Book Image

Learning AndEngine

By : Martin Varga
Book Image

Learning AndEngine

By: Martin Varga

Overview of this book

AndEngine is a very popular open source OpenGL (open graphics library) Android game engine, used to create mobile games quickly while maintaining the ability to fully customize them. This book will guide you through the whole development process of creating a mobile game for the Android platform using one of the most popular and easy-to-use game engines available today. Beginning with the very basics, you will learn how to install AndEngine, gather graphics, add sound and music assets, and design game rules. You will first design an example game and enhance it by adding various features over the course of the book. Each chapter adds more colors, enhances the game, and takes it to the next level. You will also learn how to work with Box2D, a popular 2D physics engine that forms an integral part of some of the most successful mobile games. By the end of the book, you will be able to create a complete, interactive, and fully featured mobile game for Android and publish it to Google Play.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Learning AndEngine
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Managing resources


In many games written in AndEngine, you will see the ResourceManager class. It's one of the established patterns that you should be using as well. ResourceManager is simply a class that takes care of loading and unloading of the resources. Because the memory in Android devices is very limited, it is important to have a centralized point that will ensure each asset is loaded only once and made available throughout the entire game code. When working with limited space, you can also consider unloading resources that are not being currently used.

Note

When you suspend a game by pressing the Home button or when another activity takes over, for example, when receiving a call, resources might be unloaded automatically. AndEngine makes them available again when the control is returned to the game.

The ResourceManager class is usually designed as a singleton. That is another design pattern. It ensures that only one instance of the class is created during the entire run of the program...