Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
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Lack of an open audio library
: I consider this to be a serious limitation. Audio is
critical in gaming, and most vendors nowadays try to use open APIs such Open
Audio Library (AL) or the standard Linux sound devices. Up to version 2.0,
Android uses the SoniVox Enhanced Audio System (EAS).
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Lack of streaming audio
: This is another serious issue. I found the lack of
streaming audio to be the most frustrating thing about Android. I don't mind
learning the EAS audio API, but the darn thing doesn't even support audio
streaming? Audio streaming is critical and used extensively by Wolfenstein 3D and
Doom in Chapters 6 and 7. To overcome this shortcoming, I was forced to cascade
audio events to the Java layers, put the soundtracks in external files, and have the
MediaPlayer
handle them. In Android, you are boxed in by the MediaPlayer.
Although I have heard that Google is planning support for OpenAL (audio library);
this would be a good move.
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Lack of support for native development
: I am happy to see that Google has realized
how critical native development support will be if Android is to become a
competitor in the mobile gaming arena. With the release of the Android NDK 1.6,
things have improved greatly, but Android still lags behind the iPhone OS in this
field.
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Only basic OpenGL ES implementation
: As of version 1.5 of the SDK, Android
implemented OpenGL ES 1.x. The iPhone OS has been supported OpenGL ES 2.0
for a long time now. Although I am happy to report that, with firmware 2.0,
Android implements OpenGL ES 2.0, development in this area still lags behind the
iPhone.
On the other hand, Android has some great features that make it a serious contender as a mobile
development platform:
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Open source
: An army of developers is out there ready to build code for this open
platform, and new devices are popping out all the time.
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Built on Linux
: I love Linux, and I am always ready to support development in this
beautiful OS. It is a masterpiece of software engineering.
Multitasking
: multitasking as an advantage is in the eye of the beholder (I am not
sure where to put this one). In one hand, there are some who say that multitasking
is great for social networking applications, because you can have multiple
background processes feeding you information, but detractors claim that it hogs
the CPU resources and diminishes battery life. I have to go with the detractors on
this one.
All in all, I am happy to see that, with the release of the NDK 1.6, Google is realizing the need for native
development if Android is to be serious contender to the iPhone OS for gaming. Android has a way to go
to catch up, but the platform development seems to run at a tremendous pace. Android versus the
iPhone OS—I can't wait to see who wins. At the moment, my money is on the iPhone OS, but my heart is
with Android.
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