
Show HN: Curated – Find the best games on Android - GeneralTspoon
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.curated.android
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Mithaldu
And again, i see only an option to hide games with in-app purchases, but no
separation for games that sell in-app consumables and games that are free
demos and allow purchase of further content with one-time payments.

You're not doing anyone a favor by penalizing the modern equivalent of
shareware games and discouraging demos.

Edit: As a discovery tool it also misses a massive feature a user needs to be
able to usefully discover new content with this: The ability to hide games
they don't care about. User-provided tags also do not exist and the existing
breadth of tags is pitiful.

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PhasmaFelis
It _is_ stil in beta and made by one guy. By all means offer suggestions, but
let's not jump down the guy's throat about it. I agree that this is far from a
complete, functional product, but I'd like to see it become one, not be
abandoned in disgust.

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Mithaldu
I'm being curt because i am short on time, what's there and uncommented on is
decently enough, and most importantly: Over the past year i've seen various
projects like this come up, pass by, and remain useless and unused due to a
lack of deep understanding of the issues of the market and lack engagement
with the userbase. This one's not very different from the ones i've seen
before and has not yet shown remotely enough potential to merit anything but
the minimum effort to try and kick it in the right direction. Besides, i have
little patience for software developers who perceive criticism of their
software as personal slights. Does that make me an ass? Maybe. Do i care? No.

Fortunately GeneralTSpoon seems to be able to take criticism just fine.

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nacs
From the Google Play description:

> Against DRM? Search for games that don't offer in-app purchases.

What does DRM have to do with IAPs? And I'm pretty sure everything on the
Google Play store has Google Play DRM.

~~~
GeneralTspoon
Not sure what I was thinking. I'll have to update that.

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Kabukks
Great idea! Are you planning to support F-Droid or other non-Play store
sources?

I know first hand[1] that visibility of an Android game is basically zero if
it's not on the Play store. So something like this could help alternative ways
of distribution to become feasible.

[1] [http://tetrios.tumblr.com/about](http://tetrios.tumblr.com/about)

~~~
GeneralTspoon
I would really like to, but there are a couple of problems...

1) Distribution - I don't want to take responsibility for distributing random
APKs that could have sleeping viruses in them (that I don't catch). And with
something like F-Droid it would first link to a download for F-Droid, and then
there'd have to be some sort of collaboration to deep link correctly into
F-Droid from an install.

2) IP Infringement, Copyright, etc - Like you mention on your blog post,
Google is coming down pretty hard on apps that infringe on copyright (I also
know from first-hand experience) - and I don't want to be a party to that.
Seems like a good way to get a ban.

Your game looks very nicely polished though. It really sucks that it's not
allowed on the Play Store (like in so many other similar cases). IP companies
appear to be making a fortune these days by just sending out automated take-
down requests for things like this - no (real) appeal, just _poof_ and months
of your work disappears into the void!

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rentnorove
The f-droid app actually handles google play/amazon store links via the 'open
with' dialog, so if it's installed deep linking should already work.

[https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/issues/154](https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/issues/154)

~~~
GeneralTspoon
That doesn't really solve the problem unfortunately - if the app is already on
Google Play then F-Droid isn't needed.

What F-Droid needs (maybe it already has these things too?) is:

1) It's own URI schema for these things - so that you can link directly to
F-Droid without a Google Play link. So
[https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=in.p1x.tanks_of_...](https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=in.p1x.tanks_of_freedom)
should take you to the app if F-Droid is installed, otherwise you should be
prompted to download it from the web page.

2) A way to deep link into the app when it's not installed... so that if the
user downloads and installs the app, the first page they see is the one they
wanted to see (e.g. a particular app).

------
listic
What do you consider a 'best game'? Would something like Vanitas [1], Sepia
Tears [2] or Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery [3] show on your radar?

[1]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.taleoftale...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.taleoftales.Vanitas)

[2]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.com.biyori...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.com.biyori.teamneet.sepia)

[3]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.capybaraga...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.capybaragames.sworcery)

~~~
GeneralTspoon
Somewhat confused by [1]... Haven't tried it but I'll put it on the list to
check out. [2] is more of a novel than a game, right?

[3] is already there. Fantastic game!

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emsy
I was expecting for something like this from Google or Apple. I hope you gain
some traction and maybe interest from big G.

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JadeNB
Why does it need the "Identity" permission? (I'm also curious why it needs the
"Wi-Fi connection information" permission, but that one's less worrisome to
me.)

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GeneralTspoon
Identity is for GCM (android.permission.GET_ACCOUNTS). For sending
notifications (coming soon). I personally don't care who you are :) WiFi
connection info (android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE) is for displaying more
helpful error messages when you've got a connection problem on your end
(rather than a server problem).

I'll put this in the app description to make it clearer.

~~~
JadeNB
> I'll put this in the app description to make it clearer.

Thank you for responding! I know that app developers are almost as much at the
mercy of Google's coarse-grained approach to permissions as are app consumers,
but all the same I am paranoid, and it makes me a lot happier if there's a
description of how permissions are used.

