Book Image

Learning Libgdx Game Development

Book Image

Learning Libgdx Game Development

Overview of this book

Game development is a field of interdisciplinary skills, which also makes it a very complex topic in many respects. One decision that usually needs to be made at the beginning of a game development processis to define the kind of computer system or platform the game will be developed for. This does not pose any problems in general but as soon as the game should also be able to run on multiple platforms it will become a developer's nightmare to maintain several distinct copies of the same game. This is where the libGDX multi-platform game development framework comes to the rescue! "Learning Libgdx Game Development" is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with all the information you need to know about the libGDX framework as well as game development in general so you can start developing your own games for multiple platforms. You will gradually acquire deeper knowledge of both, libGDX and game development while you work through twelve easy-to-follow chapters. "Learning Libgdx Game Development" will walk you through a complete game development cycle by creating an example game that is extended with new features over several chapters. These chapters handle specific topics such as organizing resources, managing game scenes and transitions, actors, a menu system, using an advanced physics engine and many more. The chapters are filled with screenshots and/or diagrams to facilitate comprehension. "Learning Libgdx Game Development" is the book for you if you want to learn how to write your game code once and run it on a multitude of platforms using libGDX.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Learning Libgdx Game Development
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Summary


In this chapter we have used a variety of approaches for adding our special effects which let the game come more and more alive. We have learned about particle systems and how they work in Libgdx. Particle effects can be easily designed using the powerful Particle Editor, and it is recommended to use this instead of working them out in code. We have learned how a finished particle effect can be incorporated and controlled in our existing game. We have also learned how to achieve a wind effect using our simple physics simulation to animate the clouds in the game world with just a few changes. An introduction to Linear interpolation has been given and how this can be applied to create smooth movements for the game's camera and rocks that now appear to float on the water. Parallax scrolling has been added to the mountains in the background to increase the game immersion even further. As a final touch, the game screen's GUI has been enhanced with subtle effects.

In the next chapter, we...