Comment on Developer of WalkScape (the fitness MMORPG where you progress by walking IRL) here again. We're accepting new players and have a Lemmy community!

Dave@lemmy.nz ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

• schamppu@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  I haven’t used GrapheneOS myself, but I’ve heard from others that running it in sandbox works. The game requires Google Play Services in order to count the steps in background, so sandbox with Google Play Services should fix that. The API the game specifically uses is the Recording API.

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  • Dave@lemmy.nz ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    From my understanding, any app installed directly from Google Play should be in the sandbox and have access to Google Play Services. I haven’t quite worked out where the steps are missing, but it seems when the game is open it’s fine, and when the game hasn’t been killed by the OS it’s also fine. If I go back to the game and it has to launch again from scratch, it doesn’t seem to count steps that happened while the game wasn’t running (foreground or background).

    I also see this post where others are seeing the same thing, and are not using GrapheneOS. Maybe my use of GrapheneOS is a red herring and there’s actually something else happening.

    It was always odd to me that apps need to be constantly active to get the steps. I don’t get why the phone doesn’t just count in the background then allow you to request “how many steps today” or “how many steps since X date/time” via the API.

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    • schamppu@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      The game doesn’t need to be active on regular Android. I’m pretty sure the reason why it’s like that on GrapheneOS is that when the game is killed, the sandbox is killed and the Google Play Services shut down. If Google Play Services aren’t on there, the Recording API will not count steps in the background.

      Probably easiest solution is to let WalkScape to run in the background, when it’s freezed the battery consumption should be basically nothing.

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      • Dave@lemmy.nz ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        If Google Play Services aren’t on there, the Recording API will not count steps in the background.

        That makes a lot of sense.

        Probably easiest solution is to let WalkScape to run in the background, when it’s freezed the battery consumption should be basically nothing.

        It’s allowed to run in the background, but I have now disabled battery optimisation and will see if that helps.

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