The most important issue that has been fixed is that the screen would be oversized on Android 15, making the game more or less unplayable there. But it also contains some other bugfixes across platforms that I managed to get in, and also seven new levels to play bringing the total number of levels up to a round 24!

The new version is now available on itch.io, and the F-Droid version will be updated within a couple days. See the Download page for links.

Changelog

• Add 7 new levels
• Fix game window being cut off on Android 15+ (#1)
• Fix game not starting back up after being exited on Android
• Fix buttons triggering when they shouldn’t be
• Fix thrown balls changing colour to the last thrown ball
• Fix fullscreen setting not saving in settings
• Code refactoring and misc. cleanups

And probably more stuff I forgot… You can view the full commit history here.

While it was submitted to F-Droid right around the time that 1.1.0 was released, the F-Droid release process can take some days as they build all apps completely from source rather than reusing prebuilt binaries from the app developers. But the wait is now over as just an hour or so after I woke up today, I saw that the app had been signed and pushed to the F-Droid repository, and now it has also made it onto the F-Droid website.

The download page has been updated to feature the beautiful F-Droid download badge now. You can also go to the F-Droid page for Box Smasher here:

While Google Play unfortunately remains a de facto monopoly when it comes to Android app distribution, F-Droid is the perfect fit for Free and open source apps like Box Smasher when it is no longer welcome on Google Play. Hopefully this can compensate for the loss of Box Smasher on Google Play, as you will conveniently get new updates for the game through F-Droid once they come out.

If you have followed the latest updates of the game this likely should not come as a surprise. I have been aware of this deadline for over a year at this point and subsequently deprecated the Google Play version of Box Smasher when the new 1.1.0 version was released. Why I chose to drop my Google Play developer account as a result of their new developer verification policies can be read in more detail in a post on my personal blog.

For 1.1.0, I provide an Android version of the game built by me as an APK available for download on itch.io, which you can sideload onto your device. I have also submitted Box Smasher to F-Droid, which will be available there in a couple days time once it has been approved and the app has been built by F-Droid’s buildservers.

If you have the old Google Play version of Box Smasher installed, you will need to uninstall it first before switching to the itch.io builds or the F-Droid builds, as they use a different signing key and Android does not allow installing app updates with mismatching signing keys. The signing key for apps on Google Play is held by Google nowadays and they do not let developers save a copy of it, which you can probably imagine the reasons why they would do so.

This version will not be available on Google Play as Google has prevented me from pushing updates to the game. However, Google will permanently remove Box Smasher from Google Play in about a week’s time anyways.

In order to compensate for the loss of Google Play as a distribution method for Android users, I have submitted Box Smasher for inclusion to F-Droid. The app has been accepted and merged, and 1.1.0 will soon show up within a couple days.

Other than that, downloads for the game are now available on itch.io. A 64-bit Windows binary, 64-bit Linux AppImage and Android APK is provided as well as an universal LÖVE package to run the game with your own provided LÖVE runtime.

Changelog

• 5 new levels!
• Add statistics, tracking various metrics throughout the game
• Add settings for toggling fullscreen and sound
• Fullscreen can also be toggled with F11
• Add quick tutorial on the first level
• Add fade effect on scene transition
• Add intro card on game startup
• Add more sound effects for gameplay interactions
• Handle the back button being pressed on Android
• Fix bug where throwing balls became impossible
• License the game under GPLv3
• Refresh splash texts
• Various code refactors and cleanups (lots of it!)

And probably more stuff I forgot… You can view the full commit history here.

The last proper version of Box Smasher was v1.0.1 released all the way back on the 25th of May 2023, almost two years ago. While the game’s development has not been consistently active during those years, there has been various changes to the game, bugfixes and new levels that have collected up in the Git repository meanwhile. It has been my plan for quite some time to pick Box Smasher back up and continue development, this new website being part of that.

This website is also being made in preparation for Box Smasher soon being taken down by Google from the Play Store. While it always was nice seeing the game available on Google Play, their new developer policies are way too invasive to comply with, and once the deadline rolls around (3th February 2025) all my apps including Box Smasher will be taken down and made unavailable.

It is my hope that I will be able to release a full v1.1 version of Box Smasher sometime in the future incorporating the changes and fixes that will have been made during the 2 years since the original school project was completed. And addition to being available for download on itch.io, I wish to also be able to bring Box Smasher to F-Droid.

But until then, I have made available a latest development version on the download page in the form of a simple universal LÖVE package.