A new Beginner looking for some help

General Discussions
#1

Hello! ;D
im a Java starter (1 and a half year experience) and want to get in Android Gaming Development.

will you guys give me a hand PLEASE?
so i already made a J2SE basic game tutorial and a Android Basic Game tutorial (http://www.edu4java.com/en/game/game0-en.html, and http://www.edu4java.com/androidgame.html).

so my questions are this:

  1. I want to start developing games for OUYA.
    What you guys think is a good way to start developing games for Android?(OUYA uses Android. http://www.ouya.tv/devs/)
    JMonkeyEngine? LWJGL? JOGL? Eclipse with no plugin? Unity3D? LIBGDX?

take in consideration that i have a LOT of tutorials and pages opened and saved to watch and read right now :S im confused SO CONFUSED lol.

  1. A good book you guys think it can help me start with “1)” answer? or a video Tutorial? or a written tutorial?

let me give you an example: if you want to start developing with Sprint, most people recommend a book called SPRING IN ACCION 3rd EDITION (pretty good book).

that it for now.
thank you guys

Edit: Found THIS: http://www.amazon.es/Beginning-Android-Games-Mario-Zechner/dp/1430230428
what about this book?

#2

LibGDX is the only one of those libraries you can develop Android games with.

#3

I really like libgdx although there are not any books that I am aware of. However, there are many online resources available at http://code.google.com/p/libgdx/wiki/TableOfContents
Good Luck!

#4

If you don’t want to go with libgdx, android has its own opengl ES bindings you can use. I would definitely recommend eclipse with the android plugin as an IDE. If you write from scratch make sure you know how the android life cycle works.

#5

I’ve done a little research on Andengine and it seems like a good Android Game Engine.

#6

Not to put AndEngine down, but I honestly would recommend libgdx over AndEngine to anyone. Purely the fact that you can develop completely on desktop without having to deploy to Android is a huge productivity booster. (I’ve used both)

Besides that, libgdx performs much better.

The book is a great introduction to Game dev in general. Lots of the concepts explained there are in line with libgdx’s architecture.

Cheers,
Bach

#7

You’re probably completely right, I’ve used neither…

#8

That book is written by one of the founders of libgdx, so I’m pretty sure it’ll have everything you need. It won’t teach you libgdx, however, but it will teach you how to make games for Android, using the Android API. However, it might be easier for you to just start using libgdx, but that depends on the kind of person you are.

#9

whichever way you go framework wise, i have a tip for any type of developement. Test frequently. if you just take everything one step at a time you can avoid some major headaches. I’ve found that if you wait until you’ve finished coding to run, you get lots of errors you don’t know what’s causing. this way you only get 1 or 2, which were obviously caused by whatever you just changed, and fixing them won’t cause more errors down the line.

#10

The first android tutorial book I read was [b]Beginning Android Games/b. It’s a really good book that teaches you game programming ideology and you create your own framework from scratch. It’s the book I learned Java game programming with, and it starts with 2D and goes on to 3D. It’s a basic beginner’s book, but will definitely be worthwhile.

#11

@vbrain
I also have that book, it is very good and I made my first ever java / android game with it. I would also strongly suggest it.