This has happened to me in the past with another one of my games on the Play Store/Console, I was able to fix this issue by updating the game version number inside GDevelop to be higher than the .aab version code number.
However, the latest version I want to overwrite has a .aab version code of 902 with a version number of 0.0.902, and the new .aab file I want to replace it with has a .aab version code of 105 with a version number of 0.1.5
I’ve noticed that GDevelop resets the .aab version code whenever the title of the game has been changed along with whatever the version number is. The issue with this is that I need to frequently change the title of the game so game titles on mobile devices look better.
For example, the full game title is called “The Misadventures of Hero Character featuring spinoff character” on web and desktop builds (EXE/HTML) while the other version title is called “The Misadventures of Hero Character” on android builds (APK/.aab files)
I could see myself fixing this issue by changing my game version number in GDevelop to something like 0.9.3, which in theory, updates the .aab version code to be 903.
However, I was wondering if there was a way that I could manually edit the .aab version number inside of GDevelop without having to manually give my game an unnecessary version number? As I don’t want to change the version number to 0.9.3.
Thanks in advance!
P.S. If you need me to provide some images to help explain my point, just let me know
I can’t give you guidance on your ask, but please note that this specifically is recommended against by google. Google expects app names to closely match their package name and has treated frequent renaming of apps as abuse in the past.
This doesn’t mean you need to stop or you are guaranteed to get in trouble, I just want to bring clarity on this specific point.
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Ahhh, I didn’t know that. Thanks for the heads up in advance, that’ll be nice to know going forward
I think I’m gonna have to bite the bullet and update my game ver to 0.9.3 despite me wanting the ver number to be 0.1.5. The sudden version jump is gonna be a bit whack, but I don’t think it can be helped, unfortunately.
Thanks for responding!
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I’ve had this issue in the past. My solution only works if you’re doing manual exports I think, but I’ll explain it here for posterity. Also I’m on windows; may be platform dependent.
If you have your project setup in Android Studio, go to the following directory:
\your-project-name\platforms\android\app\src\main\AndroidManifest.xml
There are a lot of manifest files so ensure the above one is the one you’ve found. On line 2, you’ll find a property named android:versionCode. This property is one of the few instances the version code does not update.
The zeroes in the code represent the dots. So in the above example, “1.2.1” looks like “10201”. Just change that code to match your version. This is how I fixed the issue, since I use manual builds and because it updates everywhere in the .aab accept here for some reason. I do not know how the one click builds package the .aab, but maybe GDevelop has a “Android Studio Project” somewhere in its filesystem where that manifest file exists.
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Thanks so much for this!
Though in the end, updated my game to 0.9.3 which sucks but going forward, I may try and create the .aab file manually
I work with Windows machines too and I had Android Studio installed when I was still working with the Godot engine but I never took the time to learn it properly, I’d love to learn Android Studio properly as then I’ll have more freedom and control over my game exports going forward. All I’ve managed to handle so far is to export an APK file manually using Cordova (my game was so poorly optimised space-wise that the GDevelop servers refused to upload it to their servers, forcing me to learn the Cordova method)
Before I came to post my enquiry, I checked to see if there was a GDevelop Plugin that allowed me to change the .aab number upon export, but me knowing little about coding (why I use GDevelop LMAO) I assume the .aab packaging happens when a project gets sent to GDevelops servers to be built, so I’m unsure if the number is set before or after the game is sent to the server to be built.
But if an option IS possible, then it would be nice to have it as a Plugin option for users who want better control over their .aab code
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