A Real Android App for Dovion? The TWA Path
"Are you on the Play Store?" This question comes up regularly, and until now our answer was a simple no. Today, it becomes a "not yet, but we're seriously looking into it." An Android version of Dovion, as a real installable app, is an idea we're exploring — via a technology with a mysterious name: TWA. Let's explain what that is, where things stand, and why we're moving carefully.
What's a TWA?
TWA stands for Trusted Web Activity. Behind the jargon, the idea is elegant: it's an Android app that, instead of embedding a game rewritten from scratch, displays the web game full-screen, with no address bar or browser interface. To you, it looks like a normal app: an icon, a Play Store listing, a direct launch. Under the hood, it's the exact same Dovion as on dovion.io — same world, same rooms, same players.
It's the ideal path for a game like ours: no separate version to maintain, no community split in two between "app players" and "web players." Everyone would keep sailing together.
Wait... this basically already exists: the PWA
Before dreaming about the Play Store, let's remember something a lot of players don't know: you can already install Dovion on your phone, today, for free, in two taps. The game is a PWA (progressive web app): from your mobile browser, hit "Add to Home Screen," and there you go — an icon, a full-screen launch, no store required. The illustrated walkthrough is in our PWA install guide.
Honestly? For the gameplay experience, the PWA already does 95% of the job. Especially since the touch interface has been polished — joysticks, buttons under your thumbs, all of it covered in our mobile guide.
So why consider the Play Store at all?
For a simple reason: that's where mobile players go looking for games. The PWA is fantastic, but you already need to know about dovion.io to install it. A Play Store presence would be one more front door — players typing "multiplayer ship game" on a Sunday evening and stumbling onto us. That ties into our current big project, visibility, which we outlined in what we're working on.
Why we're not promising anything
Because an idea being explored is not an announced feature, and we care about that distinction. Publishing on the Play Store raises real questions we're currently working through: Google's store rules, compliance for an app that offers purchases, maintaining one more listing, testing across the jungle of Android devices. Nothing insurmountable in principle — TWA is specifically designed to stay lightweight — but we'd rather move step by step and only tell you the real deal once it's concrete. So no date, and no vague "coming soon": just an open file on our workbench.
We genuinely want your opinion
This idea exists partly BECAUSE players asked for it. So let's keep the conversation going: would you install Dovion from the Play Store? Is the PWA enough for you? And iPhone players, where do you stand? Come tell us on the forum — it's the best way to influence our priorities.
In the meantime, no store needed to hoist the sails: open your browser and Play Dovion for free.