We’re all excited to go through the wasteland, scavenging scrap metal, brutally shooting mutant people’s heads off, finding new equipment, and having a fun time devouring corpses. But when it comes down to it, you’re going to need a working Pip-Boy, so let’s get yourself one!

Before starting, I’d like to mention that you will need to download a few applications in order to make your home screen look like a Pip-Boy. If you’re already having trouble with lag on your mobile, this probably isn’t a good idea. Also, some mobiles are incompatible with these applications, mostly the older versions of android. Also, I think it would be safe to say that this won’t fantastically perfect, but will be worth your time and effort.

First thing’s first, you can’t make a pipboy without the necessary tools.

Get the Next, get the Free version of the Pip-Tec theme, you will be given instructions on how to easily install it on your Nova Launcher. The reason that it’s getting a somewhat low rating is because tons of people have no idea how to make it work. One more thing you should notice is that in the pictures, the top notification bar fits in with the theme. This, however, requires rooting your phone.

Rooting your phone basically means tampering with it. Not in a necessarily illegal hack, but it requires tampering with the phone itself. This is bad because of a couple of reasons, mainly that it doesn’t have a 100% success rate. It’s really, really hard to root your phone. If done incorrectly, you could be blocked out of your phone. All your data could be lost, and your phone could be broken. Rooting your phone will also void your warranty. So there will be almost no way to get it to work other than manually downloading the android OS all over again. Long story short, this is a bad idea, and it isn’t worth the trouble for such a simple change. There are many advantages of having your phone rooted, but that isn’t really our topic right now.

We’ve still got some customizing to do. You’ll realize that tons of your applications didn’t automatically change into fitting the theme. This is obviously because the theme doesn’t have icons for said applications. We can’t have half of them fitting, and half of them not, right? This is where this theme starts to get a little impressive. It has hundreds of icons, and you can choose any icon for any application. Whether the icon was meant for the application or not, it could surprisingly fit very well. There’s almost always a relevant icon in the very long list.

To change an application’s icon, place it on the home screen, then tap and hold the icon for about a second, then release. If you get confused, just follow the pictures in the gallery below. After holding and releasing, a small list will pop up, just tap edit. From there, you can change an application’s name on the screen, and it’s icon. Click the icon, and you’ll be directed to another page. From there, just tap on Pip-Tec Free, where you’ll get to choose an icon from an insanely long list. Just choose the one you want, and it’ll switch to that.

You can also do this with folders. To create a folder, just drag an application on top of another application. The two will be placed in a folder. You can just drag any other app you want in a folder, too. Change the folder’s icon to anything relevant, and if you really can’t find anything, there’s always the word icons somewhere in the list.

After messing around, your folder should look something like this:

Most of these are edited, but don’t really look like fake images, which is exactly what we want. But we’re not done yet. Next, you’ll want to download the Crippled Battery Widget, which is always a nice little widget that shows you a visual interpretation of your battery constantly getting its arms and legs broken as you drain its life. Always fun. Just tap and hold any empty place on the screen, click add widget in the bottom of the screen, and simply drag and drop it. You can always resize it by holding and releasing it.

Almost done! Make sure you’re satisfied with your pip boy’s look and have all the important applications with a nice icon to go with it. Finally, we will download one last thing, the CM Lockscreen. The reason is because editing the system’s default lock screen is a pain. With this lock screen, it’ll automatically set its background to the one on your homescreen, while simply being more fashionable and safer than the regular lock. I don’t really need to explain this one, simply install it, and the instructions are fairly straight forward. I’d like to set my password as a pin number, which my fallout shelter’s vault number, Vault 0420.

And with that, you’ve got a nice little pipboy theme to spread the game to your friends that you probably haven’t made any physical contact with since the 10th of November. Personally, I’m satisfied with the look. Are you?

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