Pro Android Games (Books for Professionals by Professionals) [Paperback]

Vladimir Silva (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1430226471 | ISBN-13: 978-1430226475 | Publication Date: December 28, 2009 | Edition: 1st Edition.

Android is Google’s software platform answer to the iPhone and BlackBerry, and at the very least, has advantages in terms of multitasking, running apps in the background and others.

Google’s partners in the Open Handset Alliance – supporting Android -- provide the devices, with HTC G1 and G2 already available now and 18 more Google Phones set to debut later this year according to Google I/O Conference news.

Pro Android 2 Games is the first book on Android Games development, and one of the first on Android 2.0. This book is a detailed look at building classic and fun games from scratch or porting classic games from other platforms to Android.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Vladimir Silva holds a master's degree in computer science from Middle Tennessee State University. He worked for four years for IBM as a research engineer where he acquired extensive experience in distributed and grid computing research. Vladimir is a highly technical, focus-based individual and team player. He belongs to two National Honor Societies and has published many computer science articles for IBM and is author of Grid Computing for Developers (Charles River Media, 2005).

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1st Edition. edition (December 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430226471
• ISBN-13: 978-1430226475
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #108,332 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Vladimir Silva was born in Quito, Ecuador. He received a System's Analyst degree from the Polytechnic Institute of the Army in 1994. In the same year, he came to the United States as an exchange student pursuing an M.S. degree in Computer Science at Middle Tennessee State University. After graduation, he joined the IBM WebAhead technology think tank. His interests include Grid Computing, Neural Nets, and Artificial Intelligence. He also holds numerous IT certifications including OCP, MCSD, and MCP. He has written many technical articles for IBM developerWorks in the fields of grid computing, and security.

Here is a list Vladimir's technical papers:

1. Crunch big numbers with GT3 using a quadratic sieve. http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-factor/

2. Advanced UI design for GNOME. http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-slik/

3. Globus Toolkit 4 Early Access: WSRF. http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-gt4early/

4. Secure Java apps on Linux using MD5 crypt. http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-md5crypt/

5. Design skinnable Java UIs for media players with native performance. http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-slik/

6. Manage X.509 certificates in your grid with Java Certificate Services.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-jsc/

7. IBM WebSphere Developer Technical Journal: GT3 and WebSphere compatibility
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/techjournal/0310_silva/silva.html

8.Using Java with Globus Grid Security Infrastructure
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-ggsi.html

9. The Master Managed Job Factory Service (MMJFS)
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-factory/

10. Set up a grid job scheduler with the Globus Toolkit 3.2.x
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-sched/

11. Build a data grid with the Storage Resource Broker.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-srb/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect, August 7, 2010

By 

ericstob (Redmond, WA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pro Android Games (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

I recently bought 6 android/game development books to get the information I want, and read all of them from cover to cover.

This is the only one I needed, the rest were either too theoretical or irrelevant.

This one really hits the nail on the head and gives me exactly what I need to make games.

However it was written before the NDK came out, ignore everything the book says about the ARM toolset because it is included in the NDK.

Another thing - they should have mentioned the possibility of using game engines instead of writing your own from scratch.
The two commercial engines that you care about are ShiVa and Unity. And for open source - Irrlicht.
Big advantage with these engines - you can easily port your game to iPhone and other platforms too.

33 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Rushjob, but it delivers the goods, January 9, 2010

By 

Scott Legrand (Santa Cruz, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pro Android Games (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

This book will be obsolete ~6 months from now after the Android team removes its collective cranium from its collective digestive endpoint in response to the IPhone continuing to clobber it with better games despite the frustratingly unexposed hardware superiority of recent Android phones like the Droid and the Nexus One. And that time will be the moment they release the Android equivalent of DirectX. Interpreted Java without a JIT to back it up crossed with some very limited media APIs just isn't enough to compete with compiled C and a much more robust media API on the IPhone. And I apologize for the short editorial, but I need it to set the stage for why you should indeed buy this book even though it will soon be irrelevant.

For if you need to write native-level games now, this is the book to buy, now. It's full of typos, it needed another round of proofreading, and it's already dated somewhat by NDK 1.6, but it shows how to get games like Wolf3D and Doom running in C on the Android and it's in print rather than out there on a set of disparate web pages. There's nothing else out there like it at the moment.

5 stars for content as it really does deliver on the goods and 3 stars for coherency and lack of sufficient proofreading.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Just what I needed, a little old, March 1, 2011

By 

Jesse - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pro Android Games (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

I like the book a lot. It's exactly what I was looking for: using Java with native code for game dev on Android. The only problem is that it's on Android 1.6, which is rather old at this point. The concepts are still applicable, though.