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  • Book Overview & Buying Learning Java by Building Android Games
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Learning Java by Building Android Games

Learning Java by Building Android Games

By : John Horton
3.9 (30)
Buy this Book
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Learning Java by Building Android Games

Learning Java by Building Android Games

3.9 (30)
By: John Horton
Buy this Book

Overview of this book

If you are completely new to either Java, Android, or game programming and are aiming to publish Android games, then this book is for you. This book also acts as a refresher for those who already have experience in Java on another platforms or other object-oriented languages.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
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Preface
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Preface
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What this book covers
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What you need for this book
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Who this book is for
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Conventions
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Reader feedback
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Customer support
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1
1. Why Java, Android, and Games?
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1. Why Java, Android, and Games?
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Is this book for me?
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Why build games to learn to program?
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Why Android and Java?
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Setting up our development environment
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Summary
2
2. Getting Started with Android
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2. Getting Started with Android
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Our first game project
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Exploring Android Studio
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Using the Android Studio visual designer
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Structuring our code for Android
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Our first look at Java
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Building and installing our game
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Self-test questions
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Summary
3
3. Speaking Java – Your First Game
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3. Speaking Java – Your First Game
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Java syntax
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Storing data and using it with variables
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Expressing yourself in Java
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Math game – asking a question
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Decisions in Java
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Math game – getting and checking the answer
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Self-test questions
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Summary
4
4. Discovering Loops and Methods
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4. Discovering Loops and Methods
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Looping with loops
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Methods
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Enhancing our math game
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Finishing touches
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Self-test questions
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Summary
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5. Gaming and Java Essentials
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5. Gaming and Java Essentials
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Java arrays – an array of variables
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Timing with threads
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Beeps n buzzes – Android sound
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Life after destruction – persistence
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The memory game
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Self-test questions
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Summary
6
6. OOP – Using Other People's Hard Work
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6. OOP – Using Other People's Hard Work
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What is OOP?
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Our first class and first object
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Encapsulation
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Inheritance
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Polymorphism
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More about OOP and classes
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Self-test questions
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Summary
7
7. Retro Squash Game
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7. Retro Squash Game
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Drawing with Android Canvas
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Android Canvas demo app
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Detecting touches on the screen
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Preparing to make the retro squash game
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The four implementation phases in detail
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Self-test questions
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Summary
8
8. The Snake Game
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8. The Snake Game
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Game design
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The coordinate system
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The code structure
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Animation, sprite sheets, and the Snake home screen
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Implementing the Snake game activity
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Enhancing the game
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Self-test questions
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Summary
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9. Making Your Game the Next Big Thing
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9. Making Your Game the Next Big Thing
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How to publish your app
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Marketing your app
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Adding leaderboards and achievements
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What next?
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Self-test questions
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Summary
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A. Self-test Questions and Answers
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A. Self-test Questions and Answers
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Chapter 2
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Chapter 3
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Chapter 4
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Chapter 5
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Chapter 6
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Chapter 7
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Chapter 8
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Chapter 9
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Index
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Index

Java arrays – an array of variables

You might be wondering what happens when we have a game with lots of variables to keep track of. How about a table of high scores with the top 100 scores? We could declare and initialize 100 separate variables like this:

int topScore1;
int topScore2;
int topScore3;
//96 more lines like the above
int topScore100;

Straightaway, this can seem unwieldy, and what about the case when someone gets a new top score and we have to shift the scores in every variable down one place? A nightmare begins:

topScore100 = topScore99;
topScore99 = topScore98;
topScore98 = topScore97;
//96 more lines like the above
topScore1 = score;

There must be a better way to update the scores. When we have a large set of variables, what we need is a Java array. An array is a reference variable that holds up to a fixed maximum number of elements. Each element is a variable with a consistent type.

The following line of code declares an array that can hold int type variables, even a...

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Learning Java by Building Android Games
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