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:

• Legends of Yore, a commercial roguelike designed primarily for mobile devices
• Dweller, an old roguelike designed primarily for mobile devices
• POWDER does not have a native Android port, but can be played under a GameBoy Advance emulator (e.g., GameBoid)
• Hydra Slayer
• HyperRogue III
• NetHack and Angband have Android ports
• 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).