Book Image

Learning Java by Building Android Games - Third Edition

By : John Horton
5 (1)
Book Image

Learning Java by Building Android Games - Third Edition

5 (1)
By: John Horton

Overview of this book

Android is one of the most popular mobile operating systems today. It uses the most popular programming language, Java, as one of the primary languages for building apps of all types. Unlike most other Android books, this book doesn’t assume that you have any prior knowledge of Java programming, instead helps you get started with building Android games as a beginner. This new, improved, and updated third edition of Learning Java by Building Android Games helps you to build Android games from scratch. Once you've got to grips with the fundamentals, the difficulty level increases steadily as you explore key Java topics, such as variables, loops, methods, object-oriented programming (OOP), and design patterns while working with up-to-date code and supporting examples. At each stage, you'll be able to test your understanding by implementing the concepts that you’ve learned to develop a game. Toward the end, you’ll build games such as Sub Hunter, Retro Pong, Bullet Hell, Classic Snake, and Scrolling Shooter. By the end of this Java book, you'll not only have a solid understanding of Java and Android basics but will also have developed five cool games for the Android platform.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)

Completing the player's and the background's components

All the game objects are reliant upon or react to the player. For example, the aliens will spawn, chase, and shoot relative to the player's position. Even the background will take its cue for which way to scroll based on what the player is doing. Therefore, as we mentioned previously, it makes sense to get the player working first.

However, remember that using the Entity-Component pattern will mean that some of the components we code for the player will also be used when we implement some other game objects.

Important note

If we hadn't coded the empty component classes before the Transform class and, subsequently, GameObject, all these calls to the Transform class and the context within which these components work might have been harder to understand.

As we code all the player and background components, I will make it clear what is new code and what we coded back in the Coding the player's...