At today’s Game Developers Conference, Google launched the Android Game Development Kit (AGDK). Simply put, AGDK is a set of tools and libraries that allow game developers to better optimize their products. AGDK takes into account performance issues, reduces the fragmentation of the entire Android system, and aims to cater to the enhanced features provided by future operating system updates while providing backward compatibility as much as possible.
At present, the project is in the first phase and mainly focuses on three areas:
Integrated Workflow
Allows you to combine AGDK with your existing projects according to your needs. An example of this is through an extension to add Android as the target platform for your game in Visual Studio. Another example is to provide plugins for game engines such as Unity. Google said it is also working directly with game engine developers to integrate this capability directly into their tools.
Provide C and C ++ game library
Second, Google learned that most games are written in C++, while Android development is more inclined to Java. Although this gap can be filled with Java Native Interface (JNI), the process is not simple and is quite error-prone. Therefore, the company now provides C and C++ game libraries, reducing its reliance on JNI and Java. Now, these libraries focus on basic classes such as game activities, game text input, and game controllers, but future stages will include features commonly found in other game engines.
Performance Optimization
Finally, performance optimization is another goal of AGDK. This is achieved through frame analysis in Android GPU Inspector, a bunch of CPU, memory and power analysis in Android Studio, and the new loading function in Android Performance Tuner.
