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)

Coding the Level class

The Level class is where you design the level. If you want more enemies of a certain type or fewer lasers to make the fire rate less rapid, then this is where you should do it. In a game that you were planning to release, you would probably extend Level and design multiple instances with different enemies, quantities, and backgrounds. For this project, we will stick with just one rigid level, but in the next project, we will take the level design idea further.

Create a class called Level and add all the following members and import statements:

import android.content.Context;
import android.graphics.PointF;
import java.util.ArrayList;
class Level {
    // Keep track of specific types
    public static final int BACKGROUND_INDEX = 0;
    public static final int PLAYER_INDEX = 1;
    public static final int FIRST_PLAYER_LASER = 2;
    public static final int...