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)

Every object is a GameObject

This class will become a living-breathing (or flying-shooting or diving) combination of our various components.

Create the GameObject class and add the import statements and constructor shown here:

import android.content.Context;
import android.graphics.Canvas;
import android.graphics.Paint;
import android.graphics.PointF;
class GameObject {
    private Transform mTransform;
    private boolean isActive = false;
    private String mTag;
    private GraphicsComponent graphicsComponent;
    private MovementComponent movementComponent;
    private SpawnComponent spawnComponent;
}

Here, we can see that we have an instance of the Transform class called mTransform. In addition, we have a boolean member variable called isActive. This will act as an indicator of whether the object is currently in use or not. The mTag variable will be...