How can I create a HUD in Android without?

Question

I'm working on my first game and I'm a bit stuck. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to create a UI or HUD. What I am trying to do is get the game screen to take up about 75% of the screen and an overlay with buttons to purchase things to take up the other 25% of the screen. The game itself would be full screen.

I have looked for game tutorials to see if I could see how it was done there but I am not having any luck. I have considered how framelayout might work but can't quite grasp the concept. Any help or a direction on where to go to find an answer would be appreciated.

Answer 1

This article is very useful.

http://mobile.dzone.com/articles/beginning-android-game

Before trying to create a HUD or anything like that, make a character that animates and that you can move around the screen.

ie. tap a location, the character walks to it.

From there, the HUD, GUI etc. will make more sense.