How to Build/Export Your Game in Unity to Windows

In this instructable, I will be showing you how to export your own game made on Unity. The process is fairly simple, but make sure you follow along so you don't miss anything! I learned this method by watching the Youtuber Brackeys, so if you need some more detail, or want a method to export to mac, head over to his channel. Before we start, make sure you are happy with your game. Maybe run through it one last time to make sure you didn't miss anything.

The first thing we need to do is open Unity and edit some settings to prepare your game for building. Once Unity is opened, go to Edit > Project Settings > Quality. A menu should open with a bunch of different rendering settings. This bit is a bit hard to explain on here, so if you would like to edit these settings go to

After you have edited the rendering settings we need to edit the player settings. For this go to Edit > Project Settings > Player. Another menu should pop up (like the one shown above), which has resolution settings, Icon settings, etc. The first you'll want to do is give your company and your product a name. This can be anything, but I would suggest making the product name something to do with the game itself. Once you have done that, you will want to create your own Icon. This can be done on photoshop or any other photo editing software, and maybe a bit challenging, but is a good skill to learn nonetheless. You can also make a custom cursor if you would like. Once you have done all that you will want to open the "Resolution and Presentation tab," which is found just underneath. You can edit these setting according to how you want your game to be presented. For example, you can choose whether you want the game to open to full screen or windowed. Don't worry about the other settings below that tab as they will only matter if your game is big.

Now you will want to build your game. To do this, head to File > Build Settings. This is where you choose what platform you want to export to. For this tutorial, we are exporting to Windows, but it is possible to export to many other platforms as well. Make sure you have all the scenes you want in your build settings menu, and then click on "PC, Mac & Linex Standalone". Then choose Windows, where it says "Target Platform" and choose x86 where it says "Architecture". Now click "Build". It should pop up with File Explorer, and this is where you choose a folder to build to. But to stay organized we will make some new folders. First, make a new folder and call it "Builds", go into that folder and make another new folder called "Windows". Inside this folder, you will want to make a new folder called "x86". Open this folder and go down to where it says "File name" and enter the name of your game with "x86" at the end. Then click "save" and Unity will build your project and open the game location in File Explorer.

After you have built the game and Unity has opened the file location, you will find your game, which is playable now if you click on it and a .Data folder. At this point, you can either use some third party software to create an installer for your game, or you can make it a zip folder, send it to your friends and ask them to unzip it. If you would like to make an installer, head over to Brackeys on Youtube, but for now we are going to make it into a zip folder, which is really easy. All you need to do is select the .exe file and the .data folder, right click go to Send To > Compressed (Zipped) folder. This will create a zip folder that you can distribute via something like Mediafire or Dropbox.
And you're done! If you followed along correctly you should have just successfully built and exported your first game on Unity. Once again I'd like to thank Brackeys the Youtuber, for teaching me how to do this in the first place.