In this chapter, we will go through all of the setup that we'll need in order to deploy the project in its current state onto our mobile devices. At the time of writing this book, mobile development is typically done either for Android or iOS, so we will cover that.

This chapter will be split into a number of topics. It will contain a simple step-by-step process from beginning to end. The following is the outline of our tasks:

• Introduction to build settings
• Building a project for a PC
• Installing the Java Development Kit and Android SDK
• Exporting your project for Android
• Putting the project on your Android device
• Unity iOS installation and Xcode setup
• Building a project for iOS

There are times during development that you may want to see what your game looks like if you build it outside of the editor. It can give you a sense of accomplishment; I know, I felt that way the first time I pushed a build to a console devkit. Whether it's for PC, Mac, Linux, web player, mobile, or console, we have to go through the same menu, the Build Settings menu:

1. Start off by opening up the project that we created in the preceding chapter. In addition, open the scene we created (Gameplay.unity, which is inside the Scenes folder):

2. From here, we will open the Build Settings menu by selecting File | Build Settings.

In the preceding image, you will notice the Build Settings menu came up. This menu contains three sections:

• Scenes in Build...

By default, our platform is set to PC, Mac & Linux Standalone. Just to verify that everything is working correctly, let's go ahead and get the game working on our own platform before moving to mobile:

1. To get started, we will select the Build option. In my instance, I'll be exporting our project to Windows, but the process is similar for Mac and Linux.
2. Once this is done, a window will pop up asking for a name and a location to put the game in. I'm going to name it Endless and put it in a new Export folder located in the same folder that contains Assets and Library, so it won't show up in the Project window, but it will be in the same folder as my project:

3. Click on Save and wait for it to finish. Once it's done, you should have a window appear, as follows:

We have the executable, but we also have a data folder that contains...

Now that we have all of the setup done, we can open up Unity with our project and export it for Android devices:

1. First of all, if you haven't done so already, you'll need to have selected to add Android Build Support as an option when you are installing Unity. If you did not install it when doing the initial installation, you may reinstall Unity again with those selections checked for the platforms that you're trying to build to.
2. At this point, we will dive into Unity and then move into our Build Settings menu once again by going to File | Build Settings.

3. Click on the Android option from the Platform list and then click on the Switch Platform button to make the change. Note that this will make Unity reimport all of the assets in our game, so this may be time-consuming as you build larger projects.
4. Now, in order to be able to build...

Of course, just having the APK doesn't do much if we can't put it on our actual phone; so, in this section, we will enable our phone to test the game on our device:

1. On your Android device, you'll need to go to your Settings app.
2. From there, scroll down till you get to the Security | Security & fingerprint section or similar, and then tap on it to go into the menu.

3. Inside there, you'll see a section called Unknown sources, which you'll want to enable:

With this enabled, your device can now install the .apk file, but now you will need to move your game over onto the device so that you can install it. The easiest way is to transfer it to your device via USB; we'll do that now.

Now that you have your game on an Android device, you now need to get it working on iOS. With Android, there's a lot of setup, but building and getting it on your device is more work, whereas, with iOS, there's less work on the setup end and more involvement with getting it actually onto the device.

Previously, you had to have a paid Apple Developer license in order to get your game onto an iOS device. Although that's still required to get the game on the App Store, you are no longer required to get it for testing. Note that the free option doesn't have everything available to you, most notably IAPs (In-App Purchases) and the Game Center; however, for making sure that it works on your device, it'll work just nicely. We will go over how to adjust your project to reflect being in the Apple Developer portal in the...

At this point, we will be building our project for the iOS device. While there are some similarities to working with Android, there are some differences that are very important to note, so keep that in mind while reading this section.

1. At this point, we will dive into Unity and then move into our Build Settings menu once again by going to File | Build Settings.
2. Click on the iOS option from the Platform list and then click on the Switch Platform button to make the change.

Note that this will make Unity reimport all of the assets in our game, so this may be time-consuming as you build larger and larger projects. This now also means that when we build our project, it will create an Xcode project instead of just an app, which we will need to open and work with once it's built.

3. If we didn't do so earlier when building for iOS, we must set the...

We now have our game running on both Android and iOS devices, and we have learned the steps that we'll need to take each time we want to deploy our games on these devices.

While I will not be writing about exporting to both devices again until we get to Chapter 10, Game Build and Submission, it's a good idea on your end to do so to see how the changes that we make will work with both devices and keep testing on each platform to make sure that your project works correctly and at a frame rate that you are okay with.

This is especially important to note as running the project on your PC via the editor or an emulator will not always work the same both ways. You may find that certain things will slow down your device and make your game choppy. You may also find something that runs fine on your mobile device will slow down your computer. The thing is, you won&apos...