The Android Game Development Kit is now Google Launches.

The Android Game Development Kit (AGDK) seeks to make developing, optimizing, and distributing Android games easier. The Android Game Development Kit uses C and C++ APIs to maximize performance and is made up of both existing and new libraries and tools.

One of the main goals of AGDK is to make it possible to create Android games by avoiding the need for Java. This is because most games and game engines are developed in C or C++ for performance reasons and bridging C/C++ and the Java Android platform using JNI is typically a difficult operation. As a result, AGDK will enable such bridging and will handle all of the inherent complexities of using JNI to ensure interoperability.

The existing frame pacing and high-performance audio libraries, as well as a few new components like Game Activity, Game Text Input, and Game Controller, will be included in the initial version of AGDK.

NativeActivity has been replaced as the recommended activity class for games with GameActivity. Game Activity has the advantage of being compatible with Jetpack and fragments, and it can be modified to support most game engines. It can handle all Android activity events, including device rotation and app life-cycle, for example.

The Game Text Input library includes an API for displaying and hiding the soft keyboard, as well as setting and retrieving the currently-edited text and receiving notifications when the text is changed. This library is not intended to be used for full-fledged text editors while enabling advanced input method editing features such as spell-checking, completions, and multi-key characters.

The Game Controller library aids in the implementation of game controller support, such as connection and disconnection, controller description, and input data reading, among other things.

Google AGDK will also focus on performance optimization tools, such as an upgraded Android GPU Inspector that can detect any GPU-related issues, as well as new Android Studio profilers for CPU, power, network, and memory utilization. Because of the wide range of Android devices, Google has upgraded the Android Performance Tuner to add support for user telemetry. Developers will be able to better understand loading times, graphics fidelity, and abandonment as a result of this.

Support for connected workflows is another area where AGDK strives to improve developer experience: