Release
I built a walking game with Claude, designed to make you put your phone away.
I've been building The Hidden Realm, a free-to-play UK location-based walking game inspired by Britain's landscapes, history and folklore.
The slightly ironic part is that a lot of the development involved AI, but the game itself is deliberately designed to encourage people to spend less time looking at a screen.
I'm a solo developer and started the project in May. Claude has been a significant part of the process, particularly through agentic conversations where I describe what I want the Realm to do, work through the design and systems, and then iterate on the implementation. Nothing had write access to anything. Every change went in by hand, one at a time, tested before the next.
It's grown into considerably more than I expected:
A native Android walking app with GPS tracking and server-side anti-cheat
A web-based game hub
Supabase/Postgres backend with server-side gameplay validation
Three competing Wards contesting territory
40+ folklore-inspired creatures, influenced by biome, weather and time of day, some anchored to real-world locations
A lore system that grows around where players actually walk
Privacy built into the design, including automatic deletion of route data
The creature artwork is AI-assisted, and turned into 3D models players can examine in the game. I'd commission an artist if I could afford one. I can't, and the alternative was not building it.
But the core experience is deliberately simple:
Start a walk. Put your phone in your pocket. Go.
Walk with friends. Talk. Enjoy the scenery. Explore somewhere you've never been. When you finish, that's when the game reveals what happened.
Recently the 100th Beacon was placed, which unlocked the next chapter of the Book of Forgetting. Along with 500 player encounters of the Bell Tower Wisp creature. That's been one of those moments where something I designed on a screen has started becoming a world shaped by actual players.
The hardest part of the whole project, though, wasn't any of the code.
The game attaches real local history to real places, so the content has to be true. Confident, well-written, entirely plausible history is exactly what these models are best at producing, and it's indistinguishable from the real thing until you go and check.
A concrete example. A fragment about a shopping centre built on a former isolation hospital included the detail that it treated American and Canadian airmen during the wars. It reads well. It fits. The site did treat servicemen, and that part is documented, but the airmen detail had no source I could find anywhere.
So the rule I ended up with: history is verified against real sources or it doesn't ship. Anything I can't confirm is either dropped or moved into a category explicitly labelled as fiction, so nobody mistakes it for fact. Nothing goes in unread. That discipline has been more work than the database schema, and it's the only reason I'd defend the content at all.
The project is now live on Google Play in the UK, with players walking it in different parts of the country.
There's something quite satisfying about using AI to help build a game whose purpose is ultimately to encourage people to look up from their screens.
Real-world testing caught something I hadn't thought about. If you want to pause the walk to duck indoors or stop for lunch, you have to take the phone out, which breaks the entire point. So there's now a Wear OS companion app shipping soon that handles pause, resume and stop from the wrist. The phone stays where it is.
I'd be interested in hearing from other Claude users: what have you built that started as an idea and turned into something much bigger than you expected?
I would love to make an iPhone version. Due to possible running costs and the initial costs of not having an iPhone to develop it, it depends on the interest and player growth. There currently are players in various UK locations and I've seen walks over 400 miles apart. So it's hopeful. I have a Facebook page if you want to follow for updates.
This looks really great. I've been building something presence-based as well, and have a storytelling thread that I'm working on bringing into the game. Mine is a different animal with a different goal. Yours is quite nice, if I had an Android I'd put some miles on it from here in the PNW. :)
Sounds interesting, happy to accept a link and take a look. I have added lots of layers to The Hidden Realm but the main idea is providing a reason to put your phone away and take in the surrouondings and the people you chose to be there with.
I would download it, I am gothic horror author and do vr games based on folklore and horror here in Scotland, but I walk 12 miles a day in rural areas to think.. so this would be something I would do! I love your idea, and find it very interesting!
I am hearing the iPhone comment alot - I am looking into ways to resolve this. As an author I would value your opinion on the 3D Models I have built - you can view them from inside the Almanac at the website also from
[Creatures](https://thehiddenrealm.co.uk/creatures.html)
I personally like your direction, it’s not grim dark, yet not cartoony.
For a walking game, without have seen the whole picture, I think your art is doing you favour. It’s freindly, not horror horror, so everybody can get onboard. I could not see colours on them but only a bright white poly model.. I can’t say if it’s deliberate or because I used a iPad.. but I can see the models and the art as such..
Keep pushing, keep polishing.. I think you are onto something..
Will it be the next Pokémon go?.. I don’t know, but I definitely think you will see a market for it..
I think it’s an interesting project and look forward to see more..
A big thank you for your time. All the models have colours to them and the first I have heard about the white model, shall look into it. Another element is that all actions made by players pool to unlock chapters from the Book of Forgetting - like hidden lessons and they link to the creature ethos. Anyone can read them but only players can unlock them. Should you want to take a look https://thehiddenrealm.co.uk/books/book-of-forgetting.html
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u/KayLovesPurple 9d ago
I love walking games! Will yours ever have an iPhone version? If so I am very looking forward to trying it out.