Appsterdam Guru Session: Tools for Android Game Development

Appsterdam Guru Sessions are informal, very hands-on workshops to share a technology or a technique between developers. Explanation from your peers, open discussion and practical experience are key to these sessions.

On March 24, Raul Portales of The Pill Tree (http://thepilltree.com/) will present a hands-on session on tools you can use for Android game development. He'll be assisted by members of Johan Pelgrim and members of The Dutch Android User Group (http://www.dutchaug.org/events/51448682/?eventId=51448682&action=detail).

When thinking about building a game for Android, one can write it from scratch. Or you can look for tools, libraries and engines that already exist so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. We did that at The Pill Tree for both Chalk Ball and Space Cat, both games have different requirements and the solutions we found were also different. In this session I will summarize the strong and weak points of AndEngine and jPCT-AE and the uses you can make of them. I will also give a brief explanation of other libraries that are interesting, such as ScoreLoop / OpenFeint for scores and awards and give a short introduction to virtual currency and incentivated ads. After the talk, I will provide the people with the samples of both engines and we will play around with them. The event is at the fabulous Mediamatic Bank location, and best of all we'll round off the afternoon with Pizza and Beer.

Agenda:

9:30 - 10:00 - Doors open, developers gather, coffee, environment check

10:00 - 12:00 - Getting started: Presentations and exploration of Android game development tools

12:00 - 17:00 - Lunch, "Hackathon" style guided learning with a team

17:00 - Pizza and beer!

This session is targeted at developers. Basic Android knowledge recommended, knowledge of 2D / 3D concepts is not necessary but will not harm. You will need to bring a laptop with the following software installed and ready: Java 7 SE JDK (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/java-se-jdk-7-download-432154.html), Eclipse IDE for Java Developers (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/), Android SDK release 13 (http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html), and the ADT Plugin for Eclipse (http://developer.android.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html). Whew! Here's a pretty good guide (http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html) if you get lost.

We ask a €25 registration fee (20 if you have a Mediamatic membership) to cover expenses and food. Space is limited to 30 people, so please notify us if you need to cancel before the session.

Speakers Bio:

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/8/9/a/0/event_92375232.jpegRaul is a Spanish Software Engineer who started writing MSX programs for fun when he was 12 and he still enjoys his development role today. Raul has been working in the IT industry since 2004, but is focused on mobile development since 2006. That includes Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android and iPhone. Android is by far his favorite. He has worked at Hyves, Layar and -of course- The Pill Tree (http://thepilltree.com), an Android gaming company based in Amsterdam, where he develops Android games. Raul has several hobbies including Juggling and playing Magic, which explains his personal projects on Android Market.