Google Announces ‘Android Game Development Kit,’ Adds ‘Play As You Download’ Feature

Google announced its Android Game Development Kit as part of the Game Development Summit 2021, releasing a “play as you download” feature as well.

In a Google blog post, the tech company detailed their announcement for the Android Game Development Kit (AGDK), describing it as a useful way to “develop, optimize, and deliver high-quality Android games.”

The AGDK contains a range of tools and libraries to help develop, optimize, and deliver high quality Android games, covering three major areas at launch:

1. Integrated workflows (e.g. a new Visual Studio extension)
2. Essential C/C++ game libraries (e.g. the new Game Text input library)
3. Performance optimization (e.g. frame profiler support in the GPU profiler and loading time support in the Android Performance Tuner)

Additionally, another new feature is Google’s new “play as you download” option, which lets users on Android 12, well, start playing games while their assets are being downloaded in the background.

Select devices on Android 12 also have access to a new game dashboard tool that provides key utilities and a game optimization menu; the latter lets users change the performance profile of a game, which developers can support by integrating Android’s new Game Mode APIs.

Check out all the details over at Android’s blog.