Java 2d game engine

I use Slick2d. I used the tutorials from its main site to get started with the library. Then I used the Slick API to learn most of it. The tutorials aren't much, but they are enough to get started.

The library has so many features that once you understand the basics of how it works, making a game is the best way to learn the rest of it. If there's something you need done, Slick probably has a class for it and you can easily find it in the API or Slick forums.

Recently I've been learning some Java in order to make some simple 2d games for the android platform, but this is my first time hearing about slick2d. It seems very nifty, but a google search seems to come up with people having problems getting it to work on the android. Oh well.

People have had trouble getting it to work for Android, but one of the newest Slick2d contributors is Android-focused, so it'll be a good option for Android in the future.

You can look at LibGDX if you want to do Android game development in Java. It's not as easy to use as Slick IMO, but it's main focus seems to be Android.

I did the first slick2d tutorial, but after that they seem to go very fast. From a basic window to a tetris clone. That seems like too much information to try absorbing in one day. Or should I be doing them in a different order?

I recommend skipping the BasicGame tutorial and going straight to this one (the Tetris clone you mentioned): http://slick.cokeandcode.com/wiki/doku.php?id=02_-_slickblocks

It uses StateBasedGame, which is what you really want to use. You will need to understand Java to understand the code, though. There's a lot of inheritance and object-oriented logic involved.

I know you said you're already on the Tetris clone, but you don't have to fully understand how the game works. You only need to understand how Slick works so that you can make your own game using logic you understand. I have never understood how the Tetris clone worked, but I was able to figure out Slick using that tutorial. If you go to my site, 30 Clicks was the first game I made using Slick, and really my first game if you ignore the failed attempts in C++.