This review is from: Beginning Android Games (Paperback)
I’m not exactly a stranger to game development but have wanted to delve into the world of Android for a while and chose this as my entry. What this book does great is introduce you to all the little “issues” with developing for Android. The chapters themselves are well thought out and the progression you see is very much slow and steady. If you’re familiar with Java you’ll have no problems with this book.
My only gripe was that from about chapter 3 onwards I had the sneaky feeling the book was more involved with building a framework or engine than actual game development. Some of the levels of abstraction are insane. And that’s where the crux of the problem falls, you get to the end and the author openly admits that you can save yourself an age and all the hassles by using one of any number of game frameworks out there (many are free), including his very own one, which is basically the book with bells on. The majority of the book is really teaching you to develop a framework that is way behind anything you could download free in 5 minutes.
If your idea of game development is actually writing the game then you could probably get away without reading this and jumping straight into a framework. If on the other hand you want to immerse yourself into the Android platform and build a game framework from the ground up then you’ll be hard pushed to find a better source of information.
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This review is from: Beginning Android Games (Paperback)
The more I read the book the more I wish I had other books to choose from at this difficulty which are as well written.
I really wish the booked was chaptered like this:
1) How to put a simple OpenGL object on the screen. 2) How to build an onscreen joy pad. 3) How to move a simple OpenGL object using the onscreen joypad. 4) How to add and remove multiple simple moving OpenGL objects. 5) How to add sound effects to on screen events. 6) How to add menus and music. 7) How to add extra control options. 8) How to add extra effects.
With this knowledge most people with basic java could build their own framework, design their own game, copy almost any game from the 80s era and scale the game to different devices. The steps of complexity would make sense to me. In this book they don’t.
Ignoring chapters concerning getting to grips with android technology and explaining general game programming (views and view stretching, how audio is used in games, how menus are used in games etc yawn etc) the steps to programming a game are written like this:
1) How to artificially design a game on paper that handily fits in with a framework that the author is very familiar with and you aren’t. 2) How to create and put input controls into a framework that the author is very familiar with and you aren’t. 3) How to create and put I/O operations into a framework that the author is very familiar with and you aren’t. 4) How to create and put sound controls into a framework that the author is very familiar with and you aren’t. 5) How to create and put a 2D graphics system into a framework that the author is very familiar with and you aren’t. 6) How to create a game loop for the framework. 7) Look how simple a game is to implement into the framework we have created! 8) ….onwards. How to strip out the 2D system for a 2D OpenGL system.
If I am going to spend so much of my time concentrating on a framework and getting to grips with abstract ideas purely for framework reasons, when the design I am forced to follow is a simplified version of a freely available framework, why don’t I just download a freely available framework and shoehorn my own game in? The basics are all here in between the covers, but I am going to spend a lot of time cutting and pasting and re arranging the information to strip out the framework and get to what I wanted. The basic building blocks required to create a 2D game. Despite my criticism at the time of writing this is the best book available for the basic android game building.
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This review is from: Beginning Android Games (Paperback)
This is a really good book. I like the style in which it is written. As someone with lots of programming experience but none in game development the book explains a lot of things that other tutorials or books I have looked at miss out and assume people know.
The reason I have given only 4 stars instead of 5 is due to the number of spelling mistakes and other little errors that really should not be in a professional text like this. Also I don’t understand why 480×800 is so often written as 480! 800. I know that English is not the native language of the author and so I don’t hold the mistakes to him, but to the proof readers for not spotting obvious mistakes.
Hopefully these will get fixed in the 2nd edition 😉 I would still recommend this book to anyone wanting to get into Android game development as this book is very up-to-date and you don’t get that “well that’s not true anymore” feeling that you do with so many computer related texts.
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Should Be Called My First Android Game Framework,
I’m not exactly a stranger to game development but have wanted to delve into the world of Android for a while and chose this as my entry. What this book does great is introduce you to all the little “issues” with developing for Android. The chapters themselves are well thought out and the progression you see is very much slow and steady. If you’re familiar with Java you’ll have no problems with this book.
My only gripe was that from about chapter 3 onwards I had the sneaky feeling the book was more involved with building a framework or engine than actual game development. Some of the levels of abstraction are insane. And that’s where the crux of the problem falls, you get to the end and the author openly admits that you can save yourself an age and all the hassles by using one of any number of game frameworks out there (many are free), including his very own one, which is basically the book with bells on. The majority of the book is really teaching you to develop a framework that is way behind anything you could download free in 5 minutes.
If your idea of game development is actually writing the game then you could probably get away without reading this and jumping straight into a framework. If on the other hand you want to immerse yourself into the Android platform and build a game framework from the ground up then you’ll be hard pushed to find a better source of information.
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|Good but forced to take a design path.,
The more I read the book the more I wish I had other books to choose from at this difficulty which are as well written.
I really wish the booked was chaptered like this:
1) How to put a simple OpenGL object on the screen.
2) How to build an onscreen joy pad.
3) How to move a simple OpenGL object using the onscreen joypad.
4) How to add and remove multiple simple moving OpenGL objects.
5) How to add sound effects to on screen events.
6) How to add menus and music.
7) How to add extra control options.
8) How to add extra effects.
With this knowledge most people with basic java could build their own framework, design their own game, copy almost any game from the 80s era and scale the game to different devices. The steps of complexity would make sense to me. In this book they don’t.
Ignoring chapters concerning getting to grips with android technology and explaining general game programming (views and view stretching, how audio is used in games, how menus are used in games etc yawn etc) the steps to programming a game are written like this:
1) How to artificially design a game on paper that handily fits in with a framework that the author is very familiar with and you aren’t.
2) How to create and put input controls into a framework that the author is very familiar with and you aren’t.
3) How to create and put I/O operations into a framework that the author is very familiar with and you aren’t.
4) How to create and put sound controls into a framework that the author is very familiar with and you aren’t.
5) How to create and put a 2D graphics system into a framework that the author is very familiar with and you aren’t.
6) How to create a game loop for the framework.
7) Look how simple a game is to implement into the framework we have created!
8) ….onwards. How to strip out the 2D system for a 2D OpenGL system.
If I am going to spend so much of my time concentrating on a framework and getting to grips with abstract ideas purely for framework reasons, when the design I am forced to follow is a simplified version of a freely available framework, why don’t I just download a freely available framework and shoehorn my own game in? The basics are all here in between the covers, but I am going to spend a lot of time cutting and pasting and re arranging the information to strip out the framework and get to what I wanted. The basic building blocks required to create a 2D game. Despite my criticism at the time of writing this is the best book available for the basic android game building.
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|Great book, would recommend!,
This is a really good book. I like the style in which it is written. As someone with lots of programming experience but none in game development the book explains a lot of things that other tutorials or books I have looked at miss out and assume people know.
The reason I have given only 4 stars instead of 5 is due to the number of spelling mistakes and other little errors that really should not be in a professional text like this. Also I don’t understand why 480×800 is so often written as 480! 800. I know that English is not the native language of the author and so I don’t hold the mistakes to him, but to the proof readers for not spotting obvious mistakes.
Hopefully these will get fixed in the 2nd edition 😉 I would still recommend this book to anyone wanting to get into Android game development as this book is very up-to-date and you don’t get that “well that’s not true anymore” feeling that you do with so many computer related texts.
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