Creating Android plugins (Godot 3.2.2+)

    Mobile gaming monetization is one such example since it requires features and capabilities that don’t belong to the core feature set of a game engine:

    • Analytics
    • In-app purchases
    • Receipt validation
    • Install tracking
    • Ads
    • Video ads
    • Cross-promotion
    • In-game soft & hard currencies
    • Promo codes
    • A/B testing
    • Cloud saves
    • Leaderboards and scores
    • User support & feedback
    • Posting to Facebook, Twitter, etc.
    • Push notifications

    While introduced in Godot 3.2, the Android plugin system got a significant architecture update starting with Godot 3.2.2. The new plugin system is backward-incompatible with the previous one, but both systems are kept functional in future releases of the 3.2.x branch. Since we previously did not version the Android plugin systems, the new one is now labelled and is the starting point for the modern Godot Android ecosystem.

    Note: In Godot 4.0, the previous system will be fully deprecated and removed.

    As a prerequisite, make sure you understand how to set up a for Android.

    At its core, a Godot Android plugin is a Android archive library (aar archive file) with the following caveats:

    • The library must have a dependency on the Godot engine library (godot-lib.<version>.<status>.aar). A stable version is made available for each Godot release on the .
    • The library must include a specifically configured <meta-data> tag in its manifest file.

    Prerequisite: Android Studio is strongly recommended as the IDE to use to create Android plugins. The instructions below assumes that you’re using Android Studio.

    1. Follow to create an Android library module for your plugin.

    2. Add the Godot engine library as a dependency to your plugin module:

      • Download the Godot engine library (godot-lib.<version>.<status>.aar) from the Godot download page (e.g: godot-lib.3.2.2.stable.aar).
      • Follow to add the Godot engine library as a dependency for your plugin.
      • In the plugin module’s build.gradle file, replace implementation with compileOnly for the dependency line for the Godot engine library.

    3. Create a new class in the plugin module and make sure it extends org.godotengine.godot.plugin.GodotPlugin. At runtime, it will be used to instantiate a singleton object that will be used by the Godot engine to load, initialize and run the plugin.

      • Open the plugin AndroidManifest.xml file.

      • Add the <application></application> tag if it’s missing.

      • In the <application> tag, add a <meta-data> tag setup as follow:

        Where PluginName is the name of the plugin, and plugin.init.ClassFullName is the full name (package + class name) of the plugin loading class.

    5. Add the remaining logic for your plugin and run the gradlew build command to generate the plugin’s aar file. The build will likely generate both a debug and release aar files. Depending on your need, pick only one version (usually the release one) which to provide your users with.

      It’s recommended that the aar filename matches the following pattern: where PluginName is the name of the plugin in PascalCase (e.g.: GodotPayment.release.aar).

    Move the plugin configuration file (e.g.: MyPlugin.gdap) and, if any, its local binary (e.g.: MyPlugin.aar) and dependencies to the Godot project’s res://android/plugins directory.

    The Godot editor will automatically parse all files in the res://android/plugins directory and show a list of detected and toggleable plugins in the Android export presets window under the Plugins section.

    From your script:

    An Android plugin can define and provide C/C++ GDNative resources, either to provide and/or access functionality from the game logic. The GDNative resources can be bundled within the plugin aar file which simplifies the distribution and deployment process:

    For GDNative libraries, the plugin singleton object must override the org.godotengine.godot.plugin.GodotPlugin::getPluginGDNativeLibrariesPaths() method, and return the paths to the bundled GDNative libraries config files (*.gdnlib). The paths must be relative to the assets directory. At runtime, the plugin will provide these paths to Godot core which will use them to load and initialize the bundled GDNative libraries.

    Check adb logcat for possible problems, then:

    • Check that the methods exposed by the plugin used the following Java types: void, boolean, int, float, java.lang.String, org.godotengine.godot.Dictionary, int[], byte[], float[], .