How to make a side scrolling android app?

Hi Jordan

I'm currently doing the same process making a similar app for work. The way I've approached it is to draw the character and objects to the canvas separately, applying a constant speed for decreasing the value of X across all objects while keeping the character's X value constant (Only allowing movement up and down the Y axis) this gives the illusion of moving forward, once the object leaves the screen apply a new higher value to the X axis for that object to again make it appear in front of your character.

This helped me keep programming collision detection limited to 7 variables the position of the character and 6 other objects (maximum for me).

It is too technical to explain every aspect within this question but hope you understand my method. The way I learnt drawing to a canvas was to watch a series of youtube videos which can be found here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUGRQqfHb8k

Hope this helps

Daniel