How to get StarCraft on phone without having a Windows Phone
(beginner tutorial! definitely )

Hello guys and gals, my name is Kyberilum and today I will explain how to get StarCraft on Android OS!
For the purpose of this guide, I will be using Android 14, but it should work on any modern Android version.

So, let us begin!

PART 1: Dependencies
Make sure you are downloading all the files from TRUSTED sites. Don't risk it, StarCraft isn't worth getting a virus!
Download Winlator from it's official GitHub repository: Repository
Download StarCraft Classic Installer from this thread by Farty1Billion: SCCI
Download Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 from the official website: Visual C++ 2010
Download SCMDraft 2 from Stormcoast Fortress website: SCMDraft 2

After all the files are downloaded, you may proceed to the next part.

PART 2: Installing Winlator
This is a rather easy part, so I won't go into unnecessary details. Basically, you find your Downloads folder and tap on the Winlator APK installer. UPD 20.08.2025, NudeRaider It may require you to "allow installing unknown apps" or something like that, so click OK and toggle the switch ON in the settings!

After it's done installing, open it and proceed to part 3!

PART 3: Container Configuration
This is the tricky part, so I will include screenshots.
NAME - doesn't matter, optional
SCREEN SIZE - depends a lot. If you want to play SC, set "640x480" for the best experience. For SCMDraft 2 etc you should use something higher, like "960x544" for example
GRAPHICS DRIVER - not sure if it matters, but I have VirGL
DX WRAPPER - translation layer for DirectX. Since SC is very old, CNC DDraw is good
AUDIO DRIVER - not sure. I use ALSA

WINE CONFIGURATION - skip it if you aren't sure what you are doing. I skipped it too

WIN COMPONENTS - everything set to "Native (Windows)". Not sure if it matters though

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES - skip it, it's some kind of sorcery

DRIVES - leave the default D: and E: drives

ADDVANCED - the most important part of the setup. Set "Box64 Preset" to "Stability" (to minimize the crashes) and "Startup Selection" to "Normal (Load All Services)". This is what makes Visual C++ load correctly. "Windows Version" isn't necessary, I just use 11.


Tap on the blue checkmark button to apply changes, aaand done.
Fewh, that was a lot of configuring. Let's get to the fun part!

PART 4: Installing SC (aka "the fun part")
Launch the Container and wait for it to load. When the thing is ready, tap "Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs" and make sure that Wine Gecko and Wine Mono are installed. If not, go to "System Tools > Installers" and install both services. They may not be vital for SC, but Wine Mono and Wine Gecko are Windows apps that Wine needs for full functionality!


Now that the most of dependencies are installed, we can start the SC installation process itself. Since you didn't change the default drive locations, Winlator thinks that your "storage/emulated/0/Download" folder is actually Drive (D:). So get into the "Computer" window that was automatically opened on startup, and on Drive (D:) find the "SC Classic Installer.exe". Then tap and run it! It may not be visible at first (if you have a ton of stuff downloaded), so make sure that "Files of type:" filter is set to ".exe files".
After the program is launched, tap the "Install Starcraft BW 1.16.1" button and follow through the installation wizard. Voila! StarCraft Mobile is yours.

PART 5: SCMDraft Two: The Electric Boogaloo
This is where I got stuck for a while. Remember the entire "set Startup Selection to Normal (Load All Services)" thing? This is where it comes into play. After you learned how to install SC, do the same thing for the SCMDraft 2 installer. And after it's installed, try running it.
Variant A) It opens first try because Visual C++ was pre-installed by Winulator and is running in backround. NICE!
Variant B) It crashes the entire container. In this case, try installing Visual C++ from the .exe you downloaded in the very beginning. Make sure that Startup Selection is indeed set to Normal (Load All Services). Pray to Xelnaga that everything works.


And that's kinda it. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

Sincerely yours, Kyberilum

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 20 2025, 10:42 am by Kyberilium08.

Nice work, and nice to see a fresh face filled with enthusiasm.

One note though
This will fail on default Android. You have to allow installing .apks in the settings first. Though I'm not sure if newer Android will give you a popup that will allow it on the fly, but still worth mentioning, I guess.

Thank you very much for your feedback! I will make sure to update the guide accordingly.

By the way, in modern Android versions, when one tries to open an APK file, there will always be a popup saying that the File Explorer needs permission to "install apps from unknown sources". Since this is the default behaviour, I originally left it out. Moreover, there are a lot of guides specifically for installing Winlator, so I focused on explaining the installation of SC itself more!

So, I downloaded everything needed, I followed the instructions and screenshots step by step and I'm getting and error that says "ScreenStack : : build(): BitBit" when the installer pops up and it wont go any further, if I hit "OK" it closes the installer, anyone have any solutions?? I'm trying to be able to play this and practice build orders while I'm at work without bringing a full on laptop by way of Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, which seems doable albeit not nearly as accurate as a standard pc