Waiting for Review and an Easter treat.

So last weekend was busy...

It was Easter, so therefore in the UK, we had Friday and Monday as national holidays. So we used this time to launch ROO on the OUYA and to prepare for the iOS release.

ROO is currently (as of the 9th of April) waiting for Review. This apparently could take a little time so we all have to be patient. It will be really nice though when it's released as we've done a load of work to make it look nice on the iPad and iPhone with that lovely Retina screen.

Preparation is key

Of all the stores we've released on, the App store is probably the most difficult to get going with. There are many aspects of the store which take some research in order to get right. Luckily for us, Dean knew what he was doing and was able to steer our wayward ship through any potential rocks to get us out to sea. It's also the 3rd time I've had to fill out a Tax form. As Songbird Creations is a Limited UK company, we don't pay US taxes (instead we pay UK taxes) but Uncle Sam needs to be reassured that we're not trying to get away with his money, so we fill in a W-8BEN form and sign it.

For the OUYA I had to print it, physically sign it, scan it and send it back to them. Amazon had a version online and a handy helper, which while was handy could have used a "We're a UK company, just fill it in for me" button like Google does. 

Confirmation is key

While Preparation was certainly important, I've never had to confirm as many things in my life as I did getting the more legal aspects of the store running. Phew, glad that part is over is all I can say.

Customization is key

Phones typically have a slimline aspect ratio some are 1080p others a variation of, however for a landscape game, you're typically looking at most of the action being towards the bottom of the screen, certainly for ROO this was the case. Pretty clouds, blue skies and mountains cover the top to middle and give the illusion of distance and speed while the foreground and character reside towards the bottom to ground the action. 

For the OUYA, we needed to move things up a little otherwise the player is bombarded with a TV image made entirely of sky, for iPad it was worse as the aspect ratio is different again.

So we had to work out how much space was required to keep ROO in pretty much the optimal place while filling the rest of the screen with interesting but not too distracting detail. We had to make some more graphics to place at the bottom of the level.

Once we we done however, it looked and played really nicely. We also had to add an Achievement Toast system to complement the Game Center achievements which you can see in this video.

Feedback is key

On Friday evening, I went out around Cambridge and introduced a few people to ROO, one of the bits of feedback was to do with the Perfect Landing / Resurrection system. It waited for 2 seconds after ROOs failure and used a perfect landing token to burst back into the game (basically a lives system) however it turned out that people were becoming frustrated with the way it was implemented. Often they would reappear only to hit a cactus, a rock or worse - fall directly into a ravine. So something had to be done because while funny, I don't want unhappy players. So now there's a system where you're prompted to tap the screen to reappear when you want to or wait the full 2 seconds. Play testing this feature made it obvious that it was the correct solution. It makes failure your own fault as opposed to the game punishing you randomly.

A Happy Easter

It was really nice to see ROO on the OUYA store so I documented it with a little video. So you can see me install ROO for the first time on the OUYA as well as see how to get those pesky perfect landings. Stick around to the end for a little discussion in difficulty, game dev principles and a personal message from me.



So there you have it. ROO is on the OUYA market as well as Google Play store and the Amazon App store and we're awaiting  our entry to the App store.

If you'd like to know more, why not follow me on twitter @thecacktus

Have fun.

The little console that could.

A little Kickstart!

Back in January of 2013, I was procrastinating on the Escapist Magazine website and I came across an incredibly good idea. A micro console which takes advantage of the recent surge in phone processing power and the Android Operating System; all combined within a tiny stylishly designed box which wouldn't look out of place next to the nicest TV. A full HD 1080p console from the outset with it's own games market with games which must be free to try.

Kickstarter had shaken up the games industry and it seemed that the reported stranglehold publishers had over the various software houses would be weakened and it would usher in a new age of the bedroom coder.

Well, that happened somewhat; The bedroom coder did emerge and a lot of them released games; and some of them were really good. Kickstarter became the go-to place to get funding for the more adventurous or ambitious. There were a few bad apples of course but the net feeling was positive. There are debates as to whether Kickstarter has been over saturated with games and that it's become more difficult to be noticed among the crowd, but that discussion is for another day.

Mr Schafer I presume?

Anyway, I'd been following the antics of the people at Double Fine and backed their kickstarter for the game which would later be known as Broken Age.

Their kickstarter went on to demolish their originally requested amount to the tune of $3.3 million dollars. The internet went bananas.

