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OUYA
Hey everyone, I finally got my Kickstarter backer version of my OUYA just this week
along with this extra controller.
I was an early backer of the OUYA Kickstarter mostly due to the fact that
have some
Tegra-3 tablets without an HDMI output and some games on it that
didn't quite work in that formfactor and I kinda wish I could plug to the
television and use a controller
and so the OUYA seemed fairly appealing that case.
Umm. The controllers even had a little touch pad if you need to have touch controls.
Ah... Unfortunately the OUYA doesn't come with the Google Marketplace.
Umm... That's where I purchased most of my software and
they are pushing their own marketplace that has a free to play model.
I'll go over that a bit later on. You can install the Google Marketplace
apparently but you need to root the console and get your Google account
information it somehow.
And I didn't opt for it because
the OUYA is still doing fairly frequent firmware updates.
I'd rather not reconfigure every time. Instead,
I've also got some software via the Humble Indie Bundle
and you can easily install the
Humble Bundle android app and download and install
all those games fairly easily.
I'll go over that just a little later but for now
I'm just gonna go over some in the standard control schemes for the
OUYA console. Although not quite standardized across
all apps, this seems to be the general functionality
the face buttons Press "O" for
okay/accepted, "A" for back/
cancel, "Y" for menu or settings,
"U" for purchase. The system button or "Circle
u" can be used to activate controller and pair it with the console.
It's occasionally used as a start or pause button.
If you're ever stuck in an app and you can't exit,
press and hold the system button for a few seconds and you'll get back to the
OUYA's main menu. The touchpad is not multi-touch capable
so can't perform actions like pinch to zoom, you can however do the following:
Drag your finger on the touchpad to move a pointer to the area you want to target.
Tap the touchpad to simulate a tap on the touch screen where you moved the
pointer.
Try not to drag your finger during the tap as it'll just read as a pointer move.
To perform a drag operation, you need to tap
followed by a drag. It's a bit finicky in timing
and you may need to start your drag at the same spot you tapped.
It's a little tricky to film so I don't have a quite right here.
Alright now it's finally plug this in and show you how to install third-party
apps
A fairly quick and easy way to install third-party apps is via the web browser,
here found under the make menu. So select make.
and then browser. Once the browser is up you can press "Y" to get access to
the URL.
It'll popup an on-screen keyboard. Start typing.
We're looking for the Humble Bundle android app. There it is.
Select that.
Now find where the app is on the web page.
Navigate a bit.
Oh there it is. Start the download.
I don't you get notified when it's done but it's a very small app so you can just
as easily...
It should be done by now actually, let's push
"A" repeatedly to get back up to main menu.
Downloaded apps are found
Under Manage, System,
Advanced, then storage,
downloads. Select the app to install.
In this case, I had previously installed it so its asking to
replace it. Once it's done installing,
press the "A" button again to get all the way back up to the main menu.
Then your app should be found in the make
section. That's where all the third party apps installed. Here I'll just launch it.
Next I'll go through all the apps I installed from this Humbe Bundle to see how
well they fared
on the system.
Here's a quick rundown going from the least compatible to fully working
Humble Bundle games. Bladeslinger doesn't boot up at all and stays stuck in a
bootloop.
The Room boots, but is stuck in the title screen without the means
to start a game. Cogs starts up fine.
You can play the first level, but the second level requires multi-touch. So you're
stuck there.
Sword and Sorcery gets stuck at the first battle because you need an accelerometer
or a means to rotate the
screen to enter fight mode.
Plants versus Zombies seems to work okay, but the display cuts off in the middle of the tutorial.
Splice is playable for the first few stages
if you can live with the finicky drag controls.But multi-touch appears to be
required later on.
Funky Smugglers seems to work OK. But it also relies on the drag function which
makes it quite difficult to
play when you need some speed
Euphoria HD plays fine. Without multi-touch you can't zoom out
and you need to constantly use the annoying drag to navigate
the play area and to move your seedlings around.
Crayon Physics is playable but need to draw using the drag function again
and that introduces quite a bit difficulty. Zenbound seems to work fine.
The OUYA simulates portrait mode well. You'll need to use the drag controls but
you can take your time here.
Swords and Soldiers works fine without the need to
drag but you will be handicapped by the extra time it takes you to maneuver your
pointer around for various actions.
Waking Mars appears to work fine but the touchpad makes it difficult to control
your character's
flight. It might not be possible to play if there's any tricky navigation
required at the later stages.
Contre-Jour requires you to use the drag controls to manipulate the
environment. Which could get a little difficult at later stages if speed is
required.
Canabalt seems to install the free limited OUYA marketplace version
of the app in the Play section. I don't know if this is something will happen to
any app that's also available on the OUYA marketplace.
Avadon the Black Fortress plays
fine. But the graphics are so small you either need a large television
or binoculars to play. It also relies on touchpad controls.
Anomaly Korea seems to work okay.
You play with the touchpad only you and you need to use the finicky drag in
order to navigate the map.
Time appears to be frozen so you can take your time to navigate.
The pace the game also appears to be slow enough for you to perform all tasks
during active play using the pointer and the rest of the touhpad controls.
Machinarium seems to be fairly playable.
Its touchpad-centric again. But it also seems to have limited need for
dragging its control scheme.
So far all the DotEmu games seem to work the best.
Metal Slug 3 works fine with the directional pad and buttons.
The only issue is you can't seem to use the credits when your
at game over. So you can't continue the game. Raiden Legacy also works fine.
You'll just need to use the touchpad to navigate the menus and use maybe the
finicky drag to switch between the different Raiden games.
The gamepad and buttons can be used with or without the autofire enabled.
Again the main issue is to actually spend your credit in order to continue the game.
Another world works
great with the directional pad and buttons.
And now onto the OUYA marketplace itself
As I mentioned earlier, the OUYA experience is tied to its marketplace.
In fact, when you first start up the console, one of the first things
you have to do is register a marketplace account. You'll find the marketplace
under the Discover menu. OUYA has a
free to play model in its marketplace. In other words, you can download and play any
title free of charge,
give our take some limitations. So far, I've found a combination of
beta-versions (some with ofers to purchase special access),
limited time demos, limited plays per day,
limited to only the tutorial
(or the first levels, or the first campaign),
fully playable game but with limited upgrade or equipment paths,
free to play with the option to purchase in game currency
equipment or upgrades, and apparent freeware.
I'm all for allowing developers the flexibility to implement what ever free
to play model they desire.
However, most entries in the marketplace don't indicate what the limitations of
the free app
are, nor how much it would cost to upgrade the app.
To find that information, you'll generally need to download the app and
launch it.
Even then, many apps don't tell you what the limitations are until you smack right
into them.
The purchase price is also generally not shown
until you hit the purchase button and are asked to confirm. There should be some
standardization
to give he user this information before they download the app.
Okay, well here's a montage of some of the different apps that I've downloaded
from the OUYA marketplace.