in a VM in Linux. The macOS license technically doesn't allow that, and I also don't know if that would be sufficient for running XCode or for publishing to the App Store. I've never tried any of that myself, but have heard that at least running it in a VM is possible.

[โ€“] Anivia@feddit.org 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

You can also run Hackintosh if you have a AMD gpu or older Intel integrated graphics

[โ€“] Cricket@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 hours ago

Yes, that's another option.

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[โ€“] Allero@lemmy.today 36 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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!

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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 :-/

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[โ€“] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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!

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 6 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

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).

[โ€“] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

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!

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

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!

[โ€“] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

So phone gained! Looks like a "Galaxy A13 5G" with Android 13?

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Darn, it's 32-bit only, as I thought. Sorry :(

[โ€“] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 1 points 16 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!

[โ€“] MrPinder@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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!

[โ€“] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 18 points 1 day ago

Thank you ๐Ÿ’š

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!

[โ€“] lemonhead2@lemmy.world 21 points 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

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