The game is leaving Google Play Store

It won't be possible to buy Superfluous Returnz on the Google Play Store much longer: Google requires a specific Android API level that the game isn't compatible with, and I don't have the energy, the time, or the desire to fix that.

A bit of context

Superfluous Returnz was developed using the SDL2 library, which offers, among other things, a ready-to-use Android project for “easy” ports to the mobile platform. Since the game uses a number of fairly diverse third-party libraries, I implemented a mechanism that adapts this base project using custom CMake files.

A year ago, Google notified me that I needed to update my app to the latest Android API in order to continue publishing updates to the Play Store. I spent a few hours trying to make this API change, but I ran into what can only be described as a mind-bogglingly complex Android package build chain that resembles a house of cards more than a serious pipeline.

The Android build chain relies on a million tools (the NDK, the SDK, Gradle, the JDK, the Build Tools, AGP, etc.), each with its own versions, inter-compatibilities (and, above all, inter-incompatibilities). All of this is woven into impenetrable scripts that you call with your fingers crossed, hoping nothing has broken since the last version update, while chanting voodoo incantations just in case. And let’s not even get started on that interstellar dumpster fire called Android Studio, which I wouldn’t go near without a full Hazmat suit.

Anyway. Just as I was in the thick of developing the game, I had no choice but to tackle it, and I eventually set up a stable, functional production pipeline. It took a while, and it was a pain, but once it got rolling, it was all good.

Of course, when I tried to update the API a year ago, it didn’t go exactly smoothly: the house of cards came crashing down, and I struggled for several hours trying to decipher the cryptic error messages, tweaking this or that variable in the hope of satisfying the inscrutable designs of the God Google, and cobbling together tool versions like I was setting up a Ouija board… Well, you get the idea.

Tired and frustrated, I finally gave up after wasting half a day’s work for nothing: without an API update, Google is telling me I won’t be able to publish any more updates to my app. Since the game is finished and won’t be getting any more updates, it wasn’t a big deal anyway. Until this summer.

Goodbye Play Store

That's right, because after a year, it's a whole different story:

Starting August 31, 2026, if your app doesn't target an API level that has been available for less than two years after the latest version of Android, it will be inaccessible to new users running a version of Android higher than your app's target API level.

There we go. Just for the sake of it, I figured I’d give the update another try anyway. And then, the final nail in the coffin: the SDL library I use has changed major versions (from 2 to 3), which undoubtedly comes with quite a few breaking changes. And the latest minor version of SDL2 came out almost a year ago. Which means I’ll have to port my game to SDL3 before I can even hope to successfully re-port it to Android. At a rough guess, that’s several days of work, to say the least.

I checked my earnings on the Play Store since the game launched in May 2023: €290. By comparison, my earnings on Steam total €3,640, and Steam has never given me a hard time about updating to their latest bullshit API (pardon my French).

I’m literally not getting paid enough for this shit, and quite honestly, I’ve got better things to do than waste time fiddling with half-assed API changes that have been thrown together haphazardly because Google can’t be bothered to ensure backward compatibility beyond two years, and expects developers to kindly do the work to keep up with its reckless rush forward.

We’re talking about a video game that requires ZERO permissions to run, poses no security issues, doesn’t need a single functional update, and never will.

Sideload it

To wrap things up, I’d like to remind you that you get access to the Android version when you buy the game on Itch, so I can’t recommend strongly enough that you stop giving Google your money. You can install the APK without going through the Play Store—what’s commonly called “sideloading,” but which we should just call, well, I don’t know… “installing”?

Now, I know that starting in 2027, Google is going to lock down Android so much that it’ll be hard to install apps without going through the Play Store, so my recommendation would be to just stop playing on your Android devices and download the game on your computer, since your phones and tablets clearly don’t belong to you enough for you to do whatever you want with them.

Cheers and see you soon—but not on the Play Store…