As the title suggests, this is a beginner-level book on game development. It gives a quick introduction to setting up the Android development environment, designing a game, creating a game engine and renderer (assets that are reusable across multiple games), and then writing game-specific code. All of this is done using an example game called Droid Runner throughout the text.

Aspects related to the use of virtual cameras, lighting, and audio in a game are also discussed. The final chapter goes into the details of publishing a game on Google Play Store, Google’s official distribution channel for Android developers. There are four very brief appendices on setting up the Android development environment, hardware relevant to game development, C++ programming, and vector and matrix manipulation.

The author tries to cover a lot of ground in this text, so none of the topics are covered in extreme detail. Only the most important elements are discussed, and the reader is advised to refer to other sources or to step through the code provided with the book to gain a more complete understanding of the material.

As such, this book is only good for those who are familiar with event-driven and object-oriented programming paradigms, the C++ language, and those who wish to quickly grasp the nuts and bolts of game development using the Android game development environment. Complete novices to computer programming, instructors wanting to teach game development, and those looking for a more complete treatment of Android C++ game development will be disappointed.

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