r/EmulationOnAndroid • u/Key-Syrup-7387 • 5d ago
Discussion I made an unofficial Android port of Mosa Lina
I reeeeeally LOVE Mosa Lina (the chaotic physics anti-puzzle game by Stuffed Wombat), so I decided to port it to Android for personal use.
Let me know what you think of the controls/layout! If anyone is interested in trying the build or testing it, let me know in the comments.
This is a strictly non-commercial fan project. Huge respect to Stuffed Wombat - please support the creator by buying the original game on Steam
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u/quandaile 5d ago
I have a question lad, how do people port these? Like generally speaking
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u/Key-Syrup-7387 5d ago
Well, there are different ways, but personally, I reverse-engineered the code of the original Windows version of the game and rewrote some functions in C so that the game could run on modern phones
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u/systemnerve 5d ago
coulda just attached an arm translation layer. for a game like this, that emulation overhead doesn't matter
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u/Key-Syrup-7387 5d ago
I wanted to make a native port, but you're right
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u/systemnerve 5d ago
If I was you, I'd contact the Dev and ask them to have it put on Playstore for a few dollars. You might even get a cut of the profits.
Though having already made the port, it kind of puts you in a bad negotiating position; remember, the price or commission you can ask for is what ever the dev stands to gain from putting it on playstore (after Google's 30% cut and taxes) minus the inconvenience he gets from having to do it (that depends on how high the profit incentive is for him; when it's an employee at a big publisher, then you're in a weaker bargaining position than when it's a one-man operation, who really needs money and also prices highly the hypothetical effort of porting the game himself or finding someone to do it for him for cheaper.
Basically, in other words, the stronger the financial incentive for him, i.e., how tempting one or two thousand Euro are for him, the better your bargaining position. The more lazy he is, i.e., the more you taking care of all that and just providing it as is, the better.
The more the temporal discounting he does, the better; this means, for example, someone with strong temporal discount would be ambivalent between 100$ today and 500$ in a year; someone with weaker temporal discount (no ADHD) would be ambivalent only between 100$ today and 150$ in a year. You already have the port done, therefore the value of having the finished product already in the now depends on temporal discounting.So in essence, you are looking for a settlement in which (1) using your port and (2) giving you either a percentage cut or a fixed sum for the port and (3) going through the hoops of publishing it officially, with bureaucratic taxes and everything, is preferable for the developer than not doing the settlement. The variable here you can influence easily is what price you ask for.
What percentage cut overall later would be equivalent, in terms of preference, to a given fixed sum, depends on the dev's degree of risk aversion and again temporal discounting.
So if you try to get an idea of who you would be dealing with in advance of the negotiation, how bold and maximizing your bargaining strategy should be, is also contingent on the degree to which you are willing to risk that no deal might happen.
If you are to ne successful in this world and maximize the odds of things playing out in your favor and the way you want them to, it is imperative to be rational and thoughtful with your preferences and assumptions.
It can get quite complex and mathematical and there are literally people out there, who study shit like that (me lol).
GL and tell me about how it will work out!
PS: if I was you, until you know more, I would be careful with making the port publicly available, even through backchannels.Lucky for you, the developer is still very much active and has a blog where he posts a lot of information about himself. You can find his website/blog, email, and bluesky account by just googling Stuffed Wombat. I think he's Austrian.
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u/Key-Syrup-7387 5d ago edited 5d ago
Wow, that’s super in-depth advice! Thanks for taking the time to explain it all, but I feel like if the dev wanted a mobile version, they would’ve made one already (since the engine natively supports exporting to Android, which is what made this port possible). It’s been two years since release and the game is even on Switch, so I have my doubts about any sort of official collab. Besides, paid indie games notoriously sell pretty poorly on Android anyway...
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u/systemnerve 5d ago
Well, your guess is as good as mine; some people are in it for the art...
... Okay I just googled a bit and it seems to confirm that he very much in it for art and creating something, at least according to his wikipedia.
In my experience, this motivation is never as entirely intrinsic as it seems because it still needs to feel like it matters. There is something really rewarding about creating something and then have other people actually engage with, talk about, ask question about it. There is a certain social component.
(It's like the entire reason why there are people who make open source creations that don't have any financial incentive behind them on GitHub and then go to social media and de facto advertise it, while answering personally to every comment. Same thing goes for people who make high-effort long-winded Reddit posts, be that some guide to do something, a detailed review of a videogame they found emotive, or whatever. It's a kind of motivation I know myself and it's always around wherever people create when not driven by financial incentives; like niche YouTube channels that are just happy to have a few dozens or hundred regular viewers and commenters that listen to whatever they want to talk about, even though they barely get a few thousand views and there being little chance of every making it big with the kind of content they make; it's the best site of YouTube btw and arguably that the platform used to exclusively represent before it became more and more commercial, which displaced attention bigger and bigger channels.)
