This is the fifth post on building Arrow, an Android puzzle game. The first four are Learnings from building Arrow, a mobile game, Setting up a Flutter project for Claude Code, Making a puzzle game more accessible and Automating the release to the Play Store.
This one is a rant. It’s about the Play Store’s policies for individual developers, and how long they keep a finished app away from the people it’s for.
Here’s what it looks like, counting from the day the app is ready.
Before you can even test
First, you answer questions. A lot of them. It felt like a hundred, before you’re even allowed to start testing.
12 testers, 14 days
Then comes the closed test. Before an individual developer can release to production, the app has to stay installed on 12 different devices for 14 days.
And it isn’t a link you can share. You add each tester’s email address, and they can only see the app if they’re signed in to the Play Store with that exact account.
So I have to find specific people, ask them to install my app, and keep it installed for two weeks. If I have to do that myself, what purpose does the marketplace serve? Why would I put my app there at all?
That’s two weeks of waiting, after the app is ready.
Day 14.
Feedback on the test
Once the test is done, there are a couple more questions, this time to give Google feedback on the testing process. That step is mandatory. Then Google takes a day or two to approve you to apply for production.
Day 16.
The production review
Once you apply for production, Google takes its merry time. They say a review usually takes up to 7 days, but it can take longer.
The company that teaches the whole world about productivity, with its umpteen products, can take a week to approve an app, even in 2026. I do understand the scale they might be dealing with. But it surely feels like it’s there to slow down individual developers.
For Arrow, the production review took 10 days.
Close to day 25. That’s when Arrow was finally on the Play Store, almost a month after the app was ready.
And every update after that
Every new update goes through a review too, and that can also take its merry time. For me it has been better, anywhere between an hour and 3 to 4 days.
What the wait does
Waiting close to 25 days really slows down the enthusiasm you have for an idea. It’s not waiting because the app needs work. It’s waiting because someone asked you to.
The whole process feels designed to slow down releases from individual developers, because Google can’t keep pace with the speed at which apps are now being made.