The need to use a game engine to create an Android game?

Question

Android

I want to write a simple 2D toy and a couple of questions arose:
1) Do I even need an engine for such a task? Why can't I use android sdk graphics and animations?
2) I started to deal with the LibGDX engine and it replaces the application itself. I would like to file a menu, options, etc. using android tools, and launch the game itself already in the application. So it won't work?

Answer 1

1) It all depends on the complexity of the game and the required features. If the game is something like solitaire \ tags \ 2048, etc. It's naturally much easier to do on a bare android without using engines. If you want to use GL for a game like a walker in 2d, then you can do it on the bare android api, but how long will it take to implement simple things. Etc.
2) You can, as usual, make another activity and use it, no one forbids it. The question is rather how foreign such menus will look, it is much easier to use scene2d and skins for it.

Answer 2

When you want some shader to be applied to your menu, or an intricate transition between screens, you will regret that you pushed Android View there. Do everything at once on LibGdx, there will be cross-platform, and more or less performance. Yes, and there are quite a few WYSIWYG interface editors for Scene2D, so this is not such a problem)