Ninja Girl & Star Nomad Elite offline on iOS

When I ported over these earlier games, I was using a semi-finished system from Apple, their newly released WKWebView engine that runs PC code Javascript at near-native performance.

Back then, it was functional but it was still in a state of flux as things were being finalized. I didn’t know at the time how much some of the modules would change. But in later iOS versions, 9 onwards in particular, the way WKWebView handles music & sounds was very different. As is the way it handled LocalStorage (saving of game data).

Some other changes as well resulted in these games built for iOS8-era WKWebView to no longer have functional audio on iDevices using iOS9 onwards. On top of this, it was crash prone.

I’ve been hoping later iOS revisions fix it but it seems to be more in a final state in the current implementation of the system.

What it means for me and gamers who play these titles are basically this: I can re-compile these two games with the new iOS9+ WKWebView module, it should no longer crash and have functional audio. But, the new system of saving game data is not compatible with the iOS8 version. It means a save-game wipe so I held off from doing it for the past two months.

I’ve been seeing more crash reports on Star Nomad Elite and so I decided to take it offline, so that there’s a period of time where there’s no new players who purchase it. Later on, when I find time, I’ll recompile for iOS9+ and put it online again. This should give some time for current players to finish the game without a data-wipe from the new build.