Android History

Android is developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google.

Android is an operating system for mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers. Android consists of a kernel based on the Linux kernel, with middleware, libraries and APIs written in C and application software running on an application framework which includes Java-compatible libraries based on Apache Harmony. Android has a large community of developers writing applications that extend the functionality of the devices, usually developers write primarily in a customized version of Java.

Initial developer of this software was Android, Inc. Android Inc was founded by Andy Rubin and Danger in the year 2003. It was situated at Palo Alto, California, United States. They were developing softwares for smarter mobile phones that were more aware of its owner’s location and preferences. Android Inc. operated secretly, revealing only that it was working on software for mobile phone.

On November 5, 2007 the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of several companies which include HTC, Intel, Marvell Technology, Broadcom Corporation, Motorola, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, T-mobile, Sprint Nextel, LG, Google, Samsung Electronics unveiled itself, The main goal of the Open Handset Alliance was to develop open standards for mobile devices. Later On December 9, 2008, Atheros Communications, Asustek Computer Inc, Garmin Ltd, huawei Technologies, Vodafone Group Plc, Toshiba Corp, Softbank and ARM holdings joined the open standards community.

Open Handset Unveiled their first product, Android which was built on the Linux kernel version 2.6, The android logo was designed along with the Droid Font family made by Ascender Corporation.

Recent Version releases:

2.3 Gingerbread

3.0 Honeycomb

3.1 Honeycomb

3.2 Honeycomb

4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

In 2005 Google acquired Android Inc. it made android inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Google Inc. But the founders stayed with the company at the time of acquisition; At Google the team led by Rubin developed a mobile device platform by the Linux kernel. Google marketed the platform to handset makers and carriers on the premise of providing a flexible, upgrading system. Google actually wanted its search and applications on mobile phones and it was working hard to deliver the best.

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Speed considerations

When your game runs slow it is normally due either to the use of scripts or because you are drawing
a lot of images in each step. Concerning graphics, take the following into account:
 Use particles when possible.
 If possible simply let GameMaker draw the instances by assigning the correct sprite to them.
If you draw the instances yourself by defining the Draw event this is normally slower (but
more flexible, so if you need it for your game, you should of course use it).
 Try to avoid redrawing the same area multiple times. For example, you could put button
images already on the background image and only define a virtual key area (see below). And
if you have multiple layers of backgrounds or borders, only draw the parts that are actually
visible.
 Split large images with a lot of transparent areas into sub-images that together are smaller.
E.g. if you have a border around your playfield, don’t use one large image that is transparent
in the middle but use four separate images instead. (Of course, don’t exaggerate. If you split
an image in 20 sub-images it will probably become slower again.
 Avoid a lot of text (text drawing means the drawing of many separate images, one for each
letter).

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Sprites, backgrounds, and tiles

You can use sprites, background images, and tiles the way you are used to in GameMaker (including
the use of color blending and alpha values). You cannot change background resources during game
play. You can though load sprite resources during game play. You can e.g. use this to show a series of
images without the need to put them all in the game (which would be using too much video
memory). Be careful though that all sprites you load will be stored in video memory. So you should
immediately delete a sprite you loaded when you don’t need it anymore. So to show a series of
images you would typically in code add a sprite resource from a file, display it, delete it, add a new
one, etc.
You should realize that sprites are far more optimized in the iOS and Android runner than the use of
backgrounds. Hence you are recommended to use backgrounds only as actual backgrounds in rooms
and for all other purposes use sprites. Although you can use tiles.
You can use particle systems and are recommended to use this  rather than using many different
instances whenever possible. Particle systems are much, much quicker than using many instances,
even if those instances only have a create event. They are also much simpler to optimize if you need
even more performance out of them down the line.
Make sure that for all images, sprites and backgrounds you have the rights to use them in a
commercial game. It works best is your team creates all of these itself. If not, better make sure you
have printed, signed statements that you have the right to use them. It is normally better to pay for
them than to get them for free. In that way it is clearer that you indeed have the rights. We demand
excellent quality graphics. Your game must stand out among the competitions. Otherwise it will be
difficult to sell it

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Display resolution

The display of the new iPhone 4 has a resolution of 960x640 pixels (or 640x960 in portrait mode).
The older iPhone 3 has a resolution of 480x320. You are strongly advised to design your game for the
iPhone 4 resolution, that is, 960x640 pixels. When the game is then run on an older iPhone 3 it is
automatically scaled down to 480x320, so there is nothing you need to do for this. You will lose
some detail in the images but because the display is rather small, this is not a problem. (You anyway
should not put too much detail in the images because the pixels are very small on the iPhone 4.)
The iPad has a resolution of 1024x768, which is somewhat (but not too much) larger than the iPhone
4. To make your game work well for both the iPhone and the iPad you  have a few options. When
your game has a small set of rooms we recommend that you create two versions of all rooms, one
set of size 960x640 and one of size 1024x768. Now create a first room. In this room place a single 15
instance of a controller object. In it

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GameMaker 2

First of all, use the most recent version of GameMaker, that is, use version 8.1. That makes it the
easiest for us to port the game to iOS (the operating system of iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch) and
Android. You should develop your game on a PC. Because the PC is rather different from the iPhone
this might make it somewhat difficult to establish whether your game will work well on those
devices. We do not yet offer software to create builds for the devices yourself. Only when your game
is close to being finished and we are convinced we indeed want to publish it, we can create a build
for you for testing. See below under testing. (When you  develop your game in close collaboration
with us, we can create builds earlier; see below.)
Use good programming and documentation style when you create your game. Preferably use scripts
and code and add plenty of comments. Give your resources and variables meaningful names and
preferably maintain a technical document that describes how your game actually works. Realize that
normally the people at YoYo Games will have to do some final changes in your code to make it work
correctly on the devices. Hence, it should be easy for them to understand your code. Keep the size of
your finished game to under 10-15 MB. Otherwise it will take long to load.
There are a number of features available in the iOS runner that are not available in the PC version of
GameMaker. For example, there is support for tilting and Game Center (online leader boards and
achievements). To use these you need an extension package  YoYoGames_Extensions. This will be
regularly updated with new features. The calls in it do nothing on the PC though and are just
placeholders for the functions on iOS and Android (except for YoYo_Get_Platform). See the appendix
for an overview of the functions available. Once we have agreed to work with you on publishing your
game we will provide you with the most recent version of this extension package.

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GameMaker

GameMaker is an integrated game development environment that runs on the PC (a somewhat
older version is also available on the Mac). It allows you to add and create  animated  sprites and
background images, add sound effects and fonts, define object behavior, and design rooms in which
the action happens. It is very easy to use because everything can be done using a drag-and-drop
interface in which you assign actions to events for objects. But  GameMaker also has a full-blown
programming language incorporated with over a thousand functions  that let you control every
aspect of your game. GameMaker is primarily meant for 2D games, but it also includes functionality
for 3D graphics.

GameMaker is used all over the world by hundreds of thousands of amateurs, in schools, and by
professional game developers. Games created with  GameMaker have won important prizes,
showing its power. You can download the free  Lite  version of  GameMaker from the webpage
http://store.yoyogames.com/browse?platform=9 to get an idea of its possibilities. You will create
fascinating games in no time.

Not every game created in GameMaker will automatically run on the iPhone or Android. You have to
take certain constrains into account (e.g. related to the screen size and controls) and some features
in GameMaker are unavailable on the iPhone (e.g. multi-player and windows related functions). All
of this is outlined below.

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