Where to start game programming for Android

Question

Hi,

I'm new to game programming. But I'v got an ide for what I think would be a fun game for the Android platform.

My question is, where do I start? Anyone got some good sites to recommend or perhaps a book or two. I'v got medium skills when it come to programming but i'v got a masters of science degree in computer engineering so i'm not totally unfamiliar with algorithms and stuff.

Thx for any help!

/Marthin

Answer 1

Read through the developer documentation, as a starting point. For example graphics, and the lunar lander sample game. Depending on what type of game you are trying to create, there are a number of different samples in the collection that could be useful to you.

Answer 2

After you've done what Mayra has suggested and feel comfortable with the lunar lander game, how exactly you proceed depends a lot on what kind of game it is. A platformer is going to be more demanding than, say, Sudoku. Once you know what kind of game you'd like, look for open source games in that genre to help you.

For example, there's a great open source platformer out there called Replica Island that would have a lot of useful nuggets. The developer keeps a development diary that gets into a lot of the gory details you'll need to deal with as you go, and also talks about non-coding stuff such as design and marketing.

Good luck!

Answer 3

First I would read a little bit of the documentation and other stuff and the follow some tutorials. As soon as you understand enough of the Android specific stuff you can go one with your application.

In this question I listed some refernences, books and tutorials:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2869338/where-to-start-to-learn-android/2869373#2869373

Answer 4

I found this blog post very useful for learning the basic structure of a game application. http://www.rbgrn.net/content/54-getting-started-android-game-development

Also, check out the android designing for performance article (I don't have enough reputation to link it). If you're making a real time game with a high framerate you need to think about optimization a lot more than you might be used to.