We had earlier created icons but we ended up tweaking those. I needed to generate keys for the app as well as update and modify the app manifest; setting resolution and orientation settings for phone vs tablets, targeting different Android versions, obfuscating the code, etc. I obviously needed to link and initialize my Google Play account to my Gmail. By this point I thought I was nearly done but in reality I was still only getting started.
Next I needed to choose the ad services I wanted to utilize, download those software packages and import them into my app. Then I needed to integrate the actual code to display the ads in-app. This required some work because I was using the libGDX framework and the ad API documentation was written with the assumption that the API was being called from a vanilla Android app setup; eventually I figured out how to make them play nice together. Since the code had been modified it was now necessary to readjust everything in the publishing process outlined above: change the manifest, generate new keys, alter the build file, re-upload to GPlay account.
With the APK ready to roll out it was time to populate the Play Store page. It turned out to be surprisingly aggravating to get a high resolution screen record of the game in action. You could take the direct route and just film the phone while the game was running but there would be reflection artifacts and your hand would be periodically blocking the screen in order to demonstrate game play; to me that felt and looked amateurish. That left the other option of running the app in an emulator and use screen recording software. Unfortunately, the Android Studio Android emulator was quite slow and the screen recording software didn't capture in HD resolution. On the upside it did allow game interaction without screen interference and it was direct capture of screen pixels. In the end I still wasn't thrilled with the results so I worked to make up for it with high quality pictures.
With all of the multimedia fanfare taken care of it was, at last, time for the easy part. A couple whimsical paragraph iterations later it was time to publish. The publishing process itself had taken another couple of days. We were now nearly two weeks past my month deadline but, finally, the game was live!
The final product can be seen *here*. Below is a sample of some of the art assets that made it into the final project.
Of course, as anyone whose has published something for consumption knows, the most important part was still waiting to be tackled: letting other people know and care that your product even exists.
Next.