Entry 15 - Android Development

I had always wanted to try out development for mobile devices so I decided to try out Android development.  The reason that I chose Android is because its API is based from Java, and I already have years of experience on Java development.

My first project is a Whack-a-Mole game, and my inspiration for this game is the Whack-a-Monty mini-game in New Super Mario Brothers for Nintendo DS.  I'm using the suggested tools by Google, which is using Eclipse.  The SDK from Google includes an emulator to be able to try out the application.  However, it seems that the emulator eats up a lot of CPU cycles and memory.  My laptop is on the low-end of the spectrum and the emulator does not run that smoothly on my machine.  Due to this, I'm thinking I may need to buy a new laptop so that development would be more efficient.  I'll maybe do that next time, for now, I just want to try to finish a small project.  If the project looks promising, then maybe I'll upgrade my machine.

Status:

• So far, I've only been able to create the starting screen of the application.
• I'm still planning on how the game will look.  I'll ask for some designs from my sister, as she is on the artistic side.