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)

Android coordinate system

As a graphical means for explaining the Android coordinate drawing system, I will use a cute spaceship graphic. We will not suddenly be adding spaceships to Sub' Hunter, but we will use the graphics that follow in the fifth project starting in Chapter 18, Introduction to Design Patterns and Much More!.

As we will see, drawing a Bitmap object is straightforward. However, the coordinate system that we use to draw our graphics on requires a brief explanation.

Plotting and drawing

When we draw a Bitmap object to the screen, we pass in the coordinates we want to draw the object at. The available coordinates of a given Android device depend upon the resolution of its screen.

For example, the Google Pixel phone has a screen resolution of 1,920 pixels (across) by 1,080 pixels (down) when held in landscape view.

The numbering system of these coordinates starts in the top left-hand corner at 0,0 and proceeds down and to the right until the bottom...