Learning Libgdx Game Development: Are your games limited to one platform? Use our practical guide to libGDX and before long you'll be developing games that run across multiple platforms, enjoying an increased audience and revenue.

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4.4 (10 Ratings)

Paperback Sep 2013 388 pages 1st Edition

$48.99

Paperback Sep 2013 388 pages 1st Edition

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Key benefits

Create a libGDX multi-platform game from start to finish
Learn about the key features of libGDX that will ease and speed up your development cycles
Write your game code once and run it on a multitude of platforms using libGDX
An easy-to-follow guide that will help you develop games in libGDX successfully

Description

Game development is a field of interdisciplinary skills, which also makes it a very complex topic in many respects. One decision that usually needs to be made at the beginning of a game development processis to define the kind of computer system or platform the game will be developed for. This does not pose any problems in general but as soon as the game should also be able to run on multiple platforms it will become a developer's nightmare to maintain several distinct copies of the same game. This is where the libGDX multi-platform game development framework comes to the rescue! "Learning Libgdx Game Development" is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with all the information you need to know about the libGDX framework as well as game development in general so you can start developing your own games for multiple platforms. You will gradually acquire deeper knowledge of both, libGDX and game development while you work through twelve easy-to-follow chapters. "Learning Libgdx Game Development" will walk you through a complete game development cycle by creating an example game that is extended with new features over several chapters. These chapters handle specific topics such as organizing resources, managing game scenes and transitions, actors, a menu system, using an advanced physics engine and many more. The chapters are filled with screenshots and/or diagrams to facilitate comprehension. "Learning Libgdx Game Development" is the book for you if you want to learn how to write your game code once and run it on a multitude of platforms using libGDX.

Who is this book for?

This book is great for Indie and existing game developers, as well as those who want to get started with game development using libGDX. Java game knowledge of game development basics is recommended.

What you will learn

Learn about libGDX and prepare your system for multi-platform game development
Speed up your overall productivity with the awesome JVM Code Hot Swapping feature
Create a project setup and test the base code required for game building
Use Scene2D to create and organize complex menu structures
Use the texture packer to automate the creation of texture atlases
Replace the default launcher icon with your own app icon
Manage and play audio files and add special effects to a game to improve its look and feel
Create and use texture atlases for optimized sprite rendering

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Product Details

Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13

Publication date : Sep 23, 2013

Length: 388 pages

Edition : 1st

Language : English

ISBN-13 : 9781782166047

Vendor :

Eclipse Foundation

Category :

Game Development

Languages :

Java

Concepts :

3D Game Development

Tools :

LibGDX

What do you get with Print?

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Paperback book shipped to your preferred address

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Frequently bought together

Libgdx Cross-platform Game Development Cookbook

$54.99

Learning LibGDX Game Development- Second Edition

$54.99

$48.99

Total $ 158.97

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Amazon verified reviews

Bob Jan 15, 2014

This book is worth its money if you want to get to know libgdx, a very elaborate and usable solution to multi platform game development, and the processes of developing games, from planning to implementation.I have already been involved in a few smaller game development projects but have not had any coding practice in this area. On top of that has been some time since I last used Java. I feared my rather basic Java skills were already too rusty. When I started reading this book it has shown me that this would be no problem."If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." -a quote often accredited to Albert Einstein.Accordingly the author, Andreas Oehlke, does a wonderful job at selecting a suitable level to put the topics across keeping everything as simple as possible. The demand versus simplicity are examplary well balanced. Some basic knowlege of Java is required and knowing how to work with eclipse or at least having used the Android SDK could not hurt but is not mandatory. Still, a lot is being explained quickly and pragmatically from the ground up. Beginners and people with a bit ageing Java experience, like myself, should not hesitate to try libgdx with this book. The language is kept simple, without too sophisticated terms and many screenshots will guide you through the installation routines as well as the handling of the mighty IDE eclipse.On the other hand experienced Java developers will also have a great benefit by getting to know the libgdx framework, its mechanisms and features and the game development lifecycle. If the reader already has some proper Java development experience a few pages can be skimmed through.The book's clear structure starts with an introduction of libgdx, its features and setting everything up for each platform. Afterwards all aspects of game development and libgdx features are pragmatically exlained with the example game application calledd "Canyon Bunny" which is a quite complex 2d side scrolling platformer game. This serves as a fun and motivating example - as opposed to many dry and sterile example projects of other software development books. Later some advanced techniques for game development are introduced such as particle systems, physics and shader programming.

