Customer Reviews

Creating Mobile Games: Using Java ME Platform to Put the Fun into Your Mobile Device and Cell Phone (Technology in Action)

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This is a pretty good book on creating mobile games for the Java platform. The author does not assume that you already have a working knowledge of the tools involved, so she starts by introducing you to these tools to give you a general idea of what is involved. Next she covers what you must do to set up your computer for Java Micro Edition game development and how to get your games running on an actual target device. Then, once you have your development environment up and running, you can begin building and modifying the book's examples. The book website at Apress has all of the source code for the examples available for you to download. The author assumes you already know Java programming with Java Standard Edition, and that you already know something about designing a game - this is not a book on the theory of game design. The point of this book is to show you how to do all of this with Java ME. Even multi-player gaming is explored by showing how to write a program for a game of checkers using Java ME. The following is the table of contents:

1. Getting Started 1
2. Using MIDlets 21
3. Using the MIDP 2 Games API 53
4. Using Threads and Media 95
5. Storing and Retrieving Data 131
6. Using Network Communications 193
7. Advanced Messaging and Data Access 263
8. Securing Your Applications 305
9. The Mobile 3D Graphics API 317
10. Adding a Professional Look and Feel 351

You can carry some of the ideas into other types of applications, but this book is very much focused on Java mobile games. For that purpose it is highly recommended.

The book is not for the beginners. It contains useful information but I had to browse through some other sources in order to write my first simple game for the cell phone.

Unfortunately, it assumes I know everything in advance. I'm a beginner in the platform and the language. Neither the platform nor the language are introduced or explained. Syntax, what syntax? Primitives? Verbs?

I couldn't believe it. The standard "Hello World" starting place took place one third into the book and required maybe 10 to 15 lines of code.

Nothing about sound.

Long paragraphs.