Important rules to consider if you are making an Android port [Ren'Py]

[Interesting_name82]

I'm tired of bad or generally just not fun ports of games that I enjoy, sometimes they even get butchered and become unplayable, if you need a tdlr just read the numbered lists

Lets start off with the main & most important issue most ports have: GESTURES GESTURES GESTURES
So let me introduce to you the 4 sacred gestures that every port must have

Firstly & most notably:

• Gestures of rolling-back

Ease of usability is very important when it comes to Ren'Py games, specially those with lots of choices, for example, I played a port of BB (Fan continuation I think) that whenever choices come up it wouldn't let me go back, one of the main issues is there is no gesture to roll back in case there is no on-screen buttons, meaning if you enabled rollback side you wouldn't be able to use it since the choices ALWAYS cover the screen which means you can't go back before the choices (thus you are kinda stuck) so by this you must add a gesture which rolls-back, this can be helped when there is the quick menu buttons (the small ones beneath the chat-box) as you can click "back" button, but it doesn't work always as in some games the buttons disappear when choices come up

Let me add to this, see whenever I start a game I immediately go to the settings and turn on a rollback side and make it on the right/left side (depending on the hand I'm using hehe), just like snapchat functionality, this helps a lot with how fast I navigate a game as sometimes I just want to rollback 30 screen before (Missed a text, trying another choice... etc) and having this feature makes it a breeze and pretty fun to go back and fourth

So by this what you must do in a port is (by order of importance):

1. Add a roll-back gesture, preferably swiping to the left
2. Allow "roll-back side" setting
3. Enable the small buttons (that appear under the textbox, not sure what they are called) even when choices appear

Secondly:

• Gesture of saving

There is a porter that I really like but I sometimes hate his ports for one reason, I have to swipe right and left 2x times to get to the menu (and save), which is quite annoying when you do it a lot

There should be a gesture for the saving menu, the best and easiest is simply (and should be) a swipe up, a lot easier and just removes so much pain, trust me it help a lot

so basically:

1. A swipe up gesture for saving

Thirdly:

• Gesture of skipping

Adding a gesture for auto-skipping is pretty important, specially when some games forget to add a button to skip, activated by swiping to the right, as sometimes I just want to swipe to skip an already known segment of the game,

and we get:

1. A swipe right gesture for auto skipping

Lastly:

• Gesture of hiding

Same issues as skipping, sometimes the buttons disappear and there would be no way to hide a textbox, which is annoying AF, specially when half the action is under it, so a simple swipe down helps extremely

Which means:

1. A swipe down to hide the textbox

You may or may not have noticed that all I'm talking about is gestures, why is that? CAUSE PHONES DON'T HAVE A KEYBOARD, you either touch a button or do a gesture, that is all, it's extremely annoying when the features of a game are put behind some sort of keyboard buttons you can't really access them normally, looking at you Milfcreek

Which also brings me to my last point other than gestures:

• A way to access keyboard-only features

Sometimes developers add special keyboard buttons to access a game's feature, like a backpack or quests system, so as you can imagine it's annoying when you can't access those by an on-screen button, which means you pretty much can't access that feature, this can be critical when you need said features to progress the game d

and gives:

1. Wiggle yourself into the game and add a way to access keyboard-only features

And those are all my points and some stuff you must do when porting a game to Android, I feel like I missed/forgot a few points but I will update this list once I get anything new while playing as all of this list is made from a perosnal experience, but please developers if you are porting, please add these features, they make games way more enjoyable

My last tip: generally whenever a game's easier to navigate (in this case, rolling back and fourth with Ren'Py) the better the experience is and it becomes way more enjoyable, just like snapchat, you touch one side to go back and that's really makes the game way better and really removes lots of the pain of manually swiping 200 times
and that isn't limited to rolling back as you can get creative with navigation system if it adds to the experience
if you are a developer and don't have these gestures I'll personally come and visit you when you sleep and fuck your little tight asshole and fill it with my cum to the brim, you won't even notice it, every. single. night... jk jk... unless?
This is my first time trying to create a "listy" thread & my English isn't the best so bear with the text if you find grammar errors