This is a really short post because it is basically a recommendation, not a tutorial.

In the last year I spent some time on game development on Android, especially on for 2D games. About a year ago, a friend of mine, Nicolas Gramlich, also known as plusminus, the creator of anddev.org, published his free, open source 2D game engine called AndEngine. The engine is OpenGL ES-based and uses the Box2D library by Mario Zechner for physically correct animation of sprites.

Since the last year, the engine grew and improved with an astonishing speed, mainly because of Nicolas’ great commitment to the project. I think today it is the most used 2D game engine for Android. This is probably because of it’s great design and quality, which makes great games easy to create.

Some games you might know that use AndEngine are:

• Wheelz
• Chalk Ball
• Farm Tower

While the latter, Farm Tower, is by Nicolas himself. It is great fun for all ages and free, so if you want to support him, please download this game (but beware: it’s addicting).

So, to put the article into one sentence: If you want to develop a 2D game for Android devices, AndEngine probably is your way to go!