1 Wiring Up

Getting started

Setting up the Java development environment

Installing Eclipse

Setting up the Android development environment

Installing the ADT plugin and linking Android SDK with Eclipse

The LibGDX Gradle combo

Using the Gradle setup application

A Hello World project

Importing Gradle projects to Eclipse

Running the project

Exploring the project

Displaying Hello World

Running demos

Running tests

The alternate LibGDX setup

2 Let There be Graphics!

The Thrust Copter game

A LibGDX app's life cycle

Creating the Thrust Copter project

The Game Scene

Populating the game scene

Displaying the graphics

The final game scene

Adding the plane animation

Texture packing

Handling multiple screen sizes and aspect ratios

3 Thou Shall Not Pass!

Piloting our plane

Navigating using touch input

Adding the different game states

Adding the pillar rocks

Collision with the pillars

Adding meteor rocks

Collision with the meteor rock

Making the game easier

4 Bring in the extras!

Refactoring time

Creating a ThrustCopterScene class

Creating our Game class instance

Using AssetManager

Time for pickups

Using a pickup class

Adding pickup logic

Heads Up Display (HUD) UI

Displaying text

Hiero – the BitmapFont creator tool

Special effects with particles

5 Scene 2 – The Menu

Introducing Scene2D

Adding a loading scene

Adding the menu scene

Creating scalable skins using 9-patch tool

6 Physics with Box2D

LibGDX with Box2D

Creating a Box2D world

Drawing the Box2D world

Handling collisions

Collision for pickups

7 The Amazing World of 3D

Introducing the third dimension

Creating 3D content

Playing with primitives

Rendering the ModelInstance classes

Loading 3D models

Playing animations

Interacting with 3D objects

3D frustum culling in LibGDX

3D particles with Flame

Using bullet physics

Creating the bullet world

Adding shadows

8 Saving Our Data

Implementing a local leaderboard

Filesystems and access permissions

Saving and displaying scores

Tile-based level design

Using Tiled

Loading TMX levels

9 Finishing Our Android Game

Using Google's offerings

Implementing Google Analytics tracking

Adding Google Mobile Ads

Leaderboard and achievements using Google Play services

Linking BaseGameUtils

Wiring with code

10 Time to Publish

Publishing the Android version

Preparing store listing

Publishing the iOS version

Testing the build on a device

Creating the IPA

Some useful resources and links

Overlap2D