Plane Game

This game was created as a practice of LibGDX (Multiplatform Open Source Game Framework). The book “LibGDX Game Development Essentials” by Packt Publishing teaches this game framework developing this project (Originally called ThrustCopter). My intention is to share this game and my experience with this book.

[ Game Instructions ]

1) How to control the plane? Tap around the plane to move it away from the touching point.

2) Collect Bolts (fuel), Shields (invulnerability) and Stars (points).

3) Avoid the roof, floor, pillars and meteors. It’s dangerous to fly there.

4) How far can you travel? Check the leader-board and see your top scores. Enjoy..!

[ LibGDX ]

This framework is one of the most used currently. It is multiplatform, fast, and reliable. There are many communities making it better every day. Its documentation is decent and you can find several samples out there. All you need is to know JAVA.

This framework is a little bit hard to master. AndEngine by example is a lot easier. You just need time to adapt. I don’t know how these guys managed to get java games running that fast. I mean, Cocos2d-x uses C++ and run slower.

To be able to deploy your project on any OS out there (Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS, Web, etc) is invaluable. I smile every time I run my project without running the classic Android (slow motion) Emulator. This is a game changer for me.

I couldn’t get it properly running on Android Studio but in Eclipse was easy.

[ LibGDX Game Development Essentials ] 7/10

The best about this book is that it covers almost everything: Setup LibGDX, basic stuff, animation, resources, Scene2D/Actors/Actions, Box2D, 3D, tiled maps, Ads + Android achievements (Google Play services), Debug Draw, etc.

The project Thrust Copter is beautiful and enjoyable. I love this game.

This book also encourages you to try all the different tools out there (Hiero, 2D Particle Editor, Texture Packer, Tiled, Overlap 2D, etc).

I really like the way this author implements menus (preferences, leader-board). This author makes everything works in a simple way. Some tips in this book are invaluable. I consider myself a seasoned developer but I have to say that I learned a couple of tricks with this book.

This book is not perfect, but I would still recommend it to anyone who wanted to learn this framework in a very short time.

What’s wrong with it? Well to be honest it is a little bit hard to follow and I would have not finished the game if I hadn’t downloaded the source code to discover all the modifications uncovered (not explained inside the book). I’m not a fan of his coding style. I mean, all the code is together (may be faster but not the best practice). The author shows you lines of code and he simply hopes you guess where to put them. He let you infer a lot of it. But at the end of the day I understand the limitations of space.

I’m a bit confused yet about when to use ApplicationAdapter, Game, ScreenAdapter or Scene2D. What’s the Life cycle? How to dispose the scenes? The loading screen is a sort of black box (just put those files there and ready).

I could say that it worth every penny. No regrets. My criticism is just based in my personal preferences and every developer is different. I learned a lot and it was fun and challenging.

[ Plane Game ]

It is similar to Flappy bird but not that hard. It is much better in several aspects IMHO. I could say that I choose this book ever others mainly for the game but I changed the name of the project from the beginning because there is no Helicopter in this game.

100% free. NO ADS.

All the graphics are available at:

http://opengameart.org/users/kenney

There is an “Official version” of this game available if you want to check it out:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.csharks.thrustcopter

You can get the source code providing your email on “Packt Publishing” web site.

https://www.packtpub.com/game-development/libgdx-game-development-essentials