The Android game developer's handbook : discover an all in one handbook to developing immersive and cross-platform Android games / Avisekhar Roy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Roy, Avisekhar, author.

Series:

Community experience distilled.

Community experience distilled

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Android (Electronic resource)--Handbooks, manuals, etc.

Android (Electronic resource).

Application software--Development.

Application software.

Mobile computing.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (369 pages) : color illustrations.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Birmingham : Packt Publishing, 2016.

Biography/History:

Roy Avisekhar: Avisekhar Roy is a B. Tech engineer in computer science. He has had a passion for coding since his school days. However, he had no plans to become a game programmer. His fate landed him in the gaming industry in 2010. Since then, he fell in love with game development. Avisekhar has worked in many formats of game development environment, ranging from small companies and individual studios to corporate companies and full-scale game development studios. He recently started his own gaming start-up in 2016 and is currently working on games for the mobile platform. Avisekhar has also worked with some big companies, such as Reliance Games in India, as well as a small-scale studio called Nautilus Mobile. He is now trying to acquire a position in the gaming industry for his own venture, Funboat Games.

Summary:

About This BookPractical tips and tricks to develop powerful Android gamesLearn to successfully implement microtransactions and monitor the performance of your game once it's out live.Integrate Google's DIY VR tool and Google Cardboard into your games to join in on the VR revolutionWho This Book Is For This book is ideal for any game developer with prior knowledge of developing games in Android. A good understanding of game development and a basic knowledge of Android platform application development and Java/C++ will be helpful. What You Will LearnLearn the prospects of Android in game developmentUnderstand the Android architecture and explore the platform's limitations and variationsExplore the various approaches to game development using AndroidLearn about the common mistakes and possible solutions in Android game developmentDiscover the top cross-platform game engines and port games on to different Android platformsOptimize the memory and performance of your gameFamiliarize yourself with different ways to earn money from Android gamesIn Detail This book will help developers understand user behavior, to predict and create scopes of improvement in Android games The book begins with the guidelines of game development on the Android platform and a brief description of the current variants of Android devices available. Next, you will walk through the various tools available for developing Android games and learn how to choose the most appropriate tools for specific purposes. Later, you will focus on creation and maintenance of a game loop using the Android SDK, and learn about common mistakes in game development in order to avoid them and improve performance. Next, we will dive into shaders and learn how to optimize memory and performance. You will then learn testing and debugging Android games followed by an overview of virtual reality and how

to integrate it into Android games. Finally, you will explore the tools required to polish and finalize the game and possible integration of third-party tools or SDKs in order to monetize the game.

Contents:

Cover

Copyright

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewer

www.PacktPub.com

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Android Game Development

Android game development

Features and support

Challenges

User experience

Design constraints

A game is not just an application

Games versus applications

Life cycle of Android application and games

Performance of games and applications

Memory management of games and applications

Choosing the target device configuration

Game scale

Target audience

Feature requirement

Scope for portability

Best practices for making an Android game

Maintaining game quality

Minimalistic user interface

Supporting maximum resolutions

Supporting maximum devices

Background behavior

Interruption handling

Maintaining battery usage

Extended support for multiple visual quality

Introducing social networking and multiplayer

Summary

Chapter 2: Introduction to Different Android Platforms

Exploring Android mobiles

Exploring Android tablets

Exploring Android televisions and STBs

Exploring Android consoles

Exploring Android watches

Development insights on Android mobiles

Development insights on Android tablets

Development insights on Android TV and STBs

UI and game design

Overscan

Development insights on Android consoles

Development insights on Android watches

Creating and setting up a wearable application

Including the correct libraries in the project

Hardware compatibility issues with Android versions

Platform-specific specialties

Android mobiles

Android tablets

Android televisions and STBs

Android consoles

Android watches

Chapter 3: Different Android Development Tools

Android SDK

Android Development Tool

Android Virtual Device

Configuring AVD.

Android Debug Bridge

Using adb on an Android device

Dalvik Debug Monitor Server

Other tools

Eclipse

Hierarchy Viewer

Draw 9-Patch

ProGuard

Asset optimization tools

Full asset optimization

Creating sprites

Tools for testing

Creating a test case

Setting up your test fixture

Adding test preconditions

Adding test methods to verify an activity

Performance profiling tools

Android Studio

Android project view

Memory and CPU monitor

Cross-platform tools

Cocos2d-x

Unity3D

Unreal Engine

PhoneGap

Corona

Titanium

Chapter 4: Android Development Style and Standards in the Industry

The Android programming structure

Class formation

Call hierarchy

Game programming specifications

Gameplay programming

Graphics programming

Technical programming

Sound programming

Network programming

Game tool programming

Research and development programming

Technical design standards

Game analysis

Design pattern and flow diagram

Technical specification

Tools and other requirements

Resource analysis

Testing requirements

Scope analysis

Risk analysis

Change log

Game design standards

Game overview

Gameplay details

Game progression

Storyboard and game elements

Level design

Artificial intelligence

Art style

Technical reference

Other styles and standards

Different styles for different development engines

Different programming languages

Different work principles

Different target platforms

Industry best practices

Design standards

Programming standards

Testing standards

Chapter 5: Understanding the Game Loop and Frame Rate

Introduction to the game loop

User input

Game update

State update

Rendering frames.

