Build the Next Great Android Game!   Learning Android Game Programming is your hands-on, start-to-finish guide to creating winning games for today’s rapidly growing Android mobile device marketplace. If you have even basic Android development experience, Rick Rogers will help you build on your knowledge to quickly create low-budget 2D mobile games that sell.   The book starts with an up-to-the-minute overview of today’s Android mobile games marketplace, reviews each leading genre, and teaches you the foundational concepts of game development. You’ll design a simple game, then master every step of game development with AndEngine—the powerful, open source, free game-development engine. Every chapter teaches with sample code you can actually use, including many examples drawn from the published game, Virgins Versus Vampires (V3).   With this book you’ll learn how to  Use free Android tools for creating code, artwork, and sound Implement the “game loop” that is at the heart of Android games Bring your game to life with scene transitions and entity modifiers Make the most of bitmap and vector graphics, sprites, and animation Integrate user input via touch, multitouch, keyboard, voice recognition, accelerometer, location, and compass Build infinite virtual worlds with tile maps Create, save, and reuse powerful particle effects Find, acquire, modify, and use background music and sound effects Implement highly realistic physics effects with Box2D Use AI techniques to make your games smarter and more fun Build a scoring framework based on collisions between your game elements Download the free version of Virgins Versus Vampires (V3) from Android Market today, as you learn how to build the game in this book

Table of Contents:
Foreword xix Preface xxi Acknowledgments xxiii About the Author xxv   Chapter 1: Mobile Games 1 The Mobile Game Market 1 The World of Computer Games 2 AndEngine Examples 10 Summary 12 Exercises 12   Chapter 2: Game Elements and Tools 15 Software Development Tools 15 Graphics Tools 20 Audio Tools 24 Getting Our Feet Wet: The Splash Screen 26 Summary 31 Exercises 32   Chapter 3: The Game Loop and Menus 33 Game Loops in General 33 The Game Loop in AndEngine 34 Adding a Menu Screen to V3 37 Memory Usage 50 The Quit Option 51 Summary 51 Exercises 52   Chapter 4: Scenes, Layers, Transitions, and Modifiers 53 Scenes in AndEngine 53 Creating the Game Level 1 Scene 79 Summary 85 Exercises 85   Chapter 5: Drawing and Sprites 87 Quick Look Back at Entity 87 Drawing Lines and Rectangles 88 Sprites 89 Summary 106 Exercises 107   Chapter 6: Animation 109 Requirements for Animation 109 Animation Tiled Textures 110 Animation in AndEngine 111 Animation Example 113 Adding Animation to Level1Activity 118 Animation Problems 126 Advanced Topic: 2D Animations from 3D Models 127 Summary 127 Exercises 128   Chapter 7: Text 129 Fonts and Typefaces 129 Loading Fonts 130 Text in AndEngine 133 Custom Fonts 137 Adding Custom Fonts to V3 139 Summary 146 Exercises 146   Chapter 8: User Input 149 Android and AndEngine Input Methods 149 Adding User Input to V3 167 Summary 171 Exercises 172   Chapter 9: Tile Maps 173 Why Tile Maps? 173 Types of Tile Maps 173 Structure of Tile Maps 176 Tile Maps in AndEngine 176 The Tile Editor: Tiled 179 TMX Files 180 Orthogonal Game: Whack-A-Vampire 181 Isometric Tile Maps 196 Summary 197 Exercises 197   Chapter 10: Particle Systems 199 What Is a Particle Emitter? 200 How Do Particle Systems Work? 200 The AndEngine Particle System 201 Creating Particle Systems 206 Particle Emitters in V3 211 Summary 216 Exercises 217   Chapter 11: Sound 219 How Sound Is Used in Games 219 Sources of Music and Effects 220 Tools for Music and Effects 221 Sound Codec Considerations 221 Sound in AndEngine 222 Adding Sound to V3 225 Summary 241 Exercises 241   Chapter 12: Physics 243 Box2D Physics Engine 244 Building Levels for Physics Games 246 AndEngine and Box2D 248 Irate Villagers: A Physics Gamelet for V3 261 Implementing IV 261 Summary 276 Exercises 277   Chapter 13: Artificial Intelligence 279 Game AI Topics 279 Implementing AI in V3 287 Summary 297 Exercises 297   Chapter 14: Scoring and Collisions 299 Scoring Design 300 Collisions in AndEngine 306 Letting the Player Score 308 Graveyard (Level 1) 308 Whack-A-Vampire 315 Irate Villagers 318 Summary 322 Exercises 322   Chapter 15: Multimedia Extensions 325 Downloading Extensions 325 Live Wallpapers 326 MOD Music 332 Multiplayer Games 336 Multi-Touch in AndEngine 337 Augmented Reality 339 Summary 343 Exercises 344   Chapter 16: Game Integration 347 Difficulty Balancing 348 Completion 350 Level 1: The Main Game 352 Whack-A-Vampire 358 Irate Villagers 360 Options Menu 363 Summary 363 Exercises 363   Chapter 17: Testing and Publishing 365 Application Business Models 365 Testing and Getting Ready 366 Publishing 373 Promoting Your Game 376 Summary 380   Appendix: Exercise Solutions 381   Index 429