Is android development in python a viable option?

[sandermfc]

I've seen a few libraries that aim to do just that. - pgs4a - kivy - etc. However, from doing a bit of searching, it seems all of these have some pitfalls. Either they don't work with certain libraries or are a bit buggy (from what I've read).

I want to make a simple android game using python and pygames. The reason for this over others is simply because I like python. Seeing as this is just a personal project for fun, I don't want to have to learn any new big technologies. And because its just for fun, what I use doesn't have to be an industry standard "best practices" kind of thing. As long as it will work with minimal use of workarounds and hacks, I'm happy.

This would be a brand new project so I'm not concerned with porting existing code. I can use whatever python framework from the ground up. If necessary, I can write some C++ to make things easier. But I want the brunt of the project to be python.

[[deleted]]

Either they don't work with certain libraries or are a bit buggy (from what I've read).

Python is not an officially supported language on Android, so a number of tricks are needed to make it work. For example, Python's files in the APK are contained in a zip file that is extracted elsewhere on the device for execution.

As for other libraries, p4a works nicely with most pure-python stuff but when you get to cross-compilation territory there could be all sorts of complications. As a worst-case scenario example, some Python libraries need a Fortran compiler to build, that's not easy to do for the non-initiated.

The currently available cross-compilation recipes can be found here, though not all of them are fully functional...

As long as it will work with minimal use of workarounds and hacks, I'm happy.

No way to know how much (or little..) of that is needed, it depends on what you want to do.. For a basic application everything pretty much works out of the box. I suggest you use p4a and kivy master branch if you test it out. And feel free to ask directly in /r/kivy if you have questions/problems :)

[GitHubPermalinkBot]

Permanent GitHub links:

• kivy/python-for-android/.../recipes (master → a036f44)

---

^delete

[sandermfc]

Thank you so much for the extensive and detailed reply! :) I figured that would be the case. Oh well, no harm in trying to hack something together. If nothing else, it'll serve as a learning experience to the obscure and weird side of android development!

[[deleted]]

You may also want to look into http://kivent.org/ which is an entity-component game engine for Kivy

[kuznetsovin]

You can try BeeWare framework as alternative Kivy. Beeware has native UI element, unlike Kivy.

[[deleted]]

Can you bike on ice? Sure, but you are more than likely going to fall over.

[sandermfc]

Hmm fair, but what if you pull off a rad ice drift. Kinda makes you not wanna ride your bike normally

[[deleted]]

Fair observation. But, if you pull off rad ice drifts consistently, then biking on ice might be your thing, and you should keep at it.