Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 12
Building A Game Prototyping Tool for
Android Mobile Devices
Gustavo Samour
You never truly know where inspiration will come from, or when it will happen. A game developer can be caught off
guard at home, on the subway, or while on vacation. Forgetting an idea because one was not able to write it down
can be a frustrating feeling. And, while finding a pen and paper is easy, oftentimes these tools are not robust enough
to fully capture the essence of an idea. Sometimes something more sophisticated, like a game prototyping tool, is
necessary to test and better express a concept. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then an interactive demo is
worth a million.
We are used to seeing these tools on personal computers such as workstations and laptops. If inspiration strikes
while at home or in the office, developers can boot up their machines and get to work. But if inspiration strikes
while on the move, there's a good chance a long time will pass before having access to a computer. Fortunately,
smartphones and tablets are powerful enough to run a game prototyping tool, and they are practical enough to allow
us to use such a tool while we are out and about.
This chapter will show you how to write your own mobile game prototyping tool using AngelScript
1
. The
first section provides basic information on how to set up your PC for Android programming. Those well versed in
Android development, however, may want to skip the section on getting ready. The meat of this article is the script
engine implementation in native code, and its integration with Java via the Java Native Interface. JNI is a standard
programming interface for writing Java native methods
2
.
Getting Ready for Development
This first section explains the purpose of this chapter and provides a description of the software to be written.
There is also a message on scope, as there is more to the subject than can be covered in these pages. A list of required
tools is shown, with a description of each one. And finally, you will find a brief explanation of the code structure for
the software.
2
Oracle Corporation. “JNI APIs and Developer Guides.” Accessed April 9, 2014.
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/
