For developers working with Android targets, but prefer not to work with Java or that would rather work in Visual Studio have reason to rejoice. The Android team have just released the Android Game Development Kit, a collection of extensions, libraries and tools to make developing Android Games easier, especially using the C and C++ languages.
Details from the Android developer blog:
Today we’re launching the Android Game Development Kit (AGDK), a full range of tools and libraries to help you develop, optimize, and deliver high quality Android games.
AGDK features follow three key tenets:
- Code built for game development. All of our libraries have been built and tested with performance in mind using C or C++ APIs.
- Reduce fragmentation. The AGDK tools and libraries work across many different Android versions. Most of these features will work on almost any device in use today.
- Built by Android, for Android. Features will be enhanced by future Android platform updates, and the libraries will provide backwards compatibility when possible.
In this initial launch, we’re focusing on covering three major areas where we heard a lot of feedback from our developer community: Integrated workflows, C/C++ game libraries, and performance optimization.
A key component of AGDK is the Android Game Development Extension for Visual Studio 2017 and 2019, that enables developers to work in Visual Studio instead of Android Studio.
You can learn more about the Android Game Development Kit in the video below. The various components of the Android Game Development Kit are available for download here.