Hi there, and welcome to the world of Android game development. You came here to learn about game development on Android, and we hope to be the people who enable you to realize your ideas.

Together we’ll cover quite a range of materials and topics: Android basics, audio and graphics programming, a little math and physics, OpenGL ES, an intro to the Android Native Development Kit (NDK), and finally, publishing, marketing, and making money from your game. Based on all this knowledge, we’ll develop three different games, one of which is even 3D.

Game programming can be easy if you know what you’re doing. Therefore, we’ve tried to present the material in a way that not only gives you helpful code snippets to reuse, but actually shows you the big picture of game development. Understanding the underlying principles is the key to tackling ever more complex game ideas. You’ll not only be able to write games similar to the ones developed over the course of this book, but you’ll also be equipped with enough knowledge to go to the Web or the bookstore and take on new areas of game development on your own.