Sub Buddy - the World's First Attack Disc & TADS Computer on iOS & Android

[PoutyBatFace Studios]

Originally Posted by hachiman

Any chance you'll "Fix" it to work on older android devices?
I purchased it without reading you needed Nougat or above for it to work.
Never had to pay attention to that before. My bad, but can't see any reason why you've made it so.

Hi Hachiman, thanks for your question. Firstly I'm sorry you didn't notice the system requirements before you purchased, Google do offer a 48 hour refund policy so please ensure you take advantage of that.

The reason Sub Buddy doesn't support Android OS prior to Nougat is the approach we took to create it. The best way to code an Android app (to my knowledge) is to use Java. I have no doubt that a Java developer who is well experienced coding Android apps would have been able to create a version of Sub Buddy that would support a wider range of devices and operating systems. We don't have that expertise in-house and hiring someone was not an option for this project.

The skills we do have available in-house are with a framework called React, which has a library called React Native that can be used to create mobile apps. This library is limited, which means the options we had to solve problems such as "how to tell which disc is being touched to rotate it", "how to animate a rotation smoothly" and "how to display a 3D model of a ship" had only one answer, rather than several that would have allowed choices around optimisation.

As a result when we tested the Android version in simulators and on physical devices we found that OS prior to Nougat had issues with loading and rotating the discs, and with the AoB estimator functionality, making the app unusable.

So this wasn't a decision at the beginning, but instead was a constraint imposed upon us as a result of the options we had available to create Sub Buddy on Android. Because of those constraints we don't have a route to making changes that would allow it to work on older OS. I know that is not the answer you are looking for, which is why I wanted to give this full explanation.

I totally understand your disappointment that it doesn't work on your phone/tablet. I wish we could have supported more devices. Given the challenges we faced creating Sub Buddy on Android we are really proud of how it has turned out, and the features that it has, which allows (many) Android users to enjoy the app, as well as iOS users.