Learning android? Tutorials or? Share experience please!

Java on Mobile Devices Android
#1

I wasn’t sure if I should put this thread in the java-tutorial part of the forum, or perhaps in the newbe part but I decided it probably fit here better. If that was wrong then please go ahead and move it some moderator!:slight_smile:

So, I just started my third year at uni and our first course is a “software engineering project” where we get to chose whatever we want to make (in a group of 3) and then make that in 7 weeks. Each student must spend 200 hours on the project over these weeks, and apparently roughly 50% of that time should be spent at the report and the rest of that time be spent at learning android programming and developing a software of our choice.

Our teacher suggested a chess application, but we wanted to make something other then that. I think we decided we’d try to make a Tower Defense game. Do you guys think this is a realistic pick? Would it go too fast/take too long to implement for a bunch of newbies? I am the only one in our group who knows java to a level where I’ve been creating a few games. (I started making a TD a week ago and it wasn’t all that hard while the others have done nothing but our labbs in school pretty much.)

Also, do you know of any android-game-tutorials? I installed the android SDK for eclipse yesterday and followed a basic tutorial into making a temperature converter between Celsius and Fahrenheit. Nothing hard and it kind of remembered me of developing for .NET back in high school mixed up with the java language!

So, again, how did you get started with android game programming? Where did you learn? What do you think about our project?
Thanks!

#2

Just use libgdx. Its normal java and only few android spesific bits. http://code.google.com/p/libgdx/
Really easy framework for developing.

I am actually 5th year student and I am doing my first android project for game programming course. I bought my first smart phone two weeks ago and I have fun gameplay allready. You can check the progress here. http://code.google.com/p/boxtris/

I am also doing another project for anroid and its tower defense game too. You can found this project here. http://code.google.com/p/protectcastle/

Have fun.

#3

AllBinary Platform

It currently supports Android, J2ME, and J2SE.

By 2014 I will finish adding Native support via Avian, HTML5, and ActionScript.

#4

Hi!

JOGL 2.0 supports Android (>=2.3). Maybe you could give it a try, it allows to use OpenGL in Java both on desktop environment (Linux, Mac, Windows) and on embedded platforms (Linux ARM and Android).

If you need something less low level, libgdx is fine too, you can find its list of features here:
http://code.google.com/p/libgdx/wiki/GoalsFeatures

#5

So I started looking at libgdx and it seems nice I guess, but I wonder is it limited to openGL methods for rendering? I have never used that (except through another library like slick2d) so it’d be easier for me if I didn’t have to! But on the other hand I’ve ‘always’ thought it’s probably about time to learn it so this might be a good chance to do that I guess!

#6

For basic tower defense you only need to know how to clear screen from openGl standpoint. SpriteBatch will help you alot just watch video tutorials and follow wiki and user-wiki tutorials. Everything for basic 2d game should be easy.

#7

You can use mobage. It supports Android, iOS, and Flash.