Enabling the "Move to SD card" option on your android apps

Here's a quick and easy tip that your android app users will love, especially those with older/cheaper devices that don't have a huge amount of internal memory!

Take your existing android application, and add android:installLocation="auto" to the manifest tag in AndroidManifest.xml.

Example:
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   package="com.mrdt.zombiesurvivalgame"
   android:versionCode="2"
   android:versionName="1.0.1"
   android:installLocation="auto">

• Setting installLocation to "auto" means the user can choose where to install the application.
• Setting installLocation to "internalOnly" means the app will install on internal memory only (not ideal in most cases, especially if your app is quite big).
• Setting installLocation to "preferExternal" means the app will automatically try to install itself of the SD card if it is present and is not full.

You'll also need to ensure that your build target (targetSdkVersion in uses-sdk tag in AndroidManifest.xml) is set to API Level 8 or greater.

Example:
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="5" android:targetSdkVersion="15" />

Save your updated AndroidManifest.xml file, rebuild your app, and deploy to a device or virtual device running Android 2.2 or above. Now if you open Settings > Applications, and select your app, you should be offered the option to "Move to SD card" :)

I've just updated my android games to offer users this option, and it'll be something I'll be doing as standard in all my future apps. If you're an app developer you should consider doing the same... As a user I appreciate being given the option to choose where to install my apps - and I'm sure others do too!

Zombie Survival - now available free on google play!

The question was - Can I make a game in a weekend? The answer was no. Or yes. Or, well... maybe. Kinda. I don't know...

Last Friday I started work on a totally new game - Zombie Survival. By the end of the day Saturday, I did have a playable "game". Or more accurately I had a working game mechanic. There was a good guy, zombies, an objective, and it was fun to play, it even looked pretty good. I guess that could be called a game. Except, it can't. Not really.

A game is more than just the mechanic and the graphics. The mechanic is what really matters at the end of the day, but there's a lot of additional stuff that you have to pack into your game no matter how simple/casual the market - this stuff isn't really optional anymore.

It took an additional four evenings and nearly a whole Saturday morning and early afternoon of effort before Zombie Game was ready for the marketplace. In that time I added screens for highscores, help, gameover, paused, etc, saved/read settings and highscores to/from persistent memory, improved the look and feel throughout, implemented sound and music, did some refactoring (I'm learning as I go, so tend to clean up / rework as and when I have a lightbulb moment), playtested and tweaked difficulty to get things just right (the fine line between challenging and frustrating is where the fun is found!), carried out lots of testing on multiple devices, and did a little bug fixing.

All in I reckon it took about 45-50 hours effort spread over 8 days to go from nothing to published, and I'm really pleased with that. But 48-ish hours effort is not the same as 48 hours elapsed time (lots of problems solved themselves in my head overnight, the subconscious mind is a wonderful thing!), I guess Ludum Dare will have to wait.

I'm sure my girlfriend will be glad to know that I'll be giving it a rest for at least a week or two now... A full time job plus putting in full time hours on an android game resulted in this being quite the antisocial week! Anyway, the game is up on google play, and it's a free download, so why not give it a go? Cute zombie fun just in time for halloween :)