Book Image

Learning Libgdx Game Development

Book Image

Learning Libgdx Game Development

Overview of this book

Game development is a field of interdisciplinary skills, which also makes it a very complex topic in many respects. One decision that usually needs to be made at the beginning of a game development processis to define the kind of computer system or platform the game will be developed for. This does not pose any problems in general but as soon as the game should also be able to run on multiple platforms it will become a developer's nightmare to maintain several distinct copies of the same game. This is where the libGDX multi-platform game development framework comes to the rescue! "Learning Libgdx Game Development" is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with all the information you need to know about the libGDX framework as well as game development in general so you can start developing your own games for multiple platforms. You will gradually acquire deeper knowledge of both, libGDX and game development while you work through twelve easy-to-follow chapters. "Learning Libgdx Game Development" will walk you through a complete game development cycle by creating an example game that is extended with new features over several chapters. These chapters handle specific topics such as organizing resources, managing game scenes and transitions, actors, a menu system, using an advanced physics engine and many more. The chapters are filled with screenshots and/or diagrams to facilitate comprehension. "Learning Libgdx Game Development" is the book for you if you want to learn how to write your game code once and run it on a multitude of platforms using libGDX.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Learning Libgdx Game Development
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 8. Special Effects

In this chapter you will learn how to add special effects to Canyon Bunny using Libgdx's particle system, and linear interpolation, and several other ways to enhance the visual appearance of the game. You will also design a custom particle effect in a graphical editor which is going to serve as "dust". This dust effect will be shown whenever the player character is running on rocks. You will be introduced to the concept of linear interpolation using examples of smoothing the camera's movement while it is following a set target as well as letting the rocks slowly bob up and down on the water.

In addition to this, you will implement a parallax scrolling effect for the displayed mountains in the background. The clouds will continuously move at random speeds from the right to the left of the level. The game's GUI will also be enhanced by adding some subtle effects for events where the player has lost a life or when the game score has increased.