Here are several photos from Google developer advocate Chris Pruett’s Google I/O 2010 panel on developing games for Android. Looking at the slides will give you a better understand of the challenges Android developers face. In addition to developing for a relatively new platform, Android developers have to contend with multiple versions of the operating system floating around on different hardware (various screen resolutions, trackballs, d-pads, keyboards, etc). Optimizing for the latest and greatest version is all well and good, but considering that a large portion of the phones are running older versions of Android and the input options differ from phone to phone, games have to be scaled to work for all kinds of users.
Pruett used his experience creating Replica Island to give developers insights on different approaches to take in creating Android games. One of the coolings ways he took advantage of the mobile platform was tracking difficulty and updating the game accordingly. His game sends back data on where players are dying. He sees the results on level maps containing heat spots that indicated where players were dying the most. With updates, he adjusts levels to be less frustrating and more fun.
Pictures of the map and more can be found below!
