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I am planning to make an android game. The game doesn't include a lot of movement. It will be like custom maps that user can switch between, maybe zoom in and out, select parts of the land, draw some objects on the map. User should also have a dashboard to manage his game . It will NOT include objects moving like cars/people.

I am new to both Canvas and OpenGL-ES developing but i feel that OpenGL-ES includes a lot more that what i need.. but just little skeptic if Canvas would be good enough to fulfill my requirements.

So, what would you advise me to do?

Thanks in advance.

Adel

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I would say it's a difficult one to answer as it's virtually impossible for anyone but yourself (as the game designer) to know which one your particular game would require.

However, I would say, personally, I would go with openGL ES 2.0. I spent months designing a game (and even longer writing it) only to find that canvas wasn't powerful enough. Granted it did have 'moving objects' but not a huge amount of them - and it ended up with a lot of jerky movement that I just couldn't eliminate, so I am in the process of re-coding it with openGL ES 2.0.

I would say, look at some examples of games written with Canvas / Surfaceview and judge to the best of your ability which one you think you should go with.

Bear in mind while making this decision, that if you think Canvas / Surfaceview would be good enough, then go for it, however even if it is, are you going to be creating more demanding games later down the line? If so, then like I said above, I would just jump straight into openGL ES 2.0.

Canvas = simpler coding, worse performance

Open GL ES 2.0 = more demanding coding, but potential for much better performance.

Just my opinion!

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Thanks a lot for your reply. What about HTML5 for that type of games? Would it be good?
Well it's certainly possible, is it suitable? That's another question, from what I understand, native apps (OpenGL) will generally give you better performance, again I guess you have to weigh up the pro's and con's of each method. I've never used HTML5 to develop for Android I must admit.
Thanks again for your reply. I will investigate further in that subject. I will wait for couple of days for maybe another input from other users and if there was none, i will mark yours as answer. And will appreciate if you know someone who worked with HTML5 for game development for mobile, you can ask him for me. Thanks. Adel

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