Teach Yourself Game Programming for Android and Windows
computer game programming for profit and pleasure.
I am proud to announce that Teach Yourself Game Programming for Android and Windows has been released on Amazon Kindle worldwide. This eBook was generated in co-operation with the established indie game making community at http://forum.thegamecreators.com and was designed to address the needs of anyone interested in taking up game writing for the first time.
“Welcome to Teach Yourself App Game Kit, in this eBook I will teach you how to produce a fully working game. You don’t need to have any previous programming experience.” – extract from opening introduction.
Unlike the vast majority of programming books out there, Teach Yourself Game Programming for Android and Windows uses a live program example available on Google Play called The Space Fighter Project Alpha.
While at first glance this example may seem unexciting, the key point is that it covers everything a game needs to do. It keeps score, detects
collisions, gives you a specific goal, gains in difficulty the longer you play and makes the best use of your Android and Windows resources. The game is fast, and efficient, and the technologies you learn can be quickly adapted to any kind of game.
To find this book please visit http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yourself-Programming-Android-Windows-ebook/dp/B00BIQPIES/
or search any amazon site world wide the ASIN number B00BIQPIES
The following is the books table of contents.
Table of Contents
Introduction 9
1. Minimum System Requirements 9
2. How to use this book 9
3. What is The Space Fighter Project / The Space Fighter Project Alpha? 11
4. Your rights to this program 12
Phase I 13
1. Primer: Installation and IDE 14
1.1. Before we begin 14
1.2. Installation – Trial 15
1.3. Installation – Purchased 19
1.4. Launching App Game Kit for the first time with Administrator privileges 22
1.5. Running App Game Kit for the first time 23
1.6. Restoring the default layout 25
1.7. Project file structure 25
1.8. Creating your first project 30
1.9. Using the Toolbar, menu and shortcut keys 34
1.10. Projects Panel 38
2. Primer: What is programming and how does it work? 50
2.1. Introduction 50
2.2. Program 50
2.3. Programming languages 51
2.4. Human beings are the opposite of a computer 52
2.5. Basic Program Structure 53
2.6. App Game Kit commands 54
2.7. Program indentations 56
3. Primer: Core Language 59
3.1. Introduction 59
3.2. Creating your new project 62
3.3. Working with Identifiers 70
3.4. Working with Identifiers-1 72
3.5. Symbolically defining an Identifiers nature 73
3.6. Identifier as Integer 74
3.7. Identifier as Float 77
3.8. Identifier as String 79
3.9. Mathematics 79
3.10. Logic and decision making 84
3.11. Loops 90
3.12. Getting Input from the Keyboard 94
4. Primer: Working with graphics 104
4.1. Setting up your Visual Environment 105
4.2. Keeping your program under control 106
4.3. Understanding your virtual canvas 109
4.4. Creating your sprites 115
4.5. Working with Images 124
4.6. Assigning Images to sprites 130
4.7. Setting sprite data 133
4.8. Let’s Animate! 145
4.9. Getting sprite data 147
4.10. Getting the pointer 149
4.11. Answers 150
5. Program Course I 151
Phase II 175
1. Introduction 175
2. Primer II: Identifiers and beyond 177
2.1. Identification by As 177
2.2. #Constant values 179
2.3. Creating Types 183
2.4. Creating Arrays 187
2.5. Global vs Local 198
3. Primer II: Dividing and modularising your program 202
3.1. Introduction 202
3.2. Multiple files 203
3.3. Subroutines 204
3.4. Functions 209
3.5. Multiple files 224
4. Primer II: Permanent data storage 232
4.1. Saving and loading Identifiers 232
4.2. Creating a file 234
4.3. The files created on Windows 235
4.4. Loading data 238
4.5. Adding redundancy 240
4.6. line-by-line 244
4.7. Other advanced commands 249
5. Primer II: Text objects 251
6. Primer II: Decision making extended 281
6.1. Introduction 281
6.2. IF statements with multiple factors 281
6.3. AND 282
6.4. OR 286
6.5. XOR 289
6.6. NOT 291
6.7. The SELECT and CASE statement 294
7. Primer II: Playing sound and music files 301
7.1. Introduction 301
7.2. File formats 302
7.3. Re-encoding sound and music files 303
7.4. Files not playing or loading 323
7.5. Loading and playing music files 324
7.6. Loading and playing sound files 333
8. Primer II: Particles 341
8.1. Introduction 341
8.2. Creating an emitter 342
9. Primer II: AGK Player 379
9.1. Introduction 379
9.2. Installing AGK Player on PC 380
9.3. Installing AGK Player on Android 385
10. Primer II: Mobile and tablet input 388
10.1. Introduction 388
10.2. Single touch 390
10.3. Text Input 396
10.4. Virtual Buttons 398
10.5. Virtual Joystick 411
10.6. Accelerometer 414
10.7. Multi-touch 425
11. Program Course II 431
11.1. Introduction 431
11.2. main.agc 432
11.3. media.agc 446
11.4. menu.agc 456
11.5. game.agc 467
11.6. files and score keeping.agc 483
11.7. Full source code 495
Reference Section 544
1. Scan code cheat sheet 544
2. Building a Tier 1 Android App with Windows, 1.065 546
2.1. Introduction 546
2.2. Software installation and setup 557
2.3. Making your own App 609
2.4. Testing your game 623
2.5. Optional Extra’s 633
2.6. Submitting your App to Google Play 640
3. Other guides and resources 642
4. Phone and tablet resolutions 643
4.1. Apple Tablets 643
4.2. Tablet Resolutions (Android) 643
4.3. Phone Resolutions (Android) 646
4.4. Blackberry tablet 655
