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)

Summary

Now, we know almost everything there is to know about methods, including parameters versus arguments, signatures, bodies, access specifiers, and return types. The one missing link is how methods relate to classes. The class-method relationship will be blown wide open in the much-trailed Chapter 8, Object-Oriented Programming, which is drawing ever closer. For now, there is a more pressing problem that needs solving.

Before we congratulate ourselves too much, we need to address the huge, elephant in the room – see the following screenshot:

Figure 4.7 – Blank game screen

There is nothing on the screen! Now we have had a full lesson on variables, an introduction to classes, and a thorough dip into methods, we can begin to put this right. In the next chapter, we will start to draw the graphics of the Sub' Hunter game on the screen.