Google Play Store and game >50mb

Hi,

I've a "little" problem with my game, it's 100% completed but the apk is way bigger than 50mb limit of Google Play Store. I've read about the APK Expansion Files on Google Guide, but I've no idea on HOW use this stuff.

Searchin the web I read about how to create these kind of files (a simple .zip file renamed in "main.XXX.GAMENAME.obb") but CocoonJS and i think also Construct 2, give me a single file >50mb.

Is there any solution to this? Anyone had the same problem? Please help :(

I believe its only possible if you go native coding and implement Android SDK.

If its possible with Construct 2/CocoonJS, that would be awesome news to me.

Edit: As a suggestion, its not recommended to have a bigger game anyway, anything beyond 40mb is really bad with CocoonJS (loads everything into ram at start!! your 40mb game will use about 400mb!), and Crosswalk adds 20mb of overhead. I had to compromise on my game, less scenery, enemies, music.

thanks for the answer, but the game without any assets (graphic and music) is about 8mb. so i need to learn how to use this apk expansion files :(

Edit: is there any tutorial to use android sdk and apk expansion files?

i want to say: a step to step guide to open your project in android sdk and what to edit/coding to use these kind of files? now i've this game 100% completed and no way to publish it :(

I knew about the 50MB APK limit at the start, but I was hoping CocoonJS fixes its memory management by the time I finish my game... but they didn't so i had to go back and remove a lot of assets.

Music files tend to use a lot of space, but if you publish for Android only, when you export from C2, unpack the zip, delete all the .MP4 sounds and keep the .OGG only, then zip it, and run it through CocoonJS, it works fine without the MP4 and should save u a lot of space on the APK.

As for tutorial, with C2 not that I know of. But the point is do not exceed 40MB on your C2 export, because you will need 10X the ram on loading the app with CocoonJS. Most phones are still less than 1GB ram which will not run it due to high ram usage.

PePPo

Ok, I have the same problem almost. My game isn't done, but the assets are kicking over the 50mb point and when the game is dnoe will likely hit 100.

I can't give you a %100 how too, however I did bring this point up with Ashley and he did make a suggestion. Just know that I cannot validate any of this.

0. Your game even when exported through android needs to run off a server

(this is the part i'm not %100 about, get Ashley to clarify)

1. Export your for what ever android style you want.

2. strip the assets out

3. put your assets onto the server that hosts the game.

4. Let players know that there are assets to download

5. The game should download the assets from the host only once(unless there is an update)

There is suppose to be a way to handle large games. But here is my suggestion. emai Scirra/Ashley directory and get his help. Since it seems no one else has done this yet, no one has gotten the clarification to do this.

Personally I would rather have extenion APK so that I can make expansions.

PePPo, since nobody has mentioned it yet, you can try changing all your C2 graphics to 8-bit PNGs rather than the default 32-bit. Hopefully, this will allow you to publish now and give you more time to figure out how to get the assets from a server, from within the app.

Thanks danialgoodwin and jayderyu for the reply. One last question: is there a way to set up this using Construct2? I want to say, can i tell c2 what file download from a server? or i need another sdk/tool/language?

in the games I created, audio seem to be ones taking majority of the game file size with graphics only 1/4 to 1/5 of audio space.

You can check by exporting to html5 and compare the size of audio and graphic folders.

My suggestion would be to comprised on audio quality and try lowering the bitrate down via Audacity so the file size would be smaller.

Another suggestion is instead of using another soundtrack for another stage, try playing with the construct equalizer for a different sounding song while still using the same file.

Thanks Sethmaster but i want to resolve the problem once and for all. I don't want to be in the same situation next time i'm going to develop a bigger game with lots of assets.

Ashley : do you have a programmed update about this 50mb limit? maybe an option to export in 2 files? (main and assets)

you know if Ludei will support this feature?

Or do you have advices to request external file from a server? possibly in a simple way, because i'm not a coder :

Do not wait for Ludei to fix your issues, its a long wait for even the most basic of problems.. their blinking logo causing epileptic fits is still present after so long.

Google has been hinting at expanding the APK limit to 250mb for awhile, hopefully they move on that soon. Until then, go native with Android SDK for your games with coders who can do that, or stick with Construct 2 + CocoonJS and compromise to make a smaller game.

Hopefully Google will lift the APK size limit at some point - 50mb is fairly small given modern phones with gigabytes of storage and broadband connections. If they don't, we've been experimenting with web-loading games on Crosswalk - in other words, the app will just be a frame that on first run loads the game off the web by visiting its URL. The AppCache will let it run offline (as happens in browsers as well). Then your game can be as big as you like, and will even auto-update without having to publish updates to Google Play - but you'll have to have a server.

O.O

Ashley, that would be killer if it could be arranged. If the process could be as straightforward as the likes of GTA or Rayman on mobile (i.e.: it just shows a simple progress bar and can run as a background task), that'd be ideal.

Even if Google do raise that limit, it'd only be a matter of time before the new limit becomes too small for general usage, and so on until forever.

PePPo, since nobody has mentioned it yet, you can try changing all your C2 graphics to 8-bit PNGs rather than the default 32-bit. Hopefully, this will allow you to publish now and give you more time to figure out how to get the assets from a server, from within the app.

This seems like the best solution to me. We've PNG-8 encoded our assets and we're sitting at <5mb for Mortar Melon, spanning 3 worlds with assets designed at 1080p.

thehen - is that something you do after exporting or when you import the assets to C2?

Tobye You can go into the image editor in C2 and set it to export as PNG8 and apply to all images. You can also export and then run your images folder though tools like PNGgauntlet, etc...