As part of the deal, they would document everything and the documentaries would turn out to be really insightful to watch. 

It reminded me that Game developers, those people who create these amazing experiences that we love are regular people with hopes and dreams. They weren't too dissimilar to me, they had the same drive and passion as I did - just better funding. 

A large dose of gasoline was poured onto my previously thought to be extinguished candle.

So with both DoubleFine and the OUYA breaking records on Kickstarter, it seemed like the perfect time to get back into games... and the OUYA seemed to be the perfect platform to release it on with it's almost guaranteed success and it's open - yet moderated - marketplace.

I missed the Kickstarter for the OUYA however I did pre-purchase one in January and it arrived in July while I was in the USA - I wouldn't be able to get my mitts on it for another 2 weeks. The plane didn't get home faster because of tail-winds, it was by the sheer force of my will! :-)

I remember being surprised at how small and shiny it was and how the controllers felt really nice and solid. It was simple enough to set up and with it's online market and free to play nature was instantly appealing. I soon found myself purchasing many games. 

The biggest question became, what kind of game do I want to write? Platformer? RPG? Adventure? The ideas flowed fast and strong and eventually I settled on the game currently known as the Reversion Bureau, a puzzle platformer - which has had 2 years of development time spent on it. However more on that game later. 

Fast forward to now.

It's April 2015 and we now have a game released on the Android platforms. It's not the Reversion Bureau, ( that game will come ). Instead, it's a cool little endless runner where a kangaroo named ROO! must race across the Australian outback to rescue his best friend Timmy from a well he fell into. 

We've already released it onto Google Play, Amazon App store and now (pending) the OUYA. On top of this, we're putting a lot of work into preparing for the iOS release, as well as a Windows Phone release.

The OUYA is still going in spite of 2 difficult years in the industry which saw the launch of the new XBox One, the WiiU and the Playstation 4. OUYA have altered the rules a little in response to that; games no longer have to be free to try as long as they have a video to show the gameplay. So we've released our game for a very small fee.

To get this far it has taken a lot of work covering many aspects of the game development process.

• Game Design
• Lots of coding
  
  
  
• Graphics creation
• Rigging and Animation
• Assets pipelines
• Music authoring
• Sound design
• Video editing
• Storefront management
• Device Testing
• Play Testing
• Focus Testing
• Project Management
• Marketing

If it seems like a lot of work, that's because it is. 

Most of it goes unnoticed as it's mostly not fun or glamorous. 

For instance, Project Management and Marketing are incredibly taxing to do correctly and are utterly vital if the project is to have any chance of commercial success - or even being released as a product. Each market place has it's own store-front with it's own way of handling things. Marketing is hard work, even for something you love. It often feels like climbing to the top of every building in the city so you can shout from the rooftops. Those with money or sense employ others to climb the buildings for them, or employ those already positioned to shout.

So here's what I'm hoping for: That the OUYA can fulfil it's promise, that games made independently by small teams can reach those who want to have some fun, kick back on the couch and play games on their TV made by people who care. 

But no matter what happens,

 I'm grateful for that glorious moment where the stars seemed to align, the rebirth of the bedroom coder and the infinite possibilities which they could bring.. that and flappy bird, mostly flappy bird :-)

A plug for the cool little box 

The OUYA is being sold online at http://shop.ouya.tv/ as well as on Amazon and in Target stores in the USA. If you don't have one already, you should pick one up. There's a lot to be said for the games available and playing with the controller is great.

A note to travelling executives:

The OUYA packs away nicely into a travel bag and given that most hotel TVs have a HDMI socket, and there's rarely anything on the TV anyway, it makes a great travel gaming system. Something else to do on those long business trips.

Also, a note to parents: 

There are no disks, so no expensive games to break or scratch or leave cluttered all over the place. Kids can start the game they want, they're mostly for free and those which aren't are inexpensive. It supports up to 4 controllers, it's cheaper than an XBox, a Playstation and a Wii and it's still totally worth the money.

Review the Ancients: Slightly Magic 1991 - Codemasters - 2014 Potassium Frog

Slightly Magic

Written in 1991
Coded by Colin Jones
Graphics: Chris Graham, Colin Jones, Keith Ross
Music: Allister Brimble
Published by CodeMasters

Re-released 2014 by Potassium Frog
Available for PC, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS and OUYA
http://slightlymagic.uk/

I remember this game being fairly tricky.

