📢 Version v0.1.2 (alpha) - Pause in background, camera on buttons, floating joystick, gamepad fixes

ℹ️ Game version matters: on Valheim 1.0.7 the ground and some textures render black — on both Mali and Snapdragon. Please use Valheim 1.0.15 or newer: the developers fixed it there, and that is the version ValDroid works best with.

⚡ The first session is the heaviest. On Snapdragon the shader cache is on: during your first session (and after reinstalling) the game compiles shaders and prepares textures, so expect drops and stutters. They are saved on the phone, and from the second session on it runs much smoother — maybe save the serious fights for then. 🪓
On Mali the shader cache is off by default, because on some Mali GPUs it can cause black textures (only textures are saved there). If you turned it on and see black textures, please send us a Report a bug so we can see what we can do — and until we find a fix, turn the Shader cache off again.

🙏 Special thanks

To everyone who wrote to us on GitHub, Reddit and in bug reports — most of this version is your requests! Special thanks to @Russianranger for tracking down the double gamepad inputs on the AYN Thor, and to @jurises99 for the stream of great control ideas. 💛

☕ Honest moment: ValDroid stays free, but coffee (and rent) doesn't. If the new version makes your Viking life a little better, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi. Thank you! 🪓

🆕 What's new

Main features

✅ Pause in the background — when you turn the screen off, go home or switch apps, the game freezes and goes quiet, and carries on exactly where you left it. No more coming back to a dead Viking, a hot phone or music playing in your pocket. Want the old behaviour? Settings → Keep running in the background.
✅ Turn the camera with buttons — hold Attack, Block or Alt (secondary attack) and slide the same finger to look around, like a right stick: aim while you draw the bow, turn while you block. Works on both layouts and is on for the combat buttons in the default layouts (ATK, BLK, ALT; on the gamepad layout LB, RB, LT, RT). Per button in the editor: Drag turns the camera, with its own sensitivity.
✅ Floating joystick — the left (movement) stick can appear wherever your thumb lands inside its zone, so you never miss it. Buttons inside the zone keep working. In the editor: tap the stick → Floating joystick, and set the Zone size. Off by default.
✅ Invisible buttons — opacity can now go all the way down to 0%. Hidden elements still work; in the editor they show as a dashed circle so you can find them.

Gamepads

✅ No more double inputs on handhelds — on devices like the AYN Thor one press could arrive twice (X also Y, LB also Select, RB also Start). The game now sees only one controller.
✅ Triggers in Gamepad mapping — after the buttons, the mapping screen now also asks for LT and RT. Use it if your triggers move the camera or don't work. The screen shows plain button names and no longer restarts when you rotate the phone.

Changed

✅ Compatibility mode is much faster — it no longer limits the game to one CPU core. If you had to turn it on, you get your FPS back.
✅ After creating an instance the launcher explains the renderer: MobileGlues is the default and gives the highest FPS. Renderer names in the settings are clearer.
✅ Clearer messages — a damaged game archive says so, and a failed install no longer leaves a half-unpacked instance behind. An instance that is still downloading says "downloading, wait until it finishes", and an interrupted download tells you how to resume it.

Fixed

✅ Bug reports show the game version again and include your controller's layout.

Known issues

⚠️ On game versions older than 1.0.15 the ground can be black. Use 1.0.15 or newer — it doesn't have this problem. Until then, on Snapdragon you can switch the renderer to Zink (a bit slower). There is no fix for Mali yet.
⚠️ On Mali, turning the Shader cache on can make the water black; leave it off there for now.
⚠️ ValDroid is single-player for now — multiplayer and servers are planned, but not there yet.

⚠️ Reminder
ValDroid is only a launcher. To run the game, you need the Linux version of the game files — for example, the game bought on Steam.

Sᴜʙsᴄʀɪʙᴇ If you want to stay up to date with changes, tips, and useful tweaks, feel free to join our ValDroid subreddit.
TG: t.me/udarmolota