Unity is a cross-platform game engine. When we want to export our game to Windows Store, it will show you a bunch of errors. The article below is some notes about the process for exporting Unity game to UWP (Universal Windows Platform).

I use Visual Studio 2015 and Unity 2018.2.1.f1 in this note.

Prerequisites

  1. Visual Studio 2015 Tools for Unity
  2. UWP Build Support (IL2CPP) which can be checked when installing Unity. UWP Build Support (.Net) have some problems and will be deprecated soon.
  3. Windows 10 SDK which can be downloaded when installing or modifying Visual Studio.
  4. Purchase a Microsoft Store account.

Build

Got to File->Build Settings... and select Universal Windows Platform.

On the right, change Build Type to D3D and select the SDK and Visual Studio Version.

SDK and Visual Studio Version must match (Don’t have warnings) to continue.

Click Build and select the folder which you want Unity to build your project to.

Fix errors if your game have user data to save

If you use BinaryFormatter, StreamWriter or even UWP’s StorageFile there will be errors.

You can try to use JsonUtility and File in UnityEngine to access data files. Below is a short example.

public void SaveData()
{
    string filePath = "data";
    filePath = Application.persistentDataPath + "/" + filePath;
    string jsonText = CustomEncryptFunc(JsonUtility.ToJson(GameData));
    File.WriteAllBytes(filePath, Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(jsonText));
}

private void LoadData()
{
    string filePath = "data";
    filePath = Application.persistentDataPath + "/" + filePath;
    if (File.Exists(filePath))
    {
        string text = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(File.ReadAllBytes(filePath));
        string jsonText = CustomDecryptFunc(text);
        GameData = JsonUtility.FromJson<Data>(jsonText);
    }
    else
    {
        GameData = new Data();
        SaveData();
    }
}

C++/WinRT UWP project

After building the project, Unity will output a C++/WinRT UWP project.

C++/WinRT is neither C++/CLI nor Native C++.

An easy way to differentiate between them is to find ref new, gcnew, new respectively.

Building the UWP project

Open Package.appxmanifest.

The icons and splashscreen can all be generated by a single icon.

Use 1024x1024 as the original logo size seems to work well.

I use UWPTileGenerator to generate icons, and use UWPVisualAssetsGenerator to generate splash screens.

Note that the splash screen images you use will be shown in the center of the window, so the image won’t extend to the entire view.

After you tested it in Debug mode, search for your project name and uninstall it.

Pit falls

C3940 'EventRegistrationToken': identifier not found - possible mismatch between compiler and library versions. Please ensure vccorlib.h/.lib, vccorlib120.dll and c1xx.dll match

Change the Target Platform Version

Package.appxmanifest cannot open in editor

If you can only open the Package.appxmanifest in Xaml editor, you may not have the corresponding platform toolset installed. Change it in the project properties to solve the problem. (The project is not IL2CppOutputProject or Unity Data)

Fix errors if you have RockVR Unity plugin

RockVR uses some restricted APIs. So remember to remove it in the output UWP C++/WinRT project.

You can just delete Data\StreamingAssets.

Sample error message:

API BitBlt in gdi32.dll is not supported for this application type. ffmpeg.exe calls this API.

Compile Errors

Consider changing Active Solution Platform from ARM to x86. ARM should also be removed when creating upload package.

Upload to Microsoft Store

Change the Debug mode to Master (Release mode will produce some errors).

Menu: Project > Store > Create App Packages...

Follow the link: App submissions and it’s done!

Further Reading

  1. Unity UWP Sample | GitHub

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