I paid for Puzzle Quest 2 on android like a decade+ ago. It is a local single-player game. It has a validation check when you open the app. That check fails because this game is ancient and the servers are offline.

I want to replay the game I paid for. I have the APK from an APK site. It’s even been pulled from steam to push their crappy p2w pq3. Anyone have tricks to crank an APK and bypass a server check? I’ve decompiled the APK but am in a bit over my head.

  • KptnAutismus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    75
    ·
    10 months ago

    with sonic runners, they had to reverse engineer the whole server infrastructure. i’d say the chances of you patching out server checks without decompiling the entire game are low.

    but i’m not any kind of programmer, so i’d love to be proven wrong.

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      10 months ago

      It really depends on the app. Plenty of Android apps have very simple to do premium bypass.

    • kurwa@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      10 months ago

      I wonder if in this case you could just mimic the OG server and return a 200. Could just do that with a hosts file change. Although if it’s looking for anything else from that verification endpoint then decompiling would be the answer.

    • Paradachshund@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      10 months ago

      Server checks aren’t always just an arbitrary gate at the start so this makes sense. For example, if the game has unlockable things (paid or not) and those things sync across multiple devices, then server checks to make sure your progress get saved and merged together properly can be woven through the whole game.

    • Daxtron2@startrek.website
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      10 months ago

      I mean decompiling it isn’t really an issue. Adding changes and recompiling without breaking things is more of a challenge but still doable.