There were quite a few platform adventure games during the Spectrum's life, Dizzy being one of the most famous (at the time). The idea of a non-combat adventure where you solve puzzles without resorting to violence struck a chord with me, and still does to this day.

With Dizzy you ran around solving puzzles with inventory items while avoiding enemies with running and jumping - a task made more difficult by Dizzy's tendency to roll around.

Slightly Different

Slightly magic was a little different in this regard. Instead of controlling a rolling egg, you controlled a young wizard - complete with wizard's robes and hat; and instead of purely needing the right object at the right time, in Slightly Magic you have use an item with a spell to make the spell work as well as have your spellbook and magic wand. The spells can be used many times and do various things from make ghosts fly away to change your shape; There's even a spell to give a giant an itchy head.
Spells use magical energy which you obtain from stars you collect.
It was a nice and refreshing addition to the regular inventory mechanic which opened up new elements of gameplay.

The main character of the game is a young magician named Slightly. Slightly's Uncle, the wizard Bigwiz has left the castle in a hurry and has forgotten a whole load of things in his haste, one of these things being to take his nephew with him. He also forgot to lock the door to the laboratory and the spell cabinet has been knocked over  sending the spells everywhere. All this coupled with the fact that a sunburned dragon has made off with Princess Croak, it's up to Slightly to fix everything.

Slightly Unusual

I typically review old games which struck a chord with me in some way while I was growing up.
They are normally obscure titles which deserve looking into and will often need the reader to dig around for them. They are the ancient games I grew up with and are not generally available for purchase.

This review will be a little different in that Colin Jones has re-released Slightly Magic on tablets and the OUYA. This review will focus on the OUYA version - mostly to support Colin Jones and the OUYA and in some small way because it's very difficult to get hold of CodeMasters games on-line to play due to CodeMaster's legal block on them.

Thankfully Colin has been able to re-release the game so that future generations can play it and to prevent it from being lost to obscurity. I sincerely hope other CodeMasters games share similar good fortune otherwise they will fade from memory altogether.

This good fortune does present a problem for me though.

Given that the game has been re-released, I am torn whether to review the game from a modern perspective or against its peers of the time - after all, I gave Treasure Island Dizzy a glowing review in spite of the fact that it would probably be responsible for the destruction of TVs through controller impalement.

However given that Slightly Magic is available for purchase and it's peers are contemporary, perhaps a purely nostalgia based review might not be right. I will however review it as fairly as possible.

Slightly Singed

You start the game looking at the young wizard, on the screen you can see a spell book and a magic wand (also belonging to Bigwiz the wizard and also forgotten). The magic wand is in a corner of the screen blocked off with walls. To get the wand you're going to have to work out the way to that part of the castle.. but first of all, you have to get past some dragons.

The dragons burn you if you get too close, not deliberately mind you, they are thirsty and are breathing fire so they need some water to put out the flames. The problem is that they'll only drink from their own buckets. They're the King's dragons so they're picky like that.

This leads me to the first issue I have with the game. It's difficult to know what will kill you and what won't without experimentation and that can be dangerous - also with your lives being limited, you'll be replaying some bits of the game over and over. Not as fury inducing as Treasure Island Dizzy though.

Once you've worked out the solutions to puzzles, you'll optimize your path in no time. This type of gameplay was commonplace back in the 80's and 90's but not really seen any more.

Whether it causes more frustration now than it did back when I was a kid I'm not sure. What I am sure about though is that modern games have removed these gameplay elements for better or for worse and no-one is complaining.

The game appears to rely on the player making mistakes to learn where some off screen platforms will be. Some platforms require the player to jump from one platform on one screen to land on a platform on the next as there is a gap immediately which would cause the player to fall should they just walk off-screen.

However, all of these points are due to the fact that this game is a remake of a 20 year old game so we're going to cut it a reasonable amount of slack. It would have been tempting I'm sure to alter the game in small ways but this could have lead to the loss of the soul of the original - something which thankfully the game has kept.

There is no save system in the game to record your progress.
Once you run out of lives you'll have to restart the game. This is perhaps fair, however should you find yourself running out of time to play, you cannot save the game and come back to it.
This is a real throwback to the original time when saving was more trouble than it was worth however I'm not sure that modern gamers will be able to overlook this.

I feel that this would have been something that could have been implemented behind the scenes, saving progress as the player went along and allowing the player to reload the game state or choose a new game.

Oddly enough in it's defence, the game is quite short and can be completed in about 20 minutes if you know what you're doing.

