Android App for Sun Escapes Me
As part of my game dev journey, it made a lot of sense to me to explore the accessability of the games I’m making and the games I might make in the future.
This has led me to upload Sun Escapes Me to Itch.io, Newgrounds, and on Github.
In order to continue my process of learning things that might be relevant in the future, I took the time to figure out how to create an Android app out of Sun Escapes Me.
It was relatively simple since Pico 8 allows exports to a web player. Using the files from the web player, I used webView within Android Studio to basically make a relatively simple version of the game that can be played offline. Touch controls and gamepad controls are handled entirely by the web player.
Doing all of this required some light understanding of Java and the construction of the app canvas.
The much more annoying process is actually getting the Android app onto Google Play.
Sun Escapes Me is now on Google Play
Mostly filling out endless amounts of paperwork about ratings, data collection, and other such things that I thankfully do not even need to think about. The app is an offline app that doesn’t collect data.
It took a few weeks but Google finally approved the Sun Escapes Me Android app within the Google Play Store! You can find this here. As of writing, the version of the game is v1.0.3 which is the “old” version before I made some recent updates to the game.
Update to Sun Escapes Me (v1.0.4)
Sun Escapes Me has seen an update after a kind fellow game dev took time to review the game! (You can find the review over here!)
- Start screen has an improved look and some music to boot!
- You can no longer coast through level 1. Asteroids falling into the sun will significantly increase gravity. 4+ falling into the sun basically make the game impossible. A few more than that will counteract your ship’s thrust and kill you fully.
- Level progression is no longer based upon score and rather the amount of objects passing on the screen (whether destroyed or not.)