Android Build Instructions

Prepare your device

1. Enable developer mode on your device
2. Enable USB Debugging
3. Connect your device to your computer with a cable capable of data transfer
4. Set USB for file transfer
5. If prompted trust the connected computer

Unity Setup

1. File > Build Settings

Ensure the platform is set to android, then click switch platform in the bottom right if necessary Next to Run Device ensure your device appears in the drop-down menu, otherwise, refresh

Key Store Signing

If building for production/publication, ensure you are building using the registered key store. The key store file along with the password should be provided to you by one of the developers on the team. It is important that this key is not committed to the source code and is kept private.

Edit > Project Settings > Player Settings > Publishing Settings

If building for test purposes, the debug key will work just fine, simply uncheck Custom Keystore and the game with be signed using the debug key store located at.

C:\Users\%User%\.android\debug.keystore

Overwrite this debug.keystore with one that has been registered as an oAuth Client in the google cloud console

If you'd like to generate your own debug key follow the instructions here

Install Dependencies

In order to build the project correctly, there are a number of dependencies that must be installed on your development machine.

To start, head over to your Unity Hub installation and ensure you have installed Android Build Support both Open JDK and Android SDK & NDK Tools

Installs > selected version > gear icon > Add Modules In order for Unity to leverage these tools we must register their locations as environment variables on your system

Set the following Environment Variables

ANDROID_HOME C:\Program Files\Unity\Hub\Editor\2021.3.11f1\Editor\Data\PlaybackEngines\AndroidPlayer\SDK

JAVA_HOME C:\Program Files\Unity\Hub\Editor\2021.3.11f1\Editor\Data\PlaybackEngines\AndroidPlayer\OpenJDK

Google play plugin Dependencies

To install dependencies for the google play games plugin for unity we'll use the sdkmanager cli tool published by android studio.

There is a graphical interface version of this tool packaged with android studio, however, the names of specific dependencies may differ.

The sdkmanager cli is installed with android build support in your unity editor installation Simply add the following to the Path to access the cli

C:\Program Files\Unity\Hub\Editor\2021.3.11f1\Editor\Data\PlaybackEngines\AndroidPlayer\SDK\tools

C:\Program Files\Unity\Hub\Editor\2021.3.11f1\Editor\Data\PlaybackEngines\AndroidPlayer\SDK\tools\bin

C:\Program Files\Unity\Hub\Editor\2021.3.11f1\Editor\Data\PlaybackEngines\AndroidPlayer\SDK\platform-tools

Once the cli has been installed and added to your PATH, open up power shell with administrator priviledges and run sdkmanager --list to see the packages currently installed on your system.

Note: if you get the 'Could not determine SDK root' error, see the following stack overflow link

The plugins readme currently lists the following required dependencies

Google Play Services (extras;google;google_play_services)
Android Support Library (now packaged with android X)
Local Maven repository for Support Libraries (Also known as Android Support Repository) (extras;android;m2repository)
Google Repository (extras;google;m2repository)
Android 6.0 (API 23) (this does not affect the min SDK version) (platforms;android-23). 

To install any missing packages, simply use the command below replacing PATH with the path shown in the sdkmanager next to the desired package.

sdkmanager --install "PATH"