The Android Game Developer's Handbook
eBook - ePub

The Android Game Developer's Handbook

Avisekhar Roy

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  1. 368 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Android Game Developer's Handbook

Avisekhar Roy

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About This Book

Discover an all in one handbook to developing immersive and cross-platform Android gamesAbout This Book• Practical tips and tricks to develop powerful Android games• Learn to successfully implement microtransactions and monitor the performance of your game once it's out live.• Integrate Google's DIY VR tool and Google Cardboard into your games to join in on the VR revolutionWho This Book Is ForThis book is ideal for any game developer, with prior knowledge of developing games in Android. A good understanding of game development and a basic knowledge on Android platform application development and JAVA/C++ will be appreciated.What You Will Learn• Learn the prospects of Android in Game Development• Understand the Android architecture and explore platform limitation and variations• Explore the various approaches for Game Development using Android• Learn about the common mistakes and possible solutions on Android Game Development• Discover the top Cross Platform Game Engines and port games on different android platform• Optimize memory and performance of your game.• Familiarize yourself with different ways to earn money from Android GamesIn DetailGaming in android is an already established market and growing each day. Previously games were made for specific platforms, but this is the time of cross platform gaming with social connectivity. It requires vision of polishing, design and must follow user behavior. This book would help developers to predict and create scopes of improvement according to user behavior.You will begin with the guidelines and rules of game development on the Android platform followed by a brief description about the current variants of Android devices available. Next you will walk through the various tools available to develop any Android games and learn how to choose the most appropriate tools for a specific purpose.You will then learn JAVA game coding standard and style upon the Android SDK. Later, you would focus on creation, maintenance of Game Loop using Android SDK, common mistakes in game development and the solutions to avoid them to improve performance. We will deep dive into Shaders and learn how to optimize memory and performance for an Android Game before moving on to another important topic, testing and debugging Android Games followed by an overview about Virtual Reality and how to integrate them into Android games.Want to program a different way? Inside you'll also learn Android game Development using C++ and OpenGL. Finally you would walk through the required tools to polish and finalize the game and possible integration of any third party tools or SDKs in order to monetize your game when it's one the market!Style and approachThe book follows a handbook approach, focused on current and future game development trend from every possible aspect including monetization and sustainability in the market.

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Information

Year
2016
ISBN
9781785886669

The Android Game Developer's Handbook


Table of Contents

The Android Game Developer's Handbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
eBooks, discount offers, and more
Why subscribe?
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. Android Game Development
Android game development
Features and support
Challenges
User experience
Design constraints
A game is not just an application
Games versus applications
Life cycle of Android application and games
Performance of games and applications
Memory management of games and applications
Choosing the target device configuration
Game scale
Target audience
Feature requirement
Scope for portability
Best practices for making an Android game
Maintaining game quality
Minimalistic user interface
Supporting maximum resolutions
Supporting maximum devices
Background behavior
Interruption handling
Maintaining battery usage
Extended support for multiple visual quality
Introducing social networking and multiplayer
Summary
2. Introduction to Different Android Platforms
Exploring Android mobiles
Exploring Android tablets
Exploring Android televisions and STBs
Exploring Android consoles
Exploring Android watches
Development insights on Android mobiles
Development insights on Android tablets
Development insights on Android TV and STBs
UI and game design
Overscan
Development insights on Android consoles
Development insights on Android watches
Creating and setting up a wearable application
Including the correct libraries in the project
Hardware compatibility issues with Android versions
Platform-specific specialties
Android mobiles
Android tablets
Android televisions and STBs
Android consoles
Android watches
Summary
3. Different Android Development Tools
Android SDK
Android Development Tool
Android Virtual Device
Configuring AVD
Android Debug Bridge
Using adb on an Android device
Dalvik Debug Monitor Server
Other tools
Eclipse
Hierarchy Viewer
Draw 9-Patch
ProGuard
Asset optimization tools
Full asset optimization
Creating sprites
Tools for testing
Creating a test case
Setting up your test fixture
Adding test preconditions
Adding test methods to verify an activity
Performance profiling tools
Android Studio
Android project view
Memory and CPU monitor
Cross-platform tools
Cocos2d-x
Unity3D
Unreal Engine
PhoneGap
Corona
Titanium
Summary
4. Android Development Style and Standards in the Industry
The Android programming structure
Class formation
Call hierarchy
Game programming specifications
Gameplay programming
Graphics programming
Technical programming
Sound programming
Network programming
Game tool programming
Research and development programming
Technical design standards
Game analysis
Design pattern and flow diagram
Technical specification
Tools and other requirements
Resource analysis
Testing requirements
Scope analysis
Risk analysis
Change log
Game design standards
Game overview
Gameplay details
Game progression
Storyboard and game elements
Level design
Artificial intelligence
Art style
Technical reference
Change log
Other styles and standards
Different styles for different development engines
Different programming languages
Different work principles
Different target platforms
Industry best practices
Design standards
Programming standards
Testing standards
Summary
5. Understanding the Game Loop and Frame Rate
Introduction to the game loop
User input
Game update
State update
Rendering frames
Creating a sample game loop using the Android SDK
Game life cycle
Game update and user interface
Interrupt handling
General idea of a game state machine
The FPS system
Hardware dependency
Display or rendering
Memory load/unload operations
Heap memory
Stack memory
Register memory
ROM
Logical operations
Balance between performance and memory
Controlling FPS
Summary
6. Improving Performance of 2D/3D Games
2D game development constraints
2D art assets
Sets of 2D art assets
Same asset set for multiple resolutions
Number of assets drawn on screen
Use of font files
Sprite font
Bitmap font
TrueType font
2D rendering system
2D mapping
2D physics
Box2D
LiquidFun
Performance impact on games
2D collision detection
Rectangle collision
Rectangle and circle collision
Circle and circle collision
Performance comparison
3D game development constraints
Vertices and triangles
3D transformation matrix
3D object and polygon count
3D rendering system
3D mesh
Materials, shaders, and textures
Textures
Shaders
Materials
Collision detection
Primitive colliders
Mesh colliders
Ray casting
Concept of "world"
Elements of the game world
Light sources in the game world
Cameras in the game world
The rendering pipeline in Android
The 2D rendering pipeline
The 3D rendering pipeline
Optimizing 2D assets
Size optimization
Data optimization
Process optimization
Optimizing 3D assets
Limiting the polygon count
Model optimization
Common game development mistakes
Use of non-optimized images
Use of full utility third-party libraries
Use of unmanaged networking connections
Using substandard programming
Taking a shortcut
2D/3D performance comparison
Different look and feel
3D processing is way heavier than 2D processing
Device configuration
Processor
RAM
GPU
Display quality
Battery capacity
Summary
7. Working with Shaders
Introduction to shaders
What is a shader?
Necessity of shaders
Scope of shaders
How shaders work
Types of shaders
Pixel shaders
Vertex shaders
Geometry shaders
Tessellation shaders
Android library shaders
Writing custom shaders
Shaders through OpenGL
Use of shaders in games
Shaders in a 2D game space
Shaders in a 3D game space
Summary
8. Performance and Memory Optimization
Fields of op...

Table of contents