Amazon Verified review

Amazon Customer Feb 27, 2014

I had a desire to do something arcade-like for Android and further fueled by the promise of an apparently slick, easy to learn library that can allow you to develop for iPhone, desktop and HTML5 with the exact same code base as your Android game- I thought I would try out this book.I fired up my PC and got to work. 3 hours later I was still wrestling with the vagaries of Eclipse and I am not ashamed to say it almost broke me. But once the setup of Eclipse and LibGDX was complete I started to experience the pure wonder (no exaggeration) of LibGDX, well explained by the author of the book.For example the introduction to chapter 5 explained that we would plan the layout of a level and and implement the code for a level loader. Clearly things were about to get complicated? But no. This single chapter explained how to make a graphical map of a level, write a simple class to translate the graphics into a real, fully drawn, including a simple GUI, level- from the graphical assets we had previously discussed and written code for.Almost every chapter was the same roller coaster ride. Oh no here comes a tough topic. Ahh.. that was easy. Chapter 11 was the exception. That was tough.So if you already know a modest amount of Java you could be tweaking your first platform or arcade game in a few days. I hope the author writes another book to cover 3d games with LibGDX.

Konsument Dec 09, 2013

I recently got a copy of this book for professional purposes and thought to comment on it. My conclusion after reading the book is that it’s well worth its money. Do not hesitate much! No matter if you are new to libGDX and looking for the perfect tool for a multi-platform project, you are already acquainted and you want to have a solid libGDX reference around or you want to learn how a game is made – this book is the right choice.First, I want to congratulate the author, Andreas Oehlke, for his high level of expertise. It immediately becomes apparent that he has worked on many game projects, used many tools and has a profound know-how in the field. He's in my eyes a true professional with passion for the material. The way he explains new concepts and his actions throughout the book is simply great. He focuses on understanding through simplicity instead of trying to impress using complex incomprehensible terms. Reading the book will make you feel the effective knowledge gain instead of becoming more and more frustrated, because you cannot follow.The book's structure is very clear and understandable. The author first introduces libGDX and provides a short overview of the library’s features. He gives an elaborate tutorial of how to setup libGDX for the different platforms annotated with a huge amount of screenshots demonstrating each small step. I was very satisfied with that, for it considers novice readers without any knowledge of the required technologies and, to a certain extent, readers without any development experience at all. For some unknown reason, no other multi-platform game frameworks are mentioned though. The choice of libGDX would’ve been much better motivated on the background of a comparison of the different options available.The author than proceeds to show nearly every aspect of libGDX by developing a humorous platformer entitled “Canyon Bunny” step-by-step, introducing new features incrementally. The game’s main character is a cartoony bunny head that gives you a nearly lethal dose of cuteness. Surprisingly, by the end of the book we have an advanced game of quite complex dynamics. It’s not the typical tutorial game with limited scope, no, “Canyon Bunny” supports levels of arbitrary sizes and could get challenging… It features dying and respawning, a finite number of lives, special effects including a carrot blizzard, different game screens, a game options dialog etc. And the best thing is, you will not even feel the level of complexity rising, because it’s happening very gradually. I send all my compliments to the author for his marksmanship at designing and coding. At no point during the book I felt overwhelmed or confused, though I have previous experience developing multi-platform games.By the last chapter, the reader has a very solid picture of the libGDX ecosystem and should be able to freely use it for her own projects. I was missing a short explanation of how real-world scenarios like adding banner ads, connecting the application to social websites and synchronizing highscores can be handled. Also, no methods for the development of multiplayer games are discussed. I found it amazing that the author introduces you to different game development tools like physical shape editors and music / sound generators. Some were new to me as well. I previously had no idea how easy to use sfxr is. Studying and repeating the code exercises is time well spent. The reader also gets a fairly good idea of the magic that drives a game. There seems to be some some misunderstanding regarding the compatibility of the code with the latest versions of libGDX. The book was developed using the version 0.9.7. Naturally, the library has evolved a bit since then due to the active development cycle and community-driven behaviour. This is not an issue at all, however. As of now, you can get the game running on the latest version by fixing just a couple of self-explanatory compile-time issues. Taking a small look at the current API documentation makes it even easier.The book misses a proper ending though. It ends rather abruptly right after the last technical chapter. There is no real overview or closing words. Instead the author wishes us good fortune within the summary of the final chapter. The lack of a proper summary is, of course, not necessary as the book still covers all the material, but it was unusual in any case.On the publisher side I have to criticize the formatting of the book. The text is unjustified for no apparent reason and the figures, diagrams etc. are unlabeled which makes searches difficult. These problems are solvable with a minimal effort.I hope this is useful to someone!

James Seibel Oct 22, 2013

I'm a professional software engineer, and I was interested in game development using libgdx. Online libgdx tutorials are scattered around various websites, and didn't fully explain how to create games end-to-end. This book obviously took a lot of effort. It is methodically and logically organized to help you understand how to create animated games, and includes several data structures and techniques to help you. Very well written, I've already recommended the book to several other people.

Warzecha Maxence Jan 03, 2014

Really good quality and a lot to learn for beginners. End to end game development with advanced "tips" at the end.

Learning Libgdx Game Development: Are your games limited to one platform? Use our practical guide to libGDX and before long you'll be developing games that run across multiple platforms, enjoying an increased audience and revenue.

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