Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Setting Up Your Machine
In this topic I will install and use Android SDK 5.0.1 for Windows 7.
There are a few steps to be completed before you can get to the nitty-gritty stuff of building
games for Android. Follow these steps:
1.
The first and most basic thing you need is a current Java JDK 7.
Make sure you have the proper version installed before proceeding.
This topic uses JDK version 8 64-bit.
2.
Download and install the Android SDK 5.0.1. The SDK contains the
core resources to develop for Android.
3.
Configure Android Studio 1.0.1.
4.
Install the NDK if you don't have it. This is a critical component for
any kind of game that uses native APIS such as OpenGL. At the time
of this writing, I used r10c Windows 64-bit. All in all, keep in mind
that Android 5.0 is not binary compatible with older NDK versions,
which means that if you have an old NDK, you have to update it.
5.
Create an emulator. This is an optional step that will help you with
testing your games in many API versions and screen sizes.
6.
Configure a real device. I prefer to work in a real device because it is
so much faster than using an emulator and is the best way to work if
you use OpenGL.
Download and Install the SDK
Download the latest version of the Android Studio 1.0.1 for Windows from
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html#win-bundle
and install it (in my case
named android-studio-bundle-135.1641136.exe).
Note
Some of the code included in this topic was developed, compiled and tested using the
Eclipse IDE for Java Developers and Android SDK Tools instead of Android Studio 1.0.1 since when
this manuscript was written, NDK and JNI were not supported by Android Studio.
Configure Android Studio
The very first step will be to run the Android SDK Manager to update all the needed APIs and
libraries.
To run the SDK Manager from Android Studio, select Tools ➤ Android ➤ SDK Manager
(see Figure
1-1
).
