Android

Android is a popular Linux-based operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers, developed by Google and other companies.

Available roguelikes

Roguelikes available for Android include:

• Ananias, designed from the ground up for mobile devices
• Angband has an Android port
• Bounty Hunter Space Lizard, a casual roguelike similar to Hoplite
• Central Park Nanotech Warlex, a free casual post-apocalyptic coffeebreak roguelike
• Dungeon Crawl
• Dweller, an old roguelike designed primarily for mobile devices
• Gone Rogue
• Hydra Slayer fails to start or function correctly with new Android version
• HyperRogue III
• Legends of Yore, a commercial roguelike designed primarily for mobile devices
• Lost Cavern, a Sci-Fi roguelike with destructible environment for Android
• Monk Tower a coffeebreak roguelike
• Mysterious Castle, a party based isometric roguelike with tactical battles
• NetHack has an Android port
• Pixel Dungeon, a coffee-break roguelike for Android
• POWDER does not have a native Android port, but can be played under a GameBoy Advance emulator (e.g., GameBoid)
• Revengate, a steampunk roguelike with touch-friendly controls is available for Android
• Voyage to Farland, an Android-exclusive Mystery Dungeon style roguelike

• see more on IRLDb

Designing roguelikes for Android

There are many different kinds of Android devices. Some of them have keyboards and/or a large number of hardware buttons (which can be used e.g. for directional movement), but some have only touchscreens and the most basic hardware buttons. Therefore it is good to make them playable with as simple control system as possible. Traditional roguelikes use lots of keyboard command and they are hard to play on Android, although there are ports of NetHack and Angband available.

Android development

Android applications (.apk) are written in Java (you need the Android SDK). It is also possible to use JNI (Java Native Interface) to have a Java frontend communicating with a game written in a language such as C or C++ (you need the Android NDK for that). This allows one to port traditional C/C++ roguelikes to Android. This trick is used by several games mentioned above (NetHack, Angband, Hydra Slayer, Hyperbolic Rogue, Dungeon Crawl).