u/3GeeselnATrenchcoat

I've recently been sent an apk for an old game I used to play, but the installation failed because the app is "incompatible" with my OS

I really want to play the game again, but I'm not sure how I'd go about running it. Would it be possible to emulate an older version of Android on my phone, or is there a less convoluted method?

Any help would be appreciated

Details/spec:

My phone is running android 15, with a Snapdragon 778G+, & 8gigs of RAM.

The game in question requires a minimum of android 2.2 and was released in 2012.

When attempting to install it with APKMirror Installer it returned "The new package requires at least one split and it was not provided."

Edit: I tried installing the app with this (https://github.com/zacharee/InstallWithOptions) using the "bypass low target SDK block" option and it successfully installed. However, the app instantly crashes and I'm warned that it's incompatible.

Ball of Woe was a mobile game released in late 2012 on the apple app store and google play by the developers Doppler Interactive. It has been missing for many years now but I can't find when it first disappeared.

Plot: The citizens of Nicetown are immortal, and over the long years there has been an air of sadness growing in the people. The citizens of Nicetown collected their sadness, formed it into a ball of woe, and have tasked you with rolling the ball away from their town, and taking it up to heaven.

Gameplay: The ball of woe is on a series of floating platforms populated with obstacles (bushes, mailboxes, the people of Nicetown, etc). You move your ball of woe by tapping the ground near it, creating a shockwave that moves the ball in the opposite direction. You gain woe (a currency that can be used to buy different balls) by successfully moving from one platform to the next, without falling off. If you fall off you restart from the beginning. Your goal is to make it thorough multiple different biomes, eventually taking this ball of woe up to heaven.

I've found links to the original listing on both google play & the apple app store, but both pages have been deleted for a few years now. I've searched a handful of apk sites (including the internet archive) and sadly no where seems to have an apk available. I have found some posts and footage made by the original developers (https://www.moddb.com/games/ball-of-woe) but even the game's original website (ballofwoe .com) has been bought by a Canadian casino.

In conclusion, it looks as if the game has been lost to the sands of time. I hope it can be found or re-released some day, but I'm not going to keep my hopes up

Edit: found their itch.io page. It links to their website - which is deleted. It also link to their Twitter page - which has every post deleted. Their twitter pages links to one of the two dev's personal website - which is also deleted.

I used to play this game like 10 years ago when I still had an iPhone. I randomly remembered it last week and went to re-download it, but the game has been removed from both the google play store and apple app store.

The game is called Ball of Woe, developed by Doppler Interactive, and it was seemingly released back in 2012

I've had a look around but can't seem to find an apk anywhere, so at this point I'm assuming the game is lost media. If anyone knows where I can find an apk or any way I could play it on android please let me know.