Creating a sample game loop using the Android SDK

Game life cycle

Game update and user interface

Interrupt handling

General idea of a game state machine

The FPS system

Hardware dependency

Display or rendering

Memory load/unload operations

Heap memory

Stack memory

Register memory

ROM

Logical operations

Balance between performance and memory

Controlling FPS

Chapter 6: Improving Performance for 2D/3D Games

2D game development constraints

2D art assets

Sets of 2D art assets

Same asset set for multiple resolutions

Number of assets drawn on screen

Use of font files

2D rendering system

2D mapping

2D physics

Box2D

LiquidFun

Performance impact on games

2D collision detection

Rectangle collision

Rectangle and circle collision

Circle and circle collision

Performance comparison

3D game development constraints

Vertices and triangles

3D transformation matrix

3D object and polygon count

3D rendering system

3D mesh

Materials, shaders, and textures

Textures

Shaders

Materials

Collision detection

Primitive colliders

Mesh colliders

Ray casting

Concept of "world

Elements of the game world

Light sources in the game world

Cameras in the game world

The rendering pipeline in Android

The 2D rendering pipeline

The 3D rendering pipeline

Optimizing 2D assets

Size optimization

Data optimization

Process optimization

Optimizing 3D assets

Limiting the polygon count

Model optimization

Common game development mistakes

Use of non-optimized images

Use of full utility third-party libraries

Use of unmanaged networking connections

Using substandard programming

Taking a shortcut

2D/3D performance comparison

Different look and feel.

3D processing is way heavier than 2D processing

Device configuration

Processor

RAM

GPU

Display quality

Battery capacity

Chapter 7: Working with Shaders

Introduction to shaders

What is a shader?

Necessity of shaders

Scope of shaders

How shaders work

Types of shaders

Pixel shaders

Vertex shaders

Geometry shaders

Tessellation shaders

Android library shaders

Writing custom shaders

Shaders through OpenGL

Use of shaders in games

Shaders in a 2D game space

Shaders in a 3D game space

Chapter 8: Performance and Memory Optimization

Fields of optimization in Android games

Resource optimization

Art optimization

Sound optimization

Data file optimization

Design optimization

Game design optimization

Technical design optimization

Memory optimization

Don't create unnecessary objects during runtime

Use primitive data types as far as possible

Don't use unmanaged static objects

Don't create unnecessary classes or interfaces

Use the minimum possible abstraction

Keep a check on services

Optimize bitmaps

Release unnecessary memory blocks

Use external tools such as zipalign and ProGuard

Performance optimization

Using minimum objects possible per task

Using minimum floating points

Using fewer abstraction layers

Using enhanced loops wherever possible

Avoid getter/setters of variables for internal use

Use static final for constants

Using minimum possible inner classes

Relationship between performance and memory management

Memory management in Android

Shared application memory

Memory allocation and deallocation

Application memory distribution

Processing segments in Android

Application priority

Active process

Visible process

Active services

Background process

Void process.

Application services

Service life cycle

Resource processing

Drawable resources

Layout resources

Color resources

Menu resources

Tween animation resources

Other resources

Different memory segments

Importance of memory optimization

Optimizing overall performance

Choosing the base resolution

Defining the portability range

Program structure

Managing the database

Managing the network connection

Increasing the frame rate

Importance of performance optimization

Common optimization mistakes

Programming mistakes

Design mistakes

Wrong game data structure

Using game services incorrectly

Best optimization practices

Development optimization

Data structure model

Asset-using techniques

Art assets

Audio assets

Other assets

Handling cache data

Chapter 9: Testing Code and Debugging

Android AVDs

Name of the AVD

AVD resolution

AVD display size

Android version API level

Android target version

CPU architecture

RAM amount

Hardware input options

Other options

Extended AVD settings

Android DDMS

Connecting an Android device filesystem

Profiling methods

Thread information monitoring

Heap information monitoring

Tracking memory allocation

Monitoring and managing network traffic

Tracking log information using Logcat

Emulating device operations

Android device testing and debugging

Device testing

Prototype testing

Full or complete testing

Regression testing

Release testing or run testing

Device debugging

Use of breakpoints

Monitoring the memory footprint

Checking log messages

Dalvik message log

ART message log

Checking heap updates

Checking overall memory usage

Private RAM.

Proportional set size (PSS).

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed March 7, 2017).

ISBN:

1-78588-666-5

OCLC:

957317970