Book Image

Learning Java by Building Android Games - Second Edition

By : John Horton
Book Image

Learning Java by Building Android Games - Second Edition

By: John Horton

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 (30 chapters)
Learning Java by Building Android Games Second Edition
Contributors
Preface
Index

Android Coordinate system


As a graphical means for explaining the Android coordinate drawing system, I will use a cute spaceship graphic. We will not suddenly be adding spaceships to Sub' Hunter but we will use the graphics that follow in the fifth project starting in Chapter 18, Introduction to Design Patterns and much more!.

As we will see, drawing a Bitmap is trivial. But the coordinate system that we use to draw our graphics onto needs a brief explanation.

Plotting and drawing

When we draw a Bitmap object to the screen we pass in the coordinates we want to draw the object at. The available coordinates of a given Android device depend upon the resolution of its screen.

For example, the Google Pixel phone has a screen resolution of 1920 pixels (across) by 1080 pixels (down) when held in landscape view.

The numbering system of these coordinates starts in the top left-hand corner at 0,0 and proceeds down and to the right until the bottom right corner is pixel 1919, 1079. The apparent 1-pixel...