Your app has been removed from Google Play due to a policy violation...

That's the content of an email from Google I found in my inbox the other day. It also contained the following paragraphs:


Issue: Violation of Usage of Android Advertising ID policy and section 4.8 of the Developer Distribution Agreement

Google Play requires developers to provide a valid privacy policy when the app requests or handles sensitive user or device information. We’ve identified that your app collects and transmits the Android advertising identifier, which is subject to a privacy policy requirement. If your app collects the Android advertising ID, you must provide a valid privacy policy in both the designated field in the Play Console, and from within the app.

I was scared at first, but then I used a free App Privacy Policy Generator to create a Google Docs document with the policy. After that I added it to the Google Play listing and to the app's menu. After publishing a new version of the app, it has become visible again. I'm still waiting for Admob to start serving me ads though...

Anyway, I hope this helps if you have a similar problem.

Find a Way: Progress report 9

I finally got some designs from my friend and they look very promising. Take a look and let me know what you think. I like the paper version better and I'll probably be using those.

February Updates

Find a Way is slowly coming to a close... At least I'm hoping so. I talked to a friend (another one) who should help me with the design. There's just some polishing left and the game will be ready to be released. You can play an early version here:
https://bwdesign.itch.io/find-a-way?password=findaway2019
BTW, itch.io seems to be a great place for publishing your indie games. I'll post my game there as soon as I finish it. I wonder if anyone else has any experience with this site. I'll be happy to hear your thoughts.

When I was not working on Find a Way, I was helping my wife launch a newsletter with kids' events in my area. It's been moderately successful so far with a couple hundred people in the Facebook group and signed up for the email list. Hopefully, it will grow even more so she (or perhaps we) can start treating it as something more serious.

November Updates

Just a quick status update on what I've been up to lately.

I went to Mobilization, which is a conference on mobile development. It was ok but I'm not sure if I would have gone there had it not been for the free ticket that I got...
I watched the majority of videos from KotlinConf 2018 and I suggest you do the same if you're at least remotely interested in Kotlin or Android development.
I watched all videos from Android Dev Summit 2018 and they were great as well.
I watched all videos from Indie Developer Day (Seattle) 2018 to learn some cool stuff about Unity, monetization and game publishers.
BTW, watching YouTube on 1,5x or 2x speed saves you sooo much time.
I met with a graphics designer about my game (Find a Way) but it's been more than two weeks now since then and he hasn't answered me, so I guess he's too busy to help me and I'll have to look somewhere else.
I started updating my Facebook Photo Gallery app to learn some of the new Architecture Components. I'll try to use some of the cool new Android features and post an updated version to CodeCanyon when I'm done.

In the next couple of months I'd like to focus on the game and on updating the gallery app. I'll be posting more updates when I manage to reach some milestone but, as you can see, there hasn't been much progress for a good couple of weeks when it comes to coding. I managed to catch up on some development knowledge though, which might come in handy both at my work and with my side projects.

That's it for the quick update. I'll try to have something more tangible next time. Stay tuned.

Find a Way: Progress report 8

Last week there was no progress update because I was in Spain and Andora on a short vacation, but I'm back now, so here's what I did. I added buttons for enabling/disabling music and sound. I added a reset button to restart the current level. The board state gets saved now, so when you close the game and come back to it, you see the tiles as you left them. There's also a win sound when you solve a level and then the board gets locked until you move to another level or reset the current one.

You can play the game here:
https://gamebucket.io/game/b1bd3e0f-3173-4e6a-976b-99535f4a5e16
The link will be active for 30 days.

Next, I'll be thinking of how to make the game more pretty.

Find a Way: Progress report 7

This week I added sounds, music and more levels (25-36). The audio files aren't final by any means.

Check out the new changes here:
https://gamebucket.io/game/f3c76bc4-5174-4441-93c3-9f777a3ec760
The link will be available for 30 days.

Next, I'll be adding more levels and tweaks to the game.

Find a Way: Progress Report 6

I added rewarded video ads. Unfortunately, they're available only on Android and iOS, so you won't see them in the WebGL version. I also added levels 13-24, which you can test here:
https://gamebucket.io/game/faacc5f0-fc74-4820-bff8-709e1476f446
The link will be available for 30 days.

Next, I'll add some sounds, even more levels and I'll be preparing a list of tasks/questions for a graphic designer, who I'll be looking for soon. I'll also try to generate an Android version of the game to see if everything (ads included) works properly.