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

Reusing the Pong engine


Feel free to copy and paste all the code in this section. It is nearly identical to the structure of the Pong game. What will vary is the other classes we will create (Bullet and Bob) as well as the way that we handle player input, timing, updating and drawing within the BulletHellGame class.

As you proceed with this section glance over the code to notice subtle but important differences which I will also point out to you as we proceed.

Coding the BulletHellActivity

Paste and examine this code into the BulletHellActivity class.

import android.app.Activity;
import android.graphics.Point;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.Display;


// This class is almost exactly 
// the same as the Pong project
public class BulletHellActivity extends Activity {

    // An instance of the main class of this project
    private BulletHellGame mBHGame;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

      ...