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Beginning Android Games Paperback – November 7, 2012

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Mario Zechner (Author)
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Mario Zechner (Author), Robert Green (Author)
ISBN-13: 978-1430246770 ISBN-10: 1430246774 Edition: 2nd
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Product Details

  • Series: Beginning
  • Paperback: 714 pages
  • Publisher: Apress; 2 edition (November 5, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1430246774
  • ISBN-13: 978-1430246770
  • Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.6 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #172,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert Green is an mobile video game developer from Portland, OR who develops and publishes mobile games under the brand Battery Powered Games. He has developed over a dozen mobile games and graphically interactive apps for himself and clients in the last two years which include 2D and 3D action, puzzle, racing and casual games. Before diving full time into video game development, Robert worked for software companies in Minneapolis and Chicago including IBM Interactive. Robert's current focus is on cross platform game development and high performance mobile gaming.



Mario Zechner runs Badlogic Games, a game development shop focused on Android.

Customer Reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
5 star
70%
4 star
15%
3 star
3%
2 star
8%
1 star
5%
See all 40 customer reviews
Very nicely ordered and easy to understand.
TimP
This is essentially what the book does, it teaches you Android game programming by having you build a framework.
Dave
Start with a book about Java for beginners if you want to program on Android.
Peetah

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Second Times the Charm!
By Dave on December 26, 2012
Format: Paperback
A few things that make this book good:

-It's updated! I own the first version of this book (Beginning Android Games 4) which was suppose to cover Android 4.0, but in reality was just the an older version of the book originally meant for Android 2.3 masked with the words "Android 4.0". You could tell it was old due all the screenshots being from phones running Android 2.3 and all the references in the book being years upon years old. This book however fixes all of that, it has truly been updated to Android 4.0. The screenshots have been replaced with ones from Android 4.0 and all the references are contemporary, i.e. the Android OS pie chart is updated to August 2012. Though in terms of code, not much has really changed. However this is to expected as the Android SDK doesn't change drastically with every new OS release.

-It's easy to grasp. It gives you background information on Android and then takes you into basic operations like input and basic file I/O, then building a basic game afterwards. The chapter also flows a lot more nicely than the first edition as well.

-They're new chapters/section compared to the first edition, with bugs in the code ironed out. This point is to mainly to show that this edition overhauls the book and is not just a minor update with the words "second edition" on it to milk money (if only college textbooks were like that...). For example, there's a new chapter that discusses marketing and advertisement.

I do have to say though that it is a tad bit overwhelming at the start if you are just beginning with Java, though this does get better as you get further in the book because I do feel that the author explains everything nicely without being too over complicated and confusing.Read more ›
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Perfect for learning game programming and concepts etc.
By Quinma on February 6, 2013
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
I just finished reading and coding from all 678 pages of Mario Zechner's and Robert Green's book Beginning Android Games 2nd edition and I wanted to give others insight into my findings about the book.
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Android-Games-Mario-Zechner/dp/1430246774/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360183484&sr=1-1&keywords=beginning+android+games+2nd+edition

First off I would like to say that I am completely satisfied with the purchase of this book.
I was attempting to write my first games based off random blogs and articles online and I was totally missing many important concepts and wasting time.

Also, please note this is not a LibGDX book. I actually bought it thinking that it was but I learned way more than I ever knew in creating a custom framework.

Usable for Beginners [9/10]
Yes if you have never made a game before this book walks you through every step of the way. If you have never or have very limited experience on programming then I do not think this book is for you since games are a rather more advanced form of programming.

Readability [10/10]
This book is written in a light helpful tone that really holds your hand the whole time. It made the experience fun and sometimes funny.

Grammer and spelling mistake proof[8/10]
There are a few mistakes in this book, sometimes even the code is incorrect. Using the mode [...] uses with a book bug bounty might pay off and keep amazon from getting a % of your profits.

Correctness of Concepts[10/10]
I am not a professional developer however I do my research and I have found no faults with this book.Read more ›
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Very Good, but a few minor issues
By Enginerd1701 on March 28, 2013
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
The good:

This is basically a class in a book. For the most part, explanations are very detailed. Other than a basic knowledge of Java, not much is assumed. The framework developed during the book is well designed, understandable, and usable. The topics covered are not only applicable to game programming, but are useful for general Android development. Even for someone not interested in game development, this would be a fine book to get you on the road to writing Android Apps. It's certainly much better than the other 2 Android development books I own, which read like dictionaries.

The bad:

There are several mistakes in the text, though the ones I have noticed are pretty obvious. The code is also just a little bit raw in some places - for example in one place he declares a variable to store the return value of a method, but then calls the exact same method a few lines later. Also, in a couple of places, he glosses over what could be useful explanations - for example why a generic "Pool" class cannot directly implement a method to create new objects. None of those issues, though, would be enough for me to subtract a star from the rating. My biggest complaint is that, for a book published at the end of 2012, the code is complicated unnecessarily in order to support VERY old versions of Android. I understand and agree with the desire to deal with fragmentation, but the code is all written to support API 3, which currently has 0% market share. I would have like to see the compatibility go back only as far as API 7, which is supported on over 99% of devices. Still, I just removed the old, crusty code, and the framework cleans up nicely.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

I had to look up a few things online because I couldn't find the info...

I gave this a five star due to being very informative for the most part. I had to look up a few things online because I couldn't find the info in the book but it is very nice for... Read more

Published 4 months ago by josh
Four Stars

Great book sadly it won't be getting any more updates :(

Published 4 months ago by Zenith
Needs to be updated

This book is great at explaining concepts, but the book needs to be updated so I can run the code that's in the book.

Published 7 months ago by Sean D Veal
Five Stars

The book is vreey good!

Published 8 months ago by Renan Willamy Bezerra Barbosa
e-readers are the best...

I only buy from two publishers...Apress and McGraw. These books are the best in fullfilling your educational needs. I've been in the computer industry since 1972... Read more

Published 8 months ago by R.G.
The best i bought.

There is no other like this book. I bought many others about this topic. This book show you the things that you real need to know about Android and Game Developemnt.

Published 9 months ago by Pedro Joppert
Two Stars

Not easy to read book dificult to hand in

Published 9 months ago by Sergio C. Figueroa
Not for beginners!!!

1. Do not buy this book if you are not proficient at java.

2. You also have to have quite an understanding of general computer science, the android sdk, xml, and a... Read more

Published 10 months ago by jonathan
Good game design primer, but was this edited?

I've been programming for a number of years, especially with Java (since the first public beta release). Still, Android development was somewhat of a mystery to me. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Chunky Bacon!
Bad for Beginners, especially the Kindle Version

While the book starts slow and easy, perfect for those who only know a little java, it quickly speeds up until few beginners would find it helpful. Read more

Published 11 months ago by Aedalus

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