Better Together

StepHarvest is built around playing at your own pace. That's not changing. But I've been working on something for people who want a reason to walk alongside others, and guilds are it.

A guild is a small co-op of up to 20 players. You share a portion of your steps automatically, earn passive perks as a group, work through weekly bounties, and take on multi-part sagas that buff everyone. You don't even have to be online at the same time. Just walk, and the guild grows.

Starting a guild

Anyone can create a guild for 500 gold. You pick a name, choose a badge icon and color, and decide whether it's Invite-only or Open. Invite-only guilds require a code to join. Open guilds show up in a public browser for anyone to find. If you'd rather join than create, you can browse open guilds or enter a code from a friend.

There are three roles - leader, steward, and member - and they work about how you'd expect. Just enough roles to keep things tidy.

The step pool

This is the core of how guilds work, and it's completely hands-off.

As your steps sync in the background, 10% are automatically mirrored to your guild's weekly pool. The important part: this doesn't take anything away from you. Your banked steps stay exactly the same. The mirror runs whether you actively play that day or not - if you walked, your guild benefits.

The guild's tier is based on the average contribution per member each week. More walking across the group means a higher tier, which means better passive perks for everyone. There are four tiers, each giving the whole guild a small quality bonus on activity outputs and a step cost reduction. The numbers start modest and scale up - you'll see exactly where your guild stands on a tier rail with medal markers for each threshold.

The highest tier can't be reached by walking alone. It requires the guild to complete part of a specific saga first. More on that below.

Weekly bounties

Each week, your guild gets three bounties - one easy, one normal, one hard. They're group goals that everyone contributes to just by playing the game normally. Harvest crops, go mining, catch fish, take walks - if a bounty asks for it and you're doing it, your progress counts automatically.

The targets scale based on how many active members the guild has, so smaller guilds aren't stuck chasing numbers designed for twenty people. When the group hits a target, each member can claim a gold reward.

Sagas

This is the part I'm most excited about.

Sagas are multi-part group projects - three sagas, each with three chapters that unlock in order. The guild pools gold or steps to hit a chapter's goal, and when it completes, a buff kicks in for the whole group. Only one saga can run at a time, and only the leader can start one.

Here's the thing about timing: one in-game season is two real-world weeks. Chapter buffs last one season, half an in-game year, or a full in-game year depending on the chapter. A chapter 3 buff lasting a whole in-game year is the payoff for finishing the entire saga together. Goals scale with guild size too, so a guild of 3 isn't chasing targets meant for 18.

Nothing is permanently unlocked. Sagas are designed to be replayed. The buffs come and go, and that's what makes them feel like seasonal events rather than a checklist.

I don't want to spoil all three sagas here, but I will say this: two of them are funded with gold, and one asks members to donate steps from their banked reserve - the same steps you'd spend on mining, fishing, foraging, or farming. That one's a real trade-off. Those steps could have gone toward activities, but instead they're carrying the guild somewhere special. It's the only saga that asks you to sacrifice something, and the only path to the highest perk tier.

The loop

Walk in the real world. Your steps automatically feed your guild's weekly pool. Hit tier thresholds together for passive bonuses. Complete bounties as a group just by playing normally. Pool gold or steps into sagas for time-limited buffs. Repeat.

Guilds don't ask you to change how you play. They just make the walking you're already doing count for something bigger. On a busy day, your steps still mirror to the pool even if you never open the app. On a big day, you might donate some steps to push a saga chapter over the finish line. Either way, twenty people walking together adds up fast.

I wanted guilds to feel like a co-op, not a competition. No rankings, no leaderboards, no pressure to out-walk your guildmates. Just a group of people making progress together, each at their own pace. That's the whole point.

If you want to follow along with development, the Discord is where the action is. Come hang out.