Can someone recommend a widely used free/open source game API/ GameEngine for the android platform?
I think you meant for a good open source and free to use Gaming Engine for the Android Platform. Well there are many free and open source gaming engines now available, but they are still a work in progress. At the moment I'll recommend you to use AndEngine Gaming Engine for the Android.
AndEngine Gaming Engine for the Android
Website: http://www.andengine.org
Blog: http://www.andengine.org/blog
Download Source Code: http://code.google.com/p/andengine/
Tips and Tutorials: http://theorynine.com/labs/andengine-tips-and-tutorials/
Forum: http://www.andengine.org/forums/
Features of AndEngine
Free Android 2D OpenGL Game Engine AndEngine is an open source Android game engine project which is a free 2D OpenGL Game Engine for the Android platform. The main features include:
Android-Optimized
Android 1.6 Compatibility
SplitScreen
Network Multiplayer
Live-Wallpapers
MultiTouch
Physics-Engine (Box2D)
Other Gaming Engines
1) Rokon: The open source 2D game engine for Android Rokon is an open source, extensive, powerful and flexible 2D game engine for Android. Rokon has been rewritten from the ground up. Many more features are integrated, and the future promises a lot of things. Examples, tutorials and documentation will follow this release. Rokon is an open source (New BSD license) 2D OpenGL game engine for Android. With the help of libgdx and Box2D the developers bring you a full, detailed physics engine written in native code.
Project home: http://rokonandroid.com/ and http://code.google.com/p/rokon/
2) Libgdx: Android game development framework Libgdx is an open source Android project which is the developer’s attempt at a cross-platform game development library written in Java with some JNI code for performance hungry sections. It abstracts away the differences between writting desktop and Android games based on OpenGL. This allows you to prototype and develop your application entirely on the desktop and only needing 6 lines of code to make it run on Android.
Project home: http://code.google.com/p/libgdx/
3) Android-2D-Engine: Engine for 2d games written for android in c++/java Android-2d-engine is an open source Android 2D game engine which is currently under construction, the project born for serve as base for games. Actually there are two projects: trunk/bullet: Contains the c++ source code for bullet and the jni class to communicate with android. This code is not really needed since the sample contains the compiled lib. trunk/androgine: Contains the rest of the code needed to communicate with bullet plus a sample with profiling purposes.
Project home: http://code.google.com/p/android-2d-engine/
4) jMonkeyEngine: jMonkey Engine (jME) is a leading Java Based 3D Game Engine
jMonkey Engine (jME) is a high-performance 3D game engine, written entirely in Java. OpenGL is supported via LWJGL, with JOGL support in development. For sound, OpenAL is supported. Input via the keyboard, mouse, and other controllers is also supported.
jME is a community-driven open source project released under the ‘new BSD license’. It is currently being used by several commercial game studios as well as by university game classes. While the project will continue to support and develop its most popular 2.0 branch for years still to come, a 3.0 branch is quickly emerging in response to higher standards of the next generation in performance and hardware.
Now, Android platform has been surpported by jME3: Android Support Confirmed for jME3. So jMonkeyEngine may be one of the most important Android game engines.
Project home: http://code.google.com/p/jmonkeyengine/ http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/
5). Cocos2d-android: A framework for building 2D games for the Android platform.
Cocos2d for Android is an open source Android game related project which is a framework for building 2D games, demos and other graphical/interactive applications. It is based on the cocos2d-iphone design: it uses the same API, but instead of using objective-c, it uses Java. And Cocos2d for iPhone is a framework for building 2D games, demos, and other graphical/interactive applications. It is based on the cocos2d design: it uses the same API, but instead of using python it uses objective-c.
Project Home: http://code.google.com/p/cocos2d-android/
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