What this book covers

Chapter 1, Player 1 UP, is an introduction to the three cool games that we will build. We will also get the development environment set up.

Chapter 2, Tappy Defender – First Step, is about planning the game project and getting the code for our first game engine up and running. We will implement a main game loop, control the frame rate, and draw to the screen.

Chapter 3, Tappy Defender – Taking Flight, teaches us to add lots of new objects and some features like player controls, enemies, and scrolling stars in the background. In the Things that go bump – collision detection section, we will discuss our collision detection options and implement an efficient solution for this game.

Chapter 4, Tappy Defender – Going Home, completes the game, including adding high scores, victory conditions, sound FX, and more.

Chapter 5, Platformer – Upgrading the Game Engine, provides a good understanding of what is needed in a simple game engine. We can quickly learn about and build a more advanced and flexible engine, suitable for a really tough, retro 2D platform game.

Chapter 6, Platformer – Bob, Beeps, and Bumps, uses our new game engine to add a class to manage the sound FX and a class to implement the more complex player controls that are required by a game of this type. We can then make Bob, our playable character, an animated running, jumping hero.

Chapter 7, Platformer – Guns, Life, Money, and the Enemy, continues the subject of the previous two chapters; we add a ton of features in this one. We will add collectible pick-ups and power-ups, a deadly homing enemy, and a patrolling guard. Of course with all this, Bob is going to need a machine gun to defend himself, and he gets one!

Chapter 8, Platformer – Putting It All Together, is where our platform game comes to life. We will add lots of new platform tile types and scenery objects, multiple scrolling parallax backgrounds, collision detection, and a teleporting system so that Bob can travel between the levels of the game. Using our range of tile types, scenery objects, and backgrounds, we will implement four playable levels linked together by the teleporting system.

Chapter 9, Asteroids at 60 FPS with OpenGL ES 2, contains the final project of this book, which is an introduction to 2D games with the super fast OpenGL graphics library. In this chapter, we will quickly learn how to draw with OpenGL ES 2 and integrate the drawing system into our game engine. By the end of the chapter, we will have a working engine that draws an Asteroids-style spaceship to the screen.

Chapter 10, Move and Draw with OpenGL ES 2, is where we will quickly integrate our sound and control systems from the previous project. Then, we can add a game border, twinkling star system, spinning asteroids, a neat HUD, progressively difficult levels, and a rapid fire gun to the player's spaceship.

Chapter 11, Things That Go Bump – Part II, completes the Asteroids game by adding the collision detection. The math required to detect collisions with the irregularly-shaped spinning asteroids is made simple and implemented into the game engine. By the end of this chapter, you will have the third and final fully playable game.