As personal computers have conquered our private homes, video games have become more and more popular and eventually a multimillion dollar business for big video game companies. With the introduction of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, the market for video games has experienced another significant increase; in particular, it has now become open to independent game developers with small budgets.

For game developers, it is essential to have tools at hand that provide fundamentals that allow rapid prototyping and cost-effective implementation of their creative ideas. This is where LibGDX comes into play. LibGDX, as a Java-based game development framework, provides a unified access layer to handle all the supported platforms. LibGDX also makes use of C/C++ to achieve cross-platform support as well as to boost the application performance for mission critical tasks.

This book will show you how easy it is to develop cross-platform games by walking you through a complete game development cycle using the free and open source library—LibGDX. Besides this, you will also learn about common game structure and the involved requirements.

You will be introduced to the key features of LibGDX. You will also learn how to develop a game with ease and speed up your development cycles. In ten easy-to-follow chapters, you will develop your first LibGDX cross-platform game and add more and more game functionalities as you progress further through this book.

The special features will also make you acquainted with advanced programming techniques such as animations, physics simulations, and shader programs that enhance your games in both their gameplay and visual presentation.

By the end of this book, you will have a fully working 2D game that will run on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, WebGL-capable browsers, Android, and iOS. You will also have all the skills required to extend the game further or to start developing your own cross-platform games.