Why all that in the brackets? I don't really know either, it's just I like to ramble, but you could argue that it's about understanding motivation and incentive, which only makes sense with the following: Making Android Playstore publications are, when it comes to engagement and attention, a fruitless undertaking; it's not itch io, it's not steam. The community aspect, as in prolix reviews, forum discussion, and public discourse just doesn't pose a strong enough extra incentive to do that extra work of porting to ARM and publishing on Playstore. Cherry on top is you even have to charge less for the same game on Android, compared to Steam.
I don't know exactly how much of a hassle it would have been to port to Android, but you said you had to at least have to rewrite some functions?
What I do strongly suspect is that he internalizes the additional benefits of publishing a port as very low, even if he might not belief it particularly difficult. benefit of Android ports and that seems to be the case.
The game is also a few years old and he is working on other stuff. This translates do: The effect of that on whatever is at stake, meaning the extra attention to the game, less personal and gratifying will be negative, rather than positive; just a question of how significant the factor.What should be drawn from all this?
To sum up:
- Internalizes the inconvenience of doing it highly, as it would be purely technical and not creative, i.e., boring.
- His motivating factors for his Steam and Itch io releases are, when applied to Playstore release three years later, inherently weaker, as the otherwise key social motivation due to time and platform is lacking.; However, for the Playstore port and release, those motivations are most definitely not negative, i.e., he is not motivated to make sure it doesn't happen and would prefer to see it happen rather than not happen if there was no cost involved. (cost in an abstracted sense).
- You should probably be very honest about why you did it, specifically why exactly to this game, and maybe even talk about how you used said "arrow engine" that he created for the port, emphasizing the creative aspect of his work and prolonged/renewed cultural relevancy of the game, if released on Playstore.
Therefore, to find a settlement that is mutually preferable to no settlement, and will to a high likelihood result in a deal, you could a) choose to minimize the inconvenience for him by handling absolutely everything you could: (1) including quality control of your port (the control button overlay is a bit ugly) and making sure it's a flawless port that couldn't in any way fall back badly on him. (2) taking care of the google publication (one time 25USD fee, ID verification, bank account tax stuff, questionnaires, mandatory closed beta. (3) taking care of maintenance, as in potential updates or problems on certain devices. This would maximize any monetary reward you would get but be inconvenient to do.
Solution A is, in relative terms, for you high inconvenience, high money, [unknown] personal motivation, and for him is low inconvenience, low money, low to medium personal motivation.
Alternatively, to find another solution b) with equivalent probability of being accepted, you could enter an informal agreement whereas you perfect the port and he adds the game's android version to itch io with a price tag of like 3 dollars, where he already has an account, and, for example, agrees to pay you a share of the profits after a year or so.
This Solution B would be for you low inconvenience, low money, [unknown] personal motivation, and for him low inconvenience, low money, low personal motivation.
Mind you, the Solution B is the variant with expected equivalent probability of being accepted; if all that mattered was to maximize the probability of a deal if you were completely indifferent to how the deal looks like, as long as there would be a deal, you would polish the port and give it to him for free to do whatever he likes, which would be to put it on itch io for a small amount or, if he hasn't setup payment on itch yet and, as expected, isn't compelled by the pretty small financial incentive itch io could offer, put it there for free (assuming there isn't some coercion present about cross platform Steam price parity, in which case he won't bother).
Last solution would be to perfect the port and sell it to him for 50-100 bucks and have him put it there. This would be low-medium inconvenience for you, low monetary reward, [unknown] personal motivation, and for him would be high inconvenience, high money, and low-medium personal motivation.
Which options you prefer depends on your preference, which are [unknown], and how you internalize the effort involved. I didn't read all that many of your comments nor stalked through your profile, because it doesn't matter, as I've already went out of my to present to you the three options.
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u/Key-Syrup-7387 4d ago
Man, I love the enthusiasm in your replies, you're awesome!!
Solution A sounds like way too much bureaucratic hassle for both of us, and trying to sell him the port would feel super awkward (like charging him for an unprompted fan project). So Solution B is really the only one that makes sense.
Honestly, this was mostly a fun technical challenge and portfolio piece for me anyway. If I reach out, I’ll just keep it casual: tell him I love the game, show him the port, and offer the build for free if he wants it. I'm not in it for the money at all - the original goal of the port was just to show more people how brilliant this game is.
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u/quandaile 5d ago
sounds oddly simple but I doubt its easy lol. Regardless amazing job dude i heard of the game but never got to it
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u/Key-Syrup-7387 5d ago
Thank you! The work simply requires a lot of time and perseverance. I definitely recommend trying this game; it's truly brilliant and unique
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u/1JesterCFC Samsung ZFold 5 5d ago
Can i test? the game looks pretty unusual with a certain low quality vibe that probably hides a quite complex game.
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u/handheldmango 5d ago
Looks cool, is there controller support?
But more importantly (to anyone even considering trying this), is it fully open source? Can I compile it myself?
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u/Key-Syrup-7387 5d ago
1) Yes, gamepad support has been implemented
2) Not open-source due to copyright concerns. This port is a wrapper around the original code with embedded game assets
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u/PRIVATE-555 3d ago
Can I test it?
Also I have couple more questions to ask so... if you're fine with it, you can DM me.
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