And I Thought Making the Game was Complicated

So my game is approaching the point of being done. That is to say, while there is always something that can be worked on, it is feature complete and working. I just have a few more features to iron out, mostly quality of life improvements for the player. So, what’s next? Getting it into the hands of players (and hopefully monetizing the thing).

The problem is that actually getting an app on to an app store is a long and annoying process. At first I thought it would be simple: make a profile, submit app, get approval (after inevitable edits), app in store. Simple and straightforward right? Wrong. Even just a cursory glance at the actual process showed me it would be much more complicated than that. Lots of steps to secure the project, steps to make the submission secure, steps to make sure the app isn’t malicious. Add onto that an almost $100 cost to have the honor of being able to submit apps for Apple’s consideration.

At first all of this was paralyzingly overwhelming. Where do I even begin? What does any of this mean? What is going on? But then I calmed down enough to remember the simple fix to being overwhelmed: take it one step at a time. In this case I am aiming for both IOS and Android distribution, so just focus on one for now. Make sure I understand each step before moving on to the next. And try not to get sidetracked and add more to my plate.

Of course, when looking up tutorials on how to do this I found a tutorial on adding ads to Unity games. Something I need in order to monetize the game… Will this ever end?