Sams Teach Yourself Android Game Programming in 24 Hours

Book excerpt: In just 24 sessions of one hour or less, Sams Teach Yourself Android Game Programming in 24 Hours will help you master mobile game development for Android 4. Using a straightforward, step-by-step approach, you’ll gain hands-on expertise with the entire process: from getting access to the hardware via the Android SDK to finishing a complete example game. You’ll learn to use the Android SDK and open source software to design and build fast, highly playable games for the newest Android smartphones and tablets. Every lesson builds on what you’ve already learned, giving you a rock-solid foundation for real-world success! Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common Android game programming tasks. Quizzes and exercises at the end of each chapter help you test your knowledge. By the Way notes present interesting information related to the discussion. Did You Know? tips offer advice or show you easier ways to perform tasks. Watch Out! cautions alert you to possible problems and give you advice on how to avoid them. Jonathan Harbour is a writer and instructor whose love for computers and video games dates back to the Commodore PET and Atari 2600 era. He has a Master’s in Information Systems Management. His portfolio site at http://www.jharbour.com includes a discussion forum. He also authored Sams Teach Yourself Windows Phone 7 Game Programming in 24 Hours. His love of science fiction led to the remake of a beloved classic video game with some friends, resulting in Starflight—The Lost Colony (http://www.starflightgame.com). Learn how to... Install and configure the free development tools, including the Android 4 SDK, Java Development Kit, and Eclipse (or NetBeans) Use the Android graphics system to bring your game characters to life Load and manage bitmaps, and use double buffering for better performance Incorporate timing and animation with threaded game loops Tap into the touch screen for user input Learn to use Android sensors such as the accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, light detector, and thermometer Integrate audio into your games using the media player Build your own game engine library to simplify gameplay code in your projects Animate games with sprites using atlas images and fast matrix transforms Employ object-oriented programming techniques using inheritance and data hiding Create an advanced animation system to add interesting behaviors to game objects Detect collisions and simulate realistic movement with trigonometry Experiment with an evolving engine coding technique that more naturally reflects how games are written