I'm not bragging, I'm a die-hard fan who has been tinkering with Nokia jar cracking since the Symbian era, and I have been tossing all the way to Android's smali code. What about MT manager, NP manager, and Android Killer? Which one has not been included in my treasure chest? But to be honest, after so many years of use, I have a lot of pain points. The old tools are really powerful, but some require a Java environment on your computer, and some easily freeze on your mobile phone in the middle of the process. The most important thing is that most of them require an online scripting interface. If you accidentally update the version, it will be useless.
The strongest point of this tool is that it finds a comfortable balance between "integration" and "localization". It does not renovate the source code of an old engine, but makes an almost one-to-one function mapping between the Windows side and the Android side. I decompile a signed apk on my computer and go back to the compilation and packaging process. The old tools have to be equipped with environment variables and verification keys. Sometimes it takes two hours to get a proguard confused. Now just drag it in and run smali injection, resource replacement, and re-signing with one click. The process is so smooth that I want to cry😭. The most important thing is that the whole process is local, and there is no need to upload the packages we have worked hard to modify to other people's cloud servers. In terms of privacy, for people in our industry who rely on "craftsmanship" to make a living, it is psychologically acceptable.
Of course, I have also seen many new similar tools, focusing on "cool UI" and "cloud and cloud". To be honest, it feels like opening a blind box. It has a bright surface, but inside it still uses an old open source library to encapsulate a layer. When it encounters a slightly more complicated v2 signature verification, it will get stuck. The UI of Pohou looks as rustic as the old almanac, without so many fancy charts, but this is exactly what makes it real. The logic is very clear. For example, when compiling, it will make it clear which com.xxx class the error is in and which section of the logic has a problem, instead of just giving you a death log with a code of 0 like some tools. Just for this reason, this tool is worth the price of admission. It understands the pain of being both a father and a mother.
But let's be honest, no one is perfect, and neither are tools. Its biggest threshold is actually people who “can't use it”. Although both platforms are free, if you don't even know what smali is or the permission declaration in AndroidManifest. The Throwing Monkey is more to my liking - it is like a sharp scalpel. You have to understand a little code structure to use it to perform minimally invasive surgery on the program in the Android shell.
Looking back at the game modifiers I used in my Symbian days, I thought they were all artifacts of black technology, but now they have been eliminated by history. What Pohou can do is to bring these old technologies to the new platform so that they can adapt to the latest dynamic loading framework. I'm not bragging, but if you really want to get some new tricks into the Android games you're playing, but don't want to bear the risk of leaks from Internet tools, this monkey is indeed a reliable choice for our old friends. The nostalgic taste alone is worth stopping by to play. 🎮