All Minetest builds, including the Android variant, are based on the same code. However, additional Java code is used for proper Android integration.
Compared to Minetest binaries for PC, the Android port has limited functionality due to limited capabilities of common devices. What can be done is described below:
While you're playing the game normally (that is, no menu or inventory is shown), the following controls are available:
When a menu or inventory is displayed:
There are some settings especially useful for Android users. The Minetest-wide configuration file can usually be found at:
/sdcard/Minetest/
or /storage/emulated/0/
if stored on the device/storage/emulated/(varying folder name)/
if stored on an SD card/sdcard/Android/data/net.minetest.minetest/
or /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/net.minetest.minetest/
if stored on the device/storage/emulated/(varying folder name)/Android/data/net.minetest.minetest/
if stored on the SD cardthis is a user-specified scaling factor for the GUI in case main menu is too big or small on your device, try changing this value.
Mobile device generally have less RAM than PC, this setting limit how many mapblock can keep in RAM
this setting limit max FPS (Frame per second). Default value is 60, which lowest Android device screen refresh rate commonly found, but if you're using an device have lower refresh rate, change this
The minimal and recommended system requirements for Minetest are listed below.
Supported architectures:
CPU architectures similar to ARM or x86 might run Minetest but are not tested.
Unlike on PC, Android devices use OpenGL ES which less powerful than OpenGL, thus some shader settings cannot be used on OpenGL ES. Changing the graphic driver setting to OpenGL will result in undesirable behavior.
In order to build, your PC has to be set up to build Minetest in the usual manner (see the regular Minetest documentation for how to get this done). In addition to what is required for Minetest in general, you will need the following software packages. The version number in parenthesis denotes the version that was tested at the time this README was drafted; newer/older versions may or may not work.
Additionally, you'll need to have an Internet connection available on the build system, as the Android build will download some source packages.
The new build system Minetest Android is fully functional and is designed to
speed up and simplify the work, as well as adding the possibility of
cross-platform build.
You can use ./gradlew assemblerelease
or ./gradlew assembledebug
from the
command line or use Android Studio and click the build button.
When using gradlew, the newest NDK will be downloaded and installed
automatically. Or you can create a local.properties
file and specify
sdk.dir
and ndk.dir
yourself.
In order to make a release build you'll have to have a keystore setup to sign the resulting apk package. How this is done is not part of this README. There are different tutorials on the web explaining how to do it
Once your keystore is setup, enter the android subdirectory and create a new file "ant.properties" there. Add following lines to that file:
key.store= key.alias=Minetest