Publishing to the Google Play Store
Objective: Publish the Game
The first thing we need to do is set up the build settings. Make sure you have Android selected. Google now requires apps to be uploaded as an Android App Bundle(AAB) instead of an Android Package Kit(APK), so make sure to check the Build App Bundle box.
Next open Player Settings and make sure the company name, product name and version are correct. You can also add the default icon and cursor images if you have them.
Move down to the Other Settings. In Identification, set the Target API Level to 30+ as that is the minimum build Google will accept. In Configuration, Google requires support for a 64bit architecture so change the Scripting Backend from Mono to IL2CPP and select both the ARMv7 and ARM64 Target Architectures.
Go down further to the Publishing Settings and setup a Keystore with a secure password. Set up a project key and secure password. Make sure to keep the Keystore safe as this will be required if you want to update the project later.
Once all settings and the keystore have been set you can proceed to build the .aab file. I ran into some issues around building such as Gradle issues and Unity not playing nice with my JAVA environment. After searching for fixes and some trial and error I ended up downloading the Gradle 6.9 all distrubution from here and the JAVA JDK 1.8(jdk-8u77) from here.
Once these are installed, go to Edit, Preferences, External Tools and set the JDK and Gradle file paths to the ones you just installed. If your Android API version can’t update install Android Studio, open the SDK manager, go to SDK Tools and show package details. If you don’t show package details you get the 30.0.0 version which in my case and others which finding solutions seemed to cause a lot of issues. Instead choose the 30.0.3 which will only be selectable after showing the package details. After this the build went fast and smooth.
Now you have the build file(.aab) the fun part, Google Developer Console. You will first need to get a developer licence and pay the once-off fee. I had this previously so I can’t go through the steps but here is an easy follow guide.
Once setup is finished go to the developer console and click create app.
Fill in the app details and click the declaration boxes and the create app button in the bottom right will become active. Click and create.
Now the real fun, lots of tedious and somewhat annoying sections and questionaires. Here you can set up testers if you have them or just move to create a release and let them do the tests. Here you can add your game build and details. Once done move to review and roll out.
Next it’s time to set up the app.
This is where you get questionaires and some yes or no selections. These must all be done before moving onto publishing.
Here you can set up larger test groups and other parts but for now we can just move to publish.
Select the countries you want to release the game and create your release. It gives you an upload for an .aab but you can just select the one you uploaded in testing from the library. Once finished, review and roll out and enjoy a nice break while you wait for Google to get back to you after their review.
