Depot Dash is out on Android

Depot Dash is now on Google Play. The Android release has the full campaign, Chapter 1 free, and Chapters 2–6 in an optional one-time purchase called the Depot Mastery Bundle, for sixty-two levels total.

At the same time, the browser version here has changed. It used to carry the whole campaign; it is now Chapter 1: twelve levels, still free, still no download and no account. This post is about why I made that split, because “the web version got smaller” deserves a full explanation.

Why Chapter 1 is the browser version

The honest answer is that a browser build and a paid mobile build want different things, and trying to be both was making the browser version worse.

The web build has to load fast enough that someone who clicked a link stays. That is a real constraint on a 3D game, every asset in the bundle is time spent staring at a loading bar before anyone has decided whether they like the game. Carrying six chapters of level data and every mechanic’s assets meant the first twelve levels were carrying the download cost of fifty later levels.

Cutting to Chapter 1 made the web build meaningfully lighter, and Chapter 1 was always designed to be a complete thing on its own. It is a twelve-level introduction that teaches simple junctions, then tighter layouts, then the first real routing decisions. It ends where it ends because that is a natural stopping point, not because it was truncated.

The other half of the answer is the obvious one, and I would rather say it than dance around it: the bundle is how the game earns anything. I would rather have a genuinely free twelve levels and an honest paid extension than a “free” game that spends those twelve levels asking you for money.

What is in the bundle

Chapters 2–6, which is fifty levels. What actually makes them harder is worth spelling out, because it is not simply “more of the same, faster”:

• Multi-way junctions. Chapter 1 junctions are binary, this path or that one. Multi-way junctions are a selection, so a wrong setting can be several switches away from the right one. That changes the cost of experimenting quite a lot.
• Matching exits. Electronic, toy, and fragile parcels each have a corresponding exit, so every routing plan begins with the parcel type.
• Fragile parcels and express lanes. Express lanes are fast and they destroy fragile cargo. This is the first mechanic that makes an express route fatal for fragile cargo.
• Tighter mistake limits. In the later chapters these drop sharply, which turns hazard planning from an optimisation into the condition for clearing the level at all.
• Harder three-star targets. Clearing a level and three-starring it were always two different puzzles. In the bundle chapters the gap widens.

There is more detail on all of that in the hazards guide if you want to read ahead.

What changed in the port

The port focused its changes on input and screen while preserving the routing rules.

The game was already designed around a single input, tap or click a junction, so there was no control scheme to redesign. What needed work was touch target sizing. On a desktop monitor a junction is a comfortable click target at almost any camera distance. On a phone, at the camera height that keeps the whole depot floor visible, some junctions were small enough that a mistap was possible, and a mistap in a game where a wrong switch costs you the accuracy star is not an acceptable failure mode. Those got larger interaction areas that do not match their visual size exactly, which is one of those compromises that feels wrong in principle and correct in practice.

The other change was frame pacing on low-end hardware. The web build has to go through the browser’s WebGL layer, and on cheaper Android phones that overhead is enough to make the belts stutter. Belts stuttering is a real problem in this game specifically, because the whole mechanic is judging when a parcel will arrive at a junction, if the motion is not smooth, your timing intuition is being fed bad information. The native build skips that layer entirely, which is why I would recommend the app over the mobile browser on anything mid-range or below.

Everything else, level data, scoring, the queue, the three-star thresholds, is identical. The twelve free levels on Android are the same twelve levels you can play here.

Progress does not carry over

Worth saying clearly because it will otherwise be a surprise: browser progress is stored locally, with no web account or cloud save, and it does not sync to Android. If you move to the app, you start Chapter 1 again.

If you finish Chapter 1 here and then install the app, you will replay those twelve levels. Knowing the queue order in advance helps with the efficiency star, so the replay is a chance to improve earlier routes.

A new developer account

One piece of administrative trivia that has a visible consequence: Depot Dash is published under the Funlit Games developer account on Google Play, separate from the older Kimajo Games account that hosts Splishi Splashi and Pop!. New titles will go out under Funlit Games from here on. It is a tidier home, and it means the store page for Depot Dash is not sitting next to games from a different era of the studio.

Where to start

If you have never played, Chapter 1 is right here in the browser, twelve levels, no download, nothing to sign up for. It is the whole introduction to how the depot works, and it will tell you within about three levels whether the game is for you.

If it is, the full campaign is on Google Play.

The belt is moving. The next parcel is already on its way.