How to install the APK
The beta is a sideloaded APK — Android's word for an app file that did not come through the Play Store. Installing one takes four taps and one permission:
- 01Tap the download button above. Chrome may warn that the file "might be harmful" — that is its standard line for any APK. Tap Download anyway.
- 02Open the file from your notifications or the Downloads folder.
- 03Android will ask to allow installs from this source (Chrome). Allow it for this one install; you can switch it back off afterwards in Settings.
- 04Tap Install, then Open. The icon lands on your home screen like any other app.
Play Protect may add a "confirm install" sheet because the build is not published on Google Play yet. That is expected for a beta — it is the same app you would get from the store once the listing is live. If you would rather wait for Play, that is fine too; there is nothing in the beta you cannot do on the website today.
What the app is
Honestly: the website, wearing a coat. The app is a Trusted Web Activity — an Android shell that opens seniorsassassins.com full-screen, without the browser bar, under its own icon. Every rule, every code, every board you see in the app is the same one your classmates see in Chrome. There is no second server, no second database, and no app-only feature that changes the game.
Which means every promise the site makes still holds. No GPS. No account. No roster we can read: your class code never reaches our server, your game is encrypted on the organizer's phone before it is stored, and the app collects nothing beyond what the privacy page already describes. If the app ever needed a permission the website does not, that would be a new decision, and you would read about it here first.
What you get for the install: a home-screen icon that opens straight to the board, full-screen play with no address bar eating the top of the screen, and a home on the Play Store when the listing goes live. Push notifications are the obvious next thing for an app and we are not claiming them yet — the beta does not send any. If and when it does, it will be opt-in and it will say so on this page.
Coming to Google Play
The beta is the first of three steps. Family and friends sideload the APK and tell us what breaks. Then the same build goes to Google Play internal testing, where a short list of testers installs it from the store and updates arrive on their own. Then it opens to everyone. Each step is the same app; what changes is how you get it. When a Play link exists it shows up on this page, and in the beta box above if you are on the list.
Do I need the app to play?
No, and you never will. The app is optional. Students who do not want to install anything open the same link in whatever browser is on their phone and play the same game on the same board. Organizers run the console from the website. Nothing is gated behind the install — not now, not later.
Is there an iPhone version?
Not yet. iPhones can add the website to the home screen from Safari's share sheet, which gets you the icon and most of the full-screen feel. A real iOS build is a question of time and Apple's developer program, not of design; if it comes, it will be free and built the same way.
Why an email for the beta?
It is the only way to hand a download to a short list without building accounts. Your email is checked against the list, you get a signed link, and that is the whole transaction. We keep a short log of who asked so we can see the beta working; it is not tied to any game and it is not used for anything else.
What should I report?
Anything that looks different from the website: a button that does not tap, a code field that clips, a page that opens in the browser instead of the app. Email contact@seniorsassassins.com with your phone model and Android version. That is the entire job of a beta tester, and it is genuinely useful.