Tag Archives: ouya

The playable poetry of ‘That Dragon, Cancer’ lands in January

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Joel Green loved pancakes. He was, and continues to be, the inspiration behind That Dragon, Cancer, a low-poly adventure game created by his father, Ryan Green, as Joel battled cancer over four years. Joel Green died in March 2014 at the age of 5.On...

OUYA Signs Deal with Alibaba, Moves into China

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Ouya Alibaba China

Rumor has it that the Chinese conglomerate has just invested $10 million so that its games library moves to the Alibaba’s set-top box.

While the investments hasn’t been confirmed (nor denied) by OUYA, the California-based console maker admitted that its game library will be available on Alibaba’s YunOS platform. In case you’re not familiar with the name, you should know that it is a modified version of Android that is (paradoxically, if I may say so) meant to compete against Google’s mobile OS in China. While at a later point OUYA’s patents will prove useful in Chinese smartphones, for the time being, it will be available on the Tmall set-top box.

OUYA’s streaming service is what must have caught Alibaba’s attention, since the game console is cited as capable to handle such titles as soccer game Winning Eleven 2014 and fighting game Street Fighter 4. Other than that, it seems like Alibaba is not interested in OUYA’s controller, and will provide its own for the set-top box.

“Markets, like China, without the baggage of the US console market, could be the game console leaders in ten years. That’s where OUYA wants to be,” mentioned OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman, thus emphasizing that the US market has its own importance. OUYA will continue to exist in the US, despite its ups and downs. The 2012 crowdfunding campaign proved a major success, having raised more than 9 times the funding goal, but things took a turn for the worse when the company failed to deliver the consoles to its backers on time. The next year wasn’t that bad for OUYA, as it was sold out on Amazon. In 2014, the company released the second version of the console with slightly better specs and a higher (and some think unjustified) price. Now it seems that OUYA is sailing to new shores, and that can only be good for the company.

This new move won’t really affect people outside of China, or not just yet. Knowing the huge number of potential customers in this country, the other console manufacturers should be scared. I’m not sure if YunOS has a great future ahead, though, but Android consoles will certainly become a thing in the not so distant future. OUYA was only the beginning of it all.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about OUYA 2.0 with improved specs and a higher price, or the original OUYA, a game changing open-source gaming console.

“Tetropolis” Is a Side-Scrolling Adventure Starring a Misshapen Tetris Block

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Tetris is one of the greatest games ever made. There’s something that fascinating, mesmerizing, and addictive about putting various blocks in perfectly fitting holes, even if the Tetris god never graces you with the line piece you need. Tetropolis, which is on Steam Greenlight and Kickstarter now and is planned to be released for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Ouya, imagines a bizarre back story behind Tetris, complete with the unfeeling incineration of blocks that aren’t “perfect.” That’s right, Tetropolis is the story of two blocks who didn’t come out in one of the standard tetromino shapes, and must join forces to create proper block. Will they find their way into a game, or will they decide that they don’t want to?

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Throughout the game, which is designed as a classic metroidvania, the player has to explore by using the special abilities of the tetromino shapes. For example, a square can smash destructible objects and enemies, while a line can scrunch up like a spring and jump across the screen. Interestingly, the theme doesn’t end there: the levels are also made up of tetromino shaped sectors that the play can, at certain points, rearrange in order to unlock new areas of the game. That’s a very clever idea, and we’d love to see it applied to D&D’s Undermountain some day.

Right now, the games Kickstarter doesn’t seem to be going all that well, which is a shame, so get on Steam Greenlight and try to get this game made. It’s always fun to see some real originality in game-design.

[via Tetropolis]

Ouya 12-month Game Pass includes 800 Titles

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The Android-based Ouya game console hasn’t exactly burned up the sales charts, but it has been reasonably popular with gamers. The company has a new reason that you might want to plunk down your hard-earned money to buy one. It has a 12-month All-Access gaming pass that will give you access to hundreds of games for one price.

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The pass gives you access to all 800 titles in the Ouya catalog for just $59.99(USD). That’s the price of a single A-list game for console or PC. Ouya says that it’s a value of over $2000 if you bought the games separately.

Once the pass is purchased, all relevant games in the store will show up with a price of $0.00. The year-long game pass doesn’t cover any in-game purchases. Unfortunately, the All-Access gaming pass was only available in a limited quantity and is already sold out. Hopefully, Ouya will offer this program again down the road.

[via Polygon]