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2015 | Book

Welcome to Android Gaming Read chapter Read first chapter

Pro Android Games

Authors: Massimo Nardone, Vladimir Silva

Publisher: Apress

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

Combining actionable, real-world source code with graphics, Pro Android Games, Third Edition shows you how to build more sophisticated and addictive Android game apps with minimum effort. Harness the power of the latest Android 5.0 SDK to bring countless legendary, action-packed PC games to the Android platform.

With actionable real-world source code, this one of a kind book shows you how to build more sophisticated and addictive Android game apps, by leveraging the power of the recent advancements found in the new Android 5.0 software development kit as well as those you've counted on in earlier releases.

Multi-touch code gives these games and their players dynamic input and exchange ability, for a more realistic arcade game experience. Faster and better performance offers Android game players a more seamless, fun arcade experience like never before. There is also improved native C/C++ integration with Android's NDK as well, which makes coding, compiling, and converting both productive and efficient with gains in app performance.

Pro Android Games, Third Edition features the following improvements:

Updates to the latest version of the Android SDK, NDK, plus the latest Android Studio and Eclipse IDEsGreater focus on tablets, ever changing device resolutions, and hardware specsNative game development and hardware accelerated graphicsBigger and better real world engines, such as Quake I and II plus an oldie from the previous edition: DoomCoverage of the new Android TV SDK APIs, UI, UX, multi-touch and multi-tasking features available with the Android 5.0 releaseAdvanced techniques for improving your game playing experience including better multi-tasking, improved performance optimization, battery management and moreA "Quake 3D"-like game app case study

You’ll definitely have fun, and perhaps you’ll even make some money. Enjoy!

In the last few years, Android has progressed with the debut of better fonts, new User Interface and Experience (UI/UX) APIs, tablet considerations, multi-touch capabilities, multi-tasking, faster performance, improved battery management techniques, and now the new Android TV SDK Apps for the Android game app developer repertoire.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Welcome to Android Gaming
Abstract
This chapter kicks things off by explaining how to set up your environment to compile hybrid (C/Java) games, including the engines described in the later chapters of the book. It also explains how to set up the latest versions of the integrated development environment (IDE), which is Android Studio 1.0.1 with SDK for Windows, plus the native development kit (NDK). These tools are required to build powerful games for Android. They let you combine the elegant object-oriented features of Java with the raw power of C for maximum performance. The chapter ends by showing how to import the workspace for the game engines included in the source code of this book (which can be obtained at www.apress.com ). Let’s get started.
Massimo Nardone, Vladimir Silva
Chapter 2. Gaming Tricks for Phones or Tablets
Abstract
In this chapter, you will get your feet wet with development in Android. You’ll learn how easy it is to build a simple Android app that loads a native library and executes methods written in C within Java. You’ll also learn how to call back Java methods within C, so the communication goes both ways between the languages. Next you’ll learn how to cascade audio, video, key, and touch events from Java to C by using thin Java wrappers that simply pass event information to the native library. And finally, you’ll tackle multi-touch, which is a useful subject for advanced games such as first person shooters and others. Multi-touch can be a tricky subject, so check it out. But first, you'll learn how to add native code to your Android project.
Massimo Nardone, Vladimir Silva
Chapter 3. More Gaming Tricks with OpenGL and JNI
Abstract
Chapter 2 provided a solid introduction to some basic gaming techniques for Android, including handling audio/video and I/O events Now it’s time to ramp things up..
Massimo Nardone, Vladimir Silva
Chapter 4. Efficient Graphics and Portability with OpenGL ES
Abstract
In this chapter, you will learn about portability or multiplatform support in today’s mobile graphics development and also how to use the most common features of Open GL ES version 3.1.  This is the latest version of OpenGL ES when this manuscript was written and fully supported by the Android SDK version 5.0.1 used in this book.
Massimo Nardone, Vladimir Silva
Chapter 5. 3D Shooters for Doom
Abstract
This chapter looks at another great and very popular PC game: Doom. In 1993, Doom came along shortly after Wolfenstein 3D and put id Software at the lead of the pack in 3D graphics gaming for the PC. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to bring the open source Doom engine (PrBoom) to the Android platform.
Massimo Nardone, Vladimir Silva
Chapter 6. 3D Shooters for Quake
Abstract
This is where things start to get really exciting. I’ve always been a huge fan of first-person shooters (FPS), and when Android came along, I had to jump at the chance of getting involved in bringing this gem (Quake) to the platform in all its beauty. Almost everybody knows of or has played this astounding game for the PC. It was originally created in 1996 by the great game developer John Carmack for id Software.
Massimo Nardone, Vladimir Silva
Chapter 7. 3D Shooters for Quake II
Abstract
This chapter builds upon the previous one to deliver the next great and popular PC engine: Quake II. Quake II is  the first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and distributed by Activision. What makes this chapter unique is that, thanks to the wonderful reusability of Java and the power of the C language, you can do the following:
Massimo Nardone, Vladimir Silva
Chapter 8. Fun with Bluetooth Controllers
Abstract
If you are a hardcore gamer, you may hear complaints about how difficult is to play games (such as first-person shooters) with a touch screen interface or a tiny keyboard. Try playing a game like Doom with a touch screen versus a controller. You will get frustrated very quickly with the touch screen. Some games simply require a controller. Google has wisely used the popular and open BlueZ Bluetooth stack in Android, making it easy to access all sorts of wireless devices. This chapter will show you how easy it is to integrate two popular gaming controllers, Wiimote and Zeemote, with your game.
Massimo Nardone, Vladimir Silva
Chapter 9. A Look into the Future: Augmented reality (AR) and Android TV
Abstract
This chapter covers augmented reality (AR) and also explores the next big wave coming to your living room: Internet TV (Android TV, to be precise). Here you’ll learn about the some of the SDKs and Toolkits to be used for the future AR and Android TV applications.
Massimo Nardone, Vladimir Silva
Chapter 10. Deployment and Compilation Tips
Abstract
This chapter offers tips to deploy your application, assist in compilation, and other time-saving goodies. Specifically, this chapter includes tips for the following:
Massimo Nardone, Vladimir Silva
Chapter 11. Discovering Android Wear
Abstract
This chapter introduces you to Android Wear. You’ll learn what you need to install and configure to develop your first Wear application using the Android SDK 5.0.1 API 21. More specifically we’ll cover the following:
Massimo Nardone, Vladimir Silva
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Pro Android Games
Authors
Massimo Nardone
Vladimir Silva
Copyright Year
2015
Publisher
Apress
Electronic ISBN
978-1-4842-0587-7
Print ISBN
978-1-4842-0588-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-0587-7

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