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)

Using the Apple class

The Apple class is done, and we can now put it to work.

Add the code to initialize the apple object in the SnakeGame constructor at the end, as shown in the following code:

// Call the constructors of our two game objects
mApple = new Apple(context,
          new Point(NUM_BLOCKS_WIDE,
                    mNumBlocksHigh),
                    blockSize);

Notice we pass in all the data required by the Apple constructor so it can set itself up.

We can now spawn an apple, as shown next, in the newGame method by calling the spawn method that we added when we coded the Apple class previously. Add the highlighted code to the newGame method:

// Called to start a new game
public void newGame() {
  ...