How to determine what phone types are intercompatible with my new game?

Screaming Goat AppsScreaming Goat Apps Member, PRO Posts: 10
in iPhone and Android Publishing

Greetings GameSalad Community! I need some help from gamesalad developers who have navigated through the following publishing quandary, how to find out which phones that are out there, which ones are compatible with my new game?! Here is my situation:

1) Ad Hoc testing results with the two phones I have:
The game I created works great on my Samsung 6 Edge, but does not work on my Droid RAZR MAXX in Ad Hoc testing. I wonder if the game does not work on the Droid RAZR MAXX because of hardware limitations, or because of SDK un-suportability? Hmmm.

2) Publishing on Amazon, lots of phones (200+) to pick from to publish to, which ones are compatible?:
I uploaded my first game to Amazon (Baby Goat Shooting Gallery). Everything went very well, very easy, except for one thing. Selecting the phone type to release to was a tough one. When publishing on the Amazon web site, it offered me the option of making my game available to over 200+ phones. One of the phones Amazon stated my game was compatible with was the Droid RAZR MAXX, which I know my game does not function on based on Ad Hoc testing. The Amazon web site stated the android manifest indicated incompatibility with all of these phones. I suspect not, based on my limited Ad Hoc testing. I would like to reduce the number of phones listed in this type of scenario to a list of phones that my game would function on. It is impossible to know game to phone inter-compatibility for all of the 200+ phones listed by Amazon during the publishing process. Any advise on how to best proceed? It would be preferable to publish/market to as many as inter-compatible phones as possible, but which ones are compatible with my game?

Possible options for a way forward are: 1) updated the android manifest to a higher number (21?, is this even possible?), -or- 2) beta test on each phone type then when each phone tests successfully publish to that phone (very difficult option, very complicated, I do not have access to all of those phones), -or- 3) I am open for any advice on how to best and most efficiently navigate through this.

Note: the game functions fine on my Kindle HD Fire (version Fire OS 5), during Ad Hoc testing, and also when downloaded from the Amazon store as a customer.

Thanks for take the time to read this post/question and any suggestions offered.
r/
David

Best Answer

  • Screaming Goat AppsScreaming Goat Apps Posts: 10
    Accepted Answer

    Hello GameSalad Community! I have been able to do some research and found a way forward on the issues I mention above. Here is an update:

    Item 1) Droid RAZR MAXX compatibility: The answer: optimize, optimize, optimize! There are several discussions on this forum that provide the information required. Summary: I optimized the timers (removed them), and optimized the graphics (made smaller). Here is a reference to discussions that helped me determine a way foward:
    a) http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/44707/timers-are-for-chumps-gs-optimization-tips
    b) http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/45454/game-crash-at-scene-11-only-in-adhoc
    c) Read the input from the "The Gamesalad Guru" on logic, and also see comments from Socks about the top 31 optimization tips as well on this page: https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/46652/31-optimization-tips/p2
    These inputs were critical to improving my game, saving my game actually! I stand on the shoulders of giants, cant say enough for the people on here that share their knowledge. Greatly appreciated. With these inputs I was able to reduce the size of my game by 50%, and made it function very well on my Droid RAZR MAXX. Thus no need to rework the manifest, and my game "should" be compatible with most android devices.

    Hopefully what I have learned here will help someone.

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