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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 - Second Edition

By : John Horton
4.1 (11)
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Learning Java by Building Android Games

Learning Java by Building Android Games

4.1 (11)
By: John Horton
Buy this Book

Overview of this book

Android is one of the most popular mobile operating systems presently. It uses the most popular programming language, Java, as the primary language for building apps of all types. However, this book is unlike other Android books in that it doesn’t assume that you already have Java proficiency. This new and expanded second edition of Learning Java by Building Android Games shows you how to start building Android games from scratch. The difficulty level will grow steadily as you explore key Java topics, such as variables, loops, methods, object oriented programming, and design patterns, including code and examples that are written for Java 9 and Android P. At each stage, you will put what you’ve learned into practice by developing a game. You will build games such as Minesweeper, Retro Pong, Bullet Hell, and Classic Snake and Scrolling Shooter games. In the later chapters, you will create a time-trial, open-world platform game. By the end of the book, you will not only have grasped Java and Android but will also have developed six cool games for the Android platform.
Table of Contents (28 chapters)
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Preface
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About the book
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Who this book is for
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What this book covers
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To get the most out of this book
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Get in touch
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1
1. Java, Android and Game Development
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1. Java, Android and Game Development
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What's new in the second edition?
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Why Java, Android and Games?
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The games you will build
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How Java and Android work
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Setting up Android Studio
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Starting the first project: Sub' Hunter
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Android Studio and our project – A very brief guided tour
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Locking the game to full-screen and landscape orientation
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Deploying the game so far
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Summary
2
2. Java: First Contact
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2. Java: First Contact
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Planning the Sub' Hunter game
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Introduction to Java methods
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Structuring Sub' Hunter with methods
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Introduction to Object Oriented Programming
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Using Java packages
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Linking up our methods
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Summary
3
3. Variables, Operators and Expressions
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3. Variables, Operators and Expressions
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Handling syntax and jargon
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Java Variables
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How to use variables
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Making variables useful with operators
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Declaring and Initializing the Sub' Hunter Variables
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Errors, warnings, and bugs
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Testing the game
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Summary
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4. Structuring Code with Java Methods
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4. Structuring Code with Java Methods
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Methods
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Scope: Methods and Variables
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Generating random numbers to deploy a sub
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Testing the game
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Summary
5
5. The Android Canvas Class – Drawing to the Screen
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5. The Android Canvas Class – Drawing to the Screen
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Understanding the Canvas class
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Using the Canvas class
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Canvas Demo app
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Android Coordinate system
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Drawing the Sub' Hunter graphics and text
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Summary
6
6. Repeating Blocks of Code with Loops
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6. Repeating Blocks of Code with Loops
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Decisions, decisions
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Keeping things tidy
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More operators
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Loops
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Using for loops to draw the Sub' Hunter grid
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Summary
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7. Making Decisions with Java If, Else and Switch
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7. Making Decisions with Java If, Else and Switch
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If they come over the bridge shoot them
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Combining different control flow blocks
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Making sense of the screen touches
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Final tasks
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Running the game
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Summary
8
8. Object-Oriented Programming
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8. Object-Oriented Programming
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Basic Object-Oriented Programming
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Looking at the code for a class
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Basic classes mini-app
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Remember that encapsulation thing?
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Encapsulation and static methods mini-app
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OOP and inheritance
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Inheritance mini-app
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Polymorphism
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Starting the Pong game
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Summary
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9. The Game Engine, Threads, and The Game Loop
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9. The Game Engine, Threads, and The Game Loop
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Coding the PongActivity class
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Coding the PongGame class
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Coding the PongGame class
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The game loop
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Threads
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Implementing the game loop with a thread
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Running the game
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Summary
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10. Coding the Bat and Ball
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10. Coding the Bat and Ball
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The Ball Class
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The Bat class
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Coding the Bat input handling
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Running the game
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Summary
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11. Collisions, Sound Effects and Supporting Different Versions of Android
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11. Collisions, Sound Effects and Supporting Different Versions of Android
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Handling collisions
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Handling different versions of Android
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The Soundpool class
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Generating sound effects
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Adding sound to the Pong game
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Coding the collision detection and playing sounds
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Playing the game
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Summary
12
12. Handling Lots of Data with Arrays
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12. Handling Lots of Data with Arrays
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Planning the project
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Starting the project
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Reusing the Pong engine
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Coding the Bullet class
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Java Arrays
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Simple array example mini-app
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Getting dynamic with arrays
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Entering the nth dimension with Arrays
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Spawning an array of bullets
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Summary
13
13. Bitmap Graphics and Measuring Time
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13. Bitmap Graphics and Measuring Time
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The Bob (player's) class
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Running the game
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Summary
14
14. The Stack, the Heap, and the Garbage Collector
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14. The Stack, the Heap, and the Garbage Collector
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Managing and understanding memory
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Introduction to the Snake game
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Getting started with the Snake game
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Coding the game engine
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Running the game
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Summary
15
15. Android Localization -Hola!
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15. Android Localization -Hola!
