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Terraria with RetroAchievements on Android (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
9 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/66737678

RetroAchievements for Terraria require tModLoader, which you normally can't run on Android. I tried getting it to work with GameNative, but had no success.

But recently, I discovered this Android app that lets you run desktop .NET apps: https://github.com/FireworkSky/RotatingartLauncher

The installation is pretty straightforward: you just specify the path to the GOG Linux version of Terraria and the path to a ZIP file containing tModLoader.

For mods, I downloaded them on my PC through Steam and simply copied the .tmod files to:

<Internal storage>/RALauncher/Terraria/tModLoader/Mods

For save files, I set up Syncthing to sync ~/.local/share/Terraria/tModLoader/ to: <Internal storage>/RALauncher/Terraria/tModLoader

By default, the game opens stretched at a much lower resolution, but going to Settings -> Video -> Fullscreen automatically sets the correct resolution.

To log in to RetroAchievements, I had to connect a keyboard to enter my username and password. While doing so, I noticed a small bug: connecting a keyboard while the game is running crashes it.

I haven't seen this app mentioned on Lemmy, so I hope someone finds this useful.

P.S. The handheld in the picture is an AYN Thor.

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[–] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Woah! Running .net apps on Android is crazy, makes me wonder if it'd be possible to pull the same trick with RimWorld. I can't imagine it'd be too happy with a massive mod list, but the UI/ interface would probably translate pretty well.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    Things are getting really advanced when it comes to running Windows games on Android, to the point where people have gotten Steam running and are playing games like Silksong on their phones. Right now a lot of games crash and most 3D games don't run well, but chances are RimWorld could run fine on a higher end phone. Check out https://gamenative.app/ .

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    • [–] 5 points 2 months ago

    P.S. The handheld in the picture is an AYN Thor.

    tks!!!

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    [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Does the gameplay feel OK? No stuttering or anything? Is it better than just running the native android app? Also, which version of the Thor do you have?

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 2 months ago

    Yes, it runs great without breaking a sweat.

    Is it better than just running the native android app

    It allows me to run tModLoader, which I can't do with the Android version of the game.

    I have the 12 GB version. I bought it at launch.

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    • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (2 children)

    Nice.. Nice device! Does it come in larger screen?

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    • 10 comments in c/games@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 11 points 2 months ago (9 children)

    You enjoying the Thor? I have my eye on it but I don’t see much reason to get one when I have a N3DS XL

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago* (3 children)

    I pre-ordered one when it was first announced, then regretted it when Nintendo started scaring off emulators. Then I eventually got it and and learned about Game Native. Literally playing steam games on it. I have no idea when phone chips started getting this fast, its like one notch below steam deck performance.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    What games?

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    If you're playing 3DS games then there's no point as emulation inherently adds input latency. The only benefits are if you're not playing any games that hurt from that and you'd like to have better visuals. I got mine because I'm emulating other platforms too and running Windows games via GameNative was a game changer.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

    Is the second screen useful for anything outside of DS and 3DS?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    It's nice to have some guides pinned and to keep notes. Some games have had second screen mods but a number of them are vibe coded and some of these devs broke open source licenses doing it so I'm steering clear of those.

    Wii U is another platform that benefits from it as the bottom screen acts as the Wii U tablet controller though I've not yet tried it out personally.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    I use it just as a regular second screen - guides, videos.

    If you don't use it for anything, launchers like Cocoon will display the game logo + status bar with info like battery, time, notifications, etc. The launcher sets the brightness to minimum when you don't use it, but the status bar is still visible this way. You can see this in action on my post photo.

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