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Ask HN: How can I recover and run my old mobile game from the 2010s?

56 points diasks2 | 1 comments | 25 Aug 25 06:41 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

I developed a game called "Putter King Adventure Golf" for iOS and Android back in the 2010s. It's long since disappeared from the app stores, but my son recently asked if he could play it, which got me thinking about whether it might be recoverable.

I'm wondering if there's any way to find a copy of it somewhere on the web (I assume it was probably pirated at some point during its lifetime). And if I could find it, what would be the best approach to get it running again?

Has anyone here successfully recovered and revived their old mobile apps? I'd appreciate any suggestions on:

* Where to look for archived APKs or IPAs * How to sideload/run old mobile apps on modern devices * Whether emulators might be a viable option

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fastball ◴[26 Aug 25 13:29 UTC] No.45026276[source]▶
Where did the source code go?

I have all the code from dumb little games I made (and never released) from almost 20 years ago.

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mrweasel ◴[26 Aug 25 13:51 UTC] No.45026567[source]▶
I've lost so much code, photos and other digital assets over the years. I regret losing most of it, yet I can seem to get started on archiving the things I care about.

So many funny little project, so much code I'd like to revisit, so many photos lot.

Any recommendations on how to start a life as a digital hoarder?

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1. antonyh ◴[26 Aug 25 15:05 UTC] No.45027613[source]▶
Three things that have bitten me recently:

1. beware of encryption, especially Microsoft and Apple. I've encrypted Apple disk images with lost passwords, and USB drives that I'm not sure I'll ever decrypt now that I've mostly moved to Linux

2. USB drives rot. I have at least one sitting on my desk that doesn't work, or doesn't work with Linux, or is encrypted, I can't tell but I think it's dead and I've no idea what's on it

3. assume anything other than text or open formats will be useless later. I've a ton of info archived in closed proprietary formats that I might never be able to access.

Duplication is inevitable. I've a box of CD/DVD archives, a dozen large USB drives, two NAS, and half a dozen computers, and with all that storage and space I can't even have a definitive music collection. It's on both NAS, multiple computers, an MP3 player, my phone, and all the copies are different. We've 14 terabytes of photos, and so I now need to buy another NAS to replace the two I have and keep the old ones as a backup. It's endless curation, both for hardware and data.

And yet, the code I've lost. The photos that didn't make it to backup. I have those regrets too, like they were truly valuable.

Final thoughts: cloud storage isn't storage, it's short term for shuffling data between devices. Even email isn't secure - Yahoo deleted all my messages without warning because I didn't log in for a year.