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

Linking up our methods


So far, we know that we can define methods with code like this:

void draw(){
   // Handle all the drawing here
}

And we can call/execute methods with code like this:

draw();

We have also alluded to, as well as mentioned in our comments that the onCreate method (provided automatically by Android) will handle the One-time Setup part of the flowchart.

The reason for this is that all Android games (and the vast majority of other Android apps) must have an Activity class as the starting point. Activity is what interacts with the operating system. Without one the operating system cannot run our code. The way that the operating system interacts with and executes our code is through the methods of the Activity class. There are many methods in the Activity class but the one we care about right now is onCreate.

The onCreate method is called by Android itself when the player taps our game's icon on their screen.

Note

Actually, there are a number of methods that are called but onCreate...