Learning Java by Building Android Games

Get ready to learn Java the fun way by developing games for the Android platform with this new and updated third edition

Key Features

• Learn Java, Android, and object-oriented programming from scratch
• Find out how to build games including Sub Hunter, Retro Pong, Bullet Hell, Classic Snake, and Scrolling Shooters
• Create and design your own games by learning all the concepts that a game developer must know

Book Description

Android is one of the most popular mobile operating systems today. It uses the most popular programming language, Java, as one of the primary languages for building apps of all types. Unlike most other Android books, this book doesn’t assume that you have any prior knowledge of Java programming, instead helps you get started with building Android games as a beginner.

This new, improved, and updated third edition of Learning Java by Building Android Games helps you to build Android games from scratch. Once you've got to grips with the fundamentals, the difficulty level increases steadily as you explore key Java topics, such as variables, loops, methods, object-oriented programming (OOP), and design patterns while working with up-to-date code and supporting examples. At each stage, you'll be able to test your understanding by implementing the concepts that you’ve learned to develop a game. Toward the end, you’ll build games such as Sub Hunter, Retro Pong, Bullet Hell, Classic Snake, and Scrolling Shooter.

By the end of this Java book, you'll not only have a solid understanding of Java and Android basics but will also have developed five cool games for the Android platform.

What you will learn

• Set up a game development environment in Android Studio
• Respond to a player's touch and program intelligent enemies who can challenge the player in different ways
• Explore collision detection, sprite sheets animation, simple tracking and following, AI, parallax backgrounds, and particle explosions
• Animate objects at 60 FPS and manage multiple independent objects using OOP
• Work with design patterns such as OOP, singleton, strategy, and entity-component
• Work with the Android API, the SoundPool API, Paint, Canvas, Bitmap classes, and detect version numbers

Who this book is for

Learning Java by Building Android Games is for anyone who is new to Java, Android, or game programming and wants to develop Android games. The book will also serve as a refresher for those who already have experience using Java on Android or any other platform but are new to game development.

Table of Contents

1. Java, Android, and Game Development
2. Java- First Contact
3. Variables, Operators, and Expressions
4. Structuring Code with Java Methods
5. The Android Canvas Class - Drawing to the Screen
6. Repeating Blocks of Code with Loops
7. Making Decisions with Java If, Else, and Switch
8. Object-Oriented Programming
9. The Game Engine, Threads, and the Game Loop
10. Coding the Bat and Ball
11. Collisions, Sound Effects, and Supporting Different Versions of Android
12. Handling Lots of Data with Arrays
13. Bitmap Graphics and Measuring Time
14. Java Collections, the Stack, the Heap, and the Garbage Collector
15. Android Localization- Hola!
16. Collections and Enumerations
17. Manipulating Bitmaps and Coding the Snake Class
18. Introduction to Design Patterns and Much More!
19. Listening with the Observer Pattern, Multitouch, and Building a Particle System
20. More Patterns, a Scrolling Background, and Building the Player's Ship
21. Completing the Scrolling Shooter Game
22. What Next?

John Horton is a programming and gaming enthusiast based in the UK. He has a passion for writing apps, games, books, and blog articles. He is the founder of Game Code School.