Xamarin realease build lower size

Question

I made a game using monogame and xamarin studio for android. I switch to "release" build and when i build my solution the .apk is 35.6MB. Note that i copied it on my phone and installed it and it works. However how can i reduce this size ? http://developer.xamarin.com/guides/android/advanced_topics/application_package_sizes/ In their website they mention something about "linking" with an example that they reduced their "hello world" project from 15.8MB to 4.4MB. I dont really understand how i can do that though since they don't give any instructions. Any of you know how to do this ?

changing the "linking" saving , rebuilding solution and then debuging didnt change the .apk size that is produced

Answer 1

So I made a new project and copied all the old files from the old project into the new, then I build the solution in "release" mode as I did before, I linked "SDK assemblies only" just like in the screenshot above, and then I debugged the project, and the signed .apk file was 7,5MBs down from 36. I am not entirely sure why making a new project fixed it (i can almost swear the have 100% exact properties) but it did for me. I copied the .apk and installed it on 2 different phones and it worked (without having any other extra app installed like monoshare etc that are automatically installed if you debug your project on your phone), so it definitely worked for me.