imarkawi / hooking-template

Hooking-Template

Wiki:

• https://imarkawi.github.io/arkamods/

1. Know your game's main activity

Now we are looking for main activity

Decompile the game's APK file. Open AndroidManifest.xml and search after .

Example the game's main activity was com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayerActivity. Be sure to enable Word wrap so it is easier to read

APK Easy Tool since it can read out location of main activity without decompiling APK

Note it somewhere to remember it. You can use any tools in your choice

2. Making corresponding changes

Decompile the game's APK

Now we need to launch your mod menu. There are 2 ways to launch your mod menu. First Method is recommended. Do NOT use both methods at the same time

Method 1 - Launch from smali file Locate to the game's path of main activity and open the smali file. If the game have multi dexes, it may be located in smali_classes2... please check all

With the path of the target game’s main activity which we determined earlier com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayerActivity. Think of it like a path /com/unity3d/player/UnityPlayerActivity.smali

With overlay permission Search for OnCreate method and paste this code inside

Open the game's AndroidManifest.xml

Add the SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW permission besides other permissions if it doesn't exist. Doesn't matter where you place it as long as it's above the application tag

If you don't add it, you can't enable overlay permission, it will be greyed out

Add the service above the end tag of application

    android:exported="false" android:stopWithTask="true" />

Without overlay permission

ONLY use if the game is detecting mod menu. Some games are using old AppCompat or custom activity that may interfere with the layout, such as enforced Kitkat-based layout like this below. I could not find a way to fix yet.

We can easly determite that this is an activity

But what about this? It's an application context. Menu will not launch and asks for permission with switch greyed out.

But if you are unsure, just give it a try.

Search for OnCreate method and paste this code inside

If menu is not showing up for some reason, or ask for permission. You need to add overlay permission. See above

Method 2 - Launch from AndroidManifest.xml This requires overlay permission. Only use if you really want to launch your own activity

On yout MainActivity.java, put the game's main activity to public String GameActivity

Uncomment this code

On AndroidManifest.xml, remove from the game's activity, like this:

If you don't remove from the game's activity, your menu will not launch. AndroidManifest.xml can ONLY contain one

Add your activity tag. com.android.support.MainActivity is your main activity

    android:name="com.android.support.MainActivity" android:exported="true">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
    </intent-filter>
</activity>

Add the SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW permission besides other permissions if it doesn't exist. Doesn't matter where you place it as long as it's above the application tag

If you don't add it, you can't enable overlay permission, it will be greyed out

Add the service above the end of application tag (change the package name of your menu if you had changed it)

    android:exported="false" android:stopWithTask="true" />

3. Building your project and copying files

Build the project to the APK file. Build -> Build Bundle(s)/APK(s) -> Build APK(s)

If no errors occured, you did everything right and build will succeded. You will be notified that it has built successfully

Click on locate to show you the location of build.apk. It is stored at (your-project)\app\build\outputs\apk\app-debug.apk

Decompile your app-debug.apk.

Copy your mod menu from decompiled app-debug.apk smali to the game's smali folder. Example ours is com.android.support.Menu, we copy the com folder from app-debug (decompiled app-debug\smali\com) to the game's decompiled directory (decompiled game)(any smali folder)

If the game have multidexes, just add your smali to the last smali_classes if possible to prevent compilation smali limit error Unsigned short value out of range: xxxxx

Copy the library file (.so) from app-debug.apk to the target game. Watch out the folder names, we don't want to mix them up, so make sure to copy our lib file to the correct architecture. Like our armeabi-v7a lib goes to the target games armeabi-v7a folder, arm64-v8a lib goes to the arm64-v8a folder...

PUTTING THE LIB FILE ON A WRONG ARCHITECTURE LIKE PUTTING ARM64 LIB TO ARMV7 WILL RESULT A CRASH!

4. Compiling game apk

Now compile and sign the apk, and install it on your device

Congrats. You have successfully implemented a mod menu.