Distributing an Android game with plugins via the market
- by Peter Serwylo
I'm new to Android development, and was wondering how the following could be achieved within the confines of the Android market as a distribution channel:
One main application, which handles the main menu, networking, high scores, etc.
Several games which can be launched from the main menu, which all work within the same eco system. The main application is not just a pseudo launcher for other games, these different games will share high scores and other achievements/preferences.
In a traditional package management system such as apt, pacman or yum, this could be handled quite happily through dependencies. This does not appear to be possible via the Android market. The closest I've seen is when apps scan to check if the required app is installed, and if not, launches the market and asks the user to download the app.
This sounds like a very messy solution.
It also begs the question, would they download the game (plugin) first, which then downloads the main shell application? Or would they download the main shell application, and when they navigate to a menu item which says "Play game", then it scans for any installed games, and if none exist, redirects to the market? Also, I'm not even sure if it is possible to dig up the package from another application on the device, and start invoking classes from within (e.g. when you want to launch the game (plugin))
A final option is just to have a 3rd component which is a .jar that each game includes, which effectively contains the entire shell application. Then each game would appear to have the same menu, but it would become a nightmare as soon as you want to update the menu component and have to re-release each game. It would be especially worse if other people released games (plugins) based on the same framework and didn't update them.
Is there any other options which I haven't thought of?
Has anyone else solved this or seen a solution in any apps they've installed (doesn't have to be games)?
cheers.
