SDK Modernisation & Android Porting - Nova Blast Case Study

Foil Hat Games had a live iOS arcade shooter, Nova Blast, that needed urgent modernisation. The game's SDKs and libraries were outdated, creating compatibility risks as Apple and Google updated their platform requirements. Ocean View Games was brought in as a support and co-development partner to execute three parallel workstreams: update all legacy libraries, port the game to Android, and extend the level design tools for new content. SDK and Library Decay: The project depended on multiple third-party SDKs that had fallen several major versions behind. Updating them was not a simple version bump - each update introduced breaking changes that cascaded through the codebase. Android Expansion: The game was iOS-only. Foil Hat Games needed it on the Google Play Store to reach a wider audience, but the original codebase had iOS-specific assumptions baked into input handling and rendering. Content Pipeline: The client's design team needed to create new levels, but the existing level editor did not support the new gameplay elements planned for the update.