Trials: Choose Your Own Adventure

Trials are a new mechanic in Stepcraft. Still powered by your steps, trials are almost like a mini-game within the game, adding a way to enjoy the game even when you are not walking.

How do Trials work?

A Trial consists out of a set amount of steps, during which you will be presented with a series of choices. Each of your choices affects your journey, as it can take you on detours or help you find faster paths. You might find interesting items along the way, or need to take a break to rest and heal.

Trials introduce a new exhaustion mechanic. Taking a shortcut through the river may be quicker, but increase your points of exhaustion. A rest may allow you to recover from some of your exhaustion, at the cost of more steps. To help you manage your exhaustion, you may find special potions along the way.

If you ever reach 3 points of exhaustion, or run out of HP, you will fail the trial and have to start over. You can choose at any point to abandon the trial, in which case you will also have to start over.

What makes Trials different?

Trials scale with your walking habits. If you walk more on average, each trial will be longer as well. To keep things balanced, some of the rewards also scale with your walking habits.

With Trials, you can build up progress with your steps, and then sit down afterwards to explore the story. This brings a much requested interactive mode to the game.

Once you start a Trial, you are locked in. You are comitting to an adventure that you are writing. As such, you can not pause the story to do other activities in the game.

What kind of Trials can you expect?

We have plans to use trials in several different ways in the game:

• As part of your class selection
• As part of seasonal events
• To travel to other regions
• To acquire one-of-a-kind items
• Trials with a deadline

The first seasonal trial, the Autumn trial, is available in the game now! We expect to release the Winter trial within a couple of weeks as well.

If you have any thoughts or questions, we would love for you to join our Discord and share them there. If you want to be among the first to try out the Alpha version, head to our Patreon to start playing today!

Ready to turn your walks into adventures? Sign up for Stepcraft's Closed Alpha today and transform your daily movement into epic fantasy quests. Your character is waiting, and the world is ready to be explored.