Mastering Android Game Development

Raul Portales

• Verlag: Packt Publishing
• Jahr: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781783551774
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Informatica
• Thema: Intelligenza artificiale (IA) e semantica

Mastering Android Game Development

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Table of Contents

Mastering Android Game Development

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

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Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Setting Up the Project

The right tool for the right game

Do you want to use 3D?

Do you want to use physics?

Do you want to use Java?

Pros of building games with the Android SDK

Cons of building games with the Android SDK

I want the Android SDK!

The project – YASS (Yet Another Space Shooter)

Activities and Fragments

Project setup

Creating the stub project

Cleaning up

Choosing an orientation

Dealing with aspect ratios

Game architecture

GameEngine and GameObjects

Starting a game

Stopping a game

Managing game objects

UpdateThread

DrawThread

User input

Putting everything together

Moving forward with the example

Handling the back key

Honoring the lifecycle

Using as much screen as we can

Before Android 4.4 – almost fullscreen

Android 4.4 and beyond – immersive mode

Putting fullscreen together

Good practices for game developers

Object pools

Avoiding enhanced loop syntax in lists

Precreating objects

Accessing variables directly

Being careful with floating points

Performance myths – avoid interfaces

Summary

2. Managing User Input

The InputController base class

The Player object

Displaying a spaceship

Firing bullets

The Bullet game object

The most basic virtual keypad

Limitations and problems

Creating a virtual joystick

General considerations and improvements

Physical controllers

Handling MotionEvents

Handling KeyEvents

Detecting gamepads

Sensors and InputControllers

Selecting control modes

Summary

3. Into the Draw Thread

Using GameView

The GameView interface

StandardGameView

SurfaceGameView

Updating GameEngine

Updating the game layout

Improving DrawThread

Sprites

Updating the spaceship and bullets

Adding a frames-per-second (fps) counter

Spawning enemies – the GameController

Procedural/random

Deterministic/static

Hybrid approach

Our approach

The asteroids

More on the transformation matrix

Occlusion culling

Parallax backgrounds

Multiple backgrounds

Layers

Summary

4. Collision Detection

Detecting collisions

Who can collide?

Updating GameEngine

Handling collisions

Rectangular bodies

Adding visual feedback

Pros and cons

Circular bodies

Adding visual feedback

Pros and cons

Mixed collision detection

Adding visual feedback

Other options for shapes

Optimization

Spatial partitioning and QuadTree

Duplicated collisions

Summary

5. Particle Systems

General concepts

Particles

ParticleSystem

Initializers

Modifiers

Composite GameObjects and GameEngine

Making good particle systems

One shot

Asteroid explosions

Spaceship explosions

Emitters

Asteroid trails

The spaceship's engine

Summary

6. Sound FX and Music

SoundManager

Sound FX

How to create sound FXs

GameEvents

Using SoundPool

Playing music

Obtaining music

MediaPlayer

Music and Activity life cycle

Enabling and disabling music and sound FX

Updating MainMenuFragment

Updating SoundManager

Disabling system sounds

Summary

7. Menus and Dialogs

Custom fonts

Working with backgrounds

The power of XML drawables

State list drawables

State lists colors

Shape drawables

The GameFragment

Adding a score

Adding lives

Custom dialogs

BaseCustomDialog

Quit dialog

Pause dialog

Game Over dialog

Other dialogs

Designing for multiple screen sizes

Summary

8. The Animation Framework

Updating BaseFragment

AnimationDrawable

Animated sprites

Animating views

XML versus code

Interpolators

View animation

Animating dialogs

Delaying the action in the dialogs to onDismissed

Pulsating buttons

Property animation

ViewPropertyAnimator

Moving a spaceship around

Animating the main menu

Summary

9. Integrating Google Play Services

Setting up the developer console

Setting up the code

Achievements

Architecture

Unlocking achievements

Leaderboards

Opening the Play Games UI

Other features of Google Play services

Events

Quests

Gifts

Saved games

Multiplayer games

Summary

10. To the Big Screen

Project configuration

Testing for Android TV

Declaring a TV Activity

Providing a home screen banner

Declaring it as a game

Declaring Leanback support

Declaring touchscreen capability as not required

Reviewing the manifest

Showing controller instructions

Dealing with overscan

Controller-based navigation

Dialogs and controllers

Beyond this book

Summary

A. API Levels for Android Versions

Index

Mastering Android Game Development

Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: June 2015

Production reference: 1250615

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78355-177-4

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author

Raul Portales

Reviewers

Sergio Viudes Carbonell

Antonio Hernández Niñirola

Commissioning Editor

Nadeem N. Bagban

Acquisition Editor

Harsha Bharwani

Content Development Editor

Arun Nadar

Technical Editor

Ruchi Desai

Copy Editors

Stephen Copestake

Akshata Lobo

Project Coordinator

Nikhil Nair

Proofreader

Safis Editing

Indexer

Monica Ajmera Mehta

Graphics

Abhinash Sahu

Production Coordinator

Conidon Miranda

Cover Work

Conidon Miranda

About the Author

Raul Portales is a software engineer who works as a contract consultant with Platty Soft. He cofounded the game studio The Pill Tree, which ran for a year and produced several titles that were featured by Google Play, including Chalk Ball and SpaceCat.

He has been a Google Developer Expert for Android since the start of 2015, and he loves public speaking. He has presented at several DroidCons and Game Developers conferences, talking about how to survive as an indie game developer.

At the moment, Raul lives in Dublin and you can easily find him collaborating with the local commu...