Beginning Android Tablet Games Programming

Android games programmers now have the power to write games for Android tablets. Beginning Android Tablet Games Programming explains how to enhance your Android games using the new tablet interface and the additional screen estate. You'll learn how to bring your programming skills up to date and into a world where touch screens, games physics, and artificial intelligence come together in new and surprising ways.

Beginning Android Tablet Games Programming shows how to quickly and easily set up an Android development environment�in no time at all, you'll be programming away. You'll begin with some simple games using sprites and choreographed movement. Next, you'll learn how to handle user input in the modern age of touch screens and motion.

Along the way, you'll discover how to use that extra screen space on a tablet to provide more relaxed and more interesting user interactions in your games. You'll learn how to use sound and music, for instance, to make your application menus more user-friendly.

The Android operating system has recently acquired multicore functionality to meet the demands of multicore devices now entering the tablet market. With Beginning Android Tablet Games Programming, you'll discover how to harness that new power with your games programming through more process-demanding and fun techniques, including physics modeling, rich game world representation, artificial intelligence, and multiplayer interactions.

Throughout each chapter of Beginning Android Tablet Games Programming, you'll find code that you can add or adapt to your own games to create the components you want. You can also work up to wrapping everything together into a complete Mario-type example game.

Finally, when you have your first games ready, learn how developers have released their games and made a profit. You'll find tips on how to present your games in the Android and other application markets, and a solid approach to games marketing and monetization.

What you�ll learn

• How to set up an Android tablet programming environment
• How to program for touchscreens and other input devices
• Techniques to take advantage of the extra screen size of a tablet
• How to take advantage of multicore processing power in your games
• How to program a multiplayer game
• How to add artificial intelligence to in-game opponents
• How to program game modes, game states, and game worlds
• How to program a complete game
• About in-app marketing and games monetization

Who this book is for

This is a book for Java programmers new to Honeycomb, tablets and games programming. An experienced games programmer can also use this book to migrate their existing expertise to the Android and the tablet environment.

Table of Contents

1. Setting Up for Android 3.0 Java Development
2. Creating Simple Games with Sprites and Movement
3. Creating Gathering User Input
4. Adding Sounds Effects, Music, and Video
5. One-Player Game with Obstacles
6. A Ball and Paddle Game
7. Building a Two-Player Game
8. A One-Player Strategy Game Part I
9. A One-Player Strategy Game Part II
10. Publishing the Game
11. Testing Android Games on a Real Device