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Making the snake game Spanish, English and German
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Run the game in German or Spanish
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Summary
16
16. Collections, Generics and Enumerations
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16. Collections, Generics and Enumerations
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Adding the graphics
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Coding the apple
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Using the apple
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Using Arrays in the snake game
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Arrays and ArrayLists are polymorphic
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Enumerations
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Summary
17
17. Manipulating Bitmaps and Coding the Snake class
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17. Manipulating Bitmaps and Coding the Snake class
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Rotating Bitmaps
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Add the sound to the project
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Coding the Snake class
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Running the completed game
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Summary
18
18. Introduction to Design Patterns and much more!
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18. Introduction to Design Patterns and much more!
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Introducing the Scrolling Shooter project
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Game programming patterns and the structure of the Scrolling Shooter project
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Starting the project
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Controlling the game with a GameState class
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Giving partial access to a class using an interface
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Building a sound engine
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Testing the game so far
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Building a HUD class to display control buttons and text
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Building a Renderer class to handle the drawing
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Using the HUD and Renderer classes
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Running the game
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Summary
19
19. Listening with the Observer Pattern, Multitouch and Building a Particle System
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19. Listening with the Observer Pattern, Multitouch and Building a Particle System
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The Observer pattern
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Coding the Observer pattern in Scrolling Shooter
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Coding a Multitouch UI controller and making it a listener
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Running the game
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Implementing a particle system explosion
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Building a physics engine to get things moving
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Running the game
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Summary
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20. More Patterns, a Scrolling Background and Building the Player's ship
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20. More Patterns, a Scrolling Background and Building the Player's ship
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Meet the game objects
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The Entity-Component pattern
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The Simple Factory pattern
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Summary so far
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The object specifications
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Coding the component Interfaces
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Coding the player's and the background's empty component classes
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Every GameObject has a transform
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Every object is a GameObject
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Completing the player's and the background's components
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Building the GameObjectFactory
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Coding the Level class
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Putting everything together
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Running the game
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Summary
21
21. Completing the Scrolling Shooter Game
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21. Completing the Scrolling Shooter Game
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Adding the alien's components
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Spawning the Aliens
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Running the game
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Detecting collisions
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Running the completed game
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Summary
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22. Exploring More Patterns and Planning the Platformer Project
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22. Exploring More Patterns and Planning the Platformer Project
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Platform Game: Bob Was in A Hurry
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How we will build the platformer
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Getting started with Bob was in a hurry
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Specifying all the game objects with GameObjectSpec classes
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Coding the component interfaces
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Coding the other interfaces
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Summary
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23. The Singleton Pattern, Java HashMap, Storing Bitmaps Efficiently and Designing Levels
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23. The Singleton Pattern, Java HashMap, Storing Bitmaps Efficiently and Designing Levels
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The Singleton pattern
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More Java Collections – Meet Java Hashmap
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The memory problem and the BitmapStore
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Coding the basic transform
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Coding the inanimate and decorative components
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Create the levels
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Coding a stripped down GameObjectFactory
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Coding a slightly commented-out game object
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Coding the GameState
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Code the SoundEngine
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Coding the physics engine (without collision)
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Coding a Renderer
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Coding the camera
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Coding the Hud
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Coding the UIController class
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Code the Activity
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Code the GameEngine
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Coding the LevelManager class
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Running the game
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Summary
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24. Sprite-sheet animations, Controllable Player and Parallax Scrolling Backgrounds
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24. Sprite-sheet animations, Controllable Player and Parallax Scrolling Backgrounds
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Animating sprite-sheets
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Coding the Animator
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Coding the player's components and transform
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Coding a parallax background
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Updating the levelManager, GameObjectFactory and GameObject
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Running the game
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Summary
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25. Intelligent Platforms and Advanced Collision Detection
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25. Intelligent Platforms and Advanced Collision Detection
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Coding the moving platform component class
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Update LevelManager and GameObjectFactory
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Running the game
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Coding the detectCollisions method: Part 1
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Coding the detectCollisions method: Part 2
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Running the game
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Summary
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26. What next?
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26. What next?
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Publishing
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Using the assets from the book
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Future learning
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My other channels
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Thanks
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Index
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Index

Arrays and ArrayLists are polymorphic

We already know that we can put objects into arrays and ArrayList. But being polymorphic means they can handle objects of multiple distinct types as long as they have a common parent type all within the same array or ArrayList.

In Chapter 8, Object-Oriented Programming we learned that polymorphism approximately means different forms. But what does it mean to us in the context of arrays and ArrayList?

Boiled down to its simplest: any subclass can be used as part of the code that uses the superclass.

For example, if we have an array of Animals we could put any object that is a type that is a subclass of Animal, in the Animal array. Perhaps Cats and Dogs.

This means we can write code that is simpler and easier to understand, and easier to modify or change.

// This code assumes we have an Animal class
// And we have a Cat and Dog class that extends Animal
Animal myAnimal =  new Animal();
Dog myDog = new Dog();
Cat myCat = new Cat();
Animal [] myAnimals = new...
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Learning Java by Building Android Games
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