Slightly Blocky

The graphics are charming and cute, taken pretty much directly from the ZX Spectrum version. This is as close as you're ever going to get to the original Pixel-Art style. Every pixel on the spectrum had to be crafted with care.

It all still works. The graphics are crisp and clear with nice chunky pixels. The remake also doesn't need to worry about the Spectrum's limited number of colours per block of 8 pixels so there's no annoying colour clashing going on.

Whether new potential fans will appreciate the style or be put off by it remains to be seen. I'm pretty sure the discussion was had to upgrade the graphics or not when this project was first floated.

Personally, I like the graphics. As a child from the Spectrum years, they are familiar and look different enough to stand apart from the competition.

Pretty much everything in the game is animated to some extent. From a bouncing glittering spellbook to spooky ghosts. Even the user interface has a bubbling bottle of some magical liquid showing your lives and there's a really cute bouncing star showing the number of stars you have collected.

The game screams cuteness.

Slightly Musical

A jolly tune played throughout Slightly Magic on the 128k Spectrum version and of course on the Amiga version. It matched the tone of the game well feeling like it belonged as the title for a 90's Saturday morning cartoon.

The remake doesn't stick with the spectrum version of the soundtrack. It appears to be taken from the Commodore Amiga version - which as a fan of the original was a little jarring especially with the Spectrum graphics. The tune is basically the same but there are differences.

All those hours from my childhood had burned the theme-tune into my brain (and I do have a great memory for music - if little else) and I do find the 128 Spectrum's sound particularly pleasing.

The newer sound-track is certainly richer and changes song as you visit different areas which is a nice touch. From the jolly tune in the castle to a spookier version to go with the forest outside. What's nice is that it keeps the main melody.

Here are the two soundtracks to play and compare - however they are both walk-through videos so be aware that they will contain solutions to puzzles and spoilers. Viewer discretion is advised.

Slightly Surprised.

Since buying the game for the OUYA I learned that Slightly Magic was the subject of a kickstarter campaign to bring the game back to life for tablets and the OUYA - unfortunately it did not meet its funding goal which is a real shame.

One of the features should it have been successful was to have Allister Brimble re-record the soundtrack with all new and modern technology. I can only imagine what that would be like, but I can imagine it would sound very nice.

The failure of the kickstarter to meet it's goals means that Colin did not receive any money to get this game re-released so I can only guess that he funded the game himself.

The original game when released perhaps had an easier time at defeating it's competition - it certainly gave the Dizzy games a run for their money and received rave reviews from the press at the time.

One thing is for sure, there is a tremendous amount of love to the game. There's not an ounce of bad will in the game or the story. In fact, the only malicious character in the whole game is a witch with a cottage in the forest who has turned Hansel and Gretel into gingerbread people - another thing for Slightly to put right.

The fact that the kickstarter failed and yet Colin still proceeded to make the game is a testament to how much love he has for the game.

In Closing

The graphics are a pleasant throwback to a more innocent time but may not win over newer fans who could dismiss them too easily - which would be a shame. Personally I think they look different to anything else on the OUYA which helps it to stand out.

The music could probably use some higher fidelity samples but is pleasant enough. It still has that jolly feel to it. A modern Allistair Brimble soundtrack would have been amazing.

The controls could use re-mapping. There were many times where I pressed [O] to access my inventory, for something to happen and pressed [O] again to close the message - which did nothing, [A] closes messages. I'd have them both do the same action and have [A] for jumping.

The lack of a save option I feel will put people off, even though the game is short by modern standards, the mobile gaming audience often have limited time to spend playing. So a save as you go feature would really help.

The game's mood is very nice and the screens for each area demand to be explored.

It has more character and charm than a lot of more modern games and was obviously a labour of love.

Thank you Colin Jones for this trip to my childhood and for bringing Slightly back for future generations to enjoy.

Building MOAI for Android and OUYA - all in one.

Building MOAI for Android.

Some things you’ll need before you start.

Patience and Attention to Detail - There are a lot of steps, thankfully once you’ve completed the earlier steps, you won’t need to repeat them. The steps have to be carried out accurately and while you can repeat them, they delete and recreate directories in some cases, so be sure you’re following the correct steps..

An existing runnable MOAI project. There are example projects to use, but as you’re at the point of building for Android, it is probably safe to assume that you have a project ready to at least test on Android.

It’s quite simple once you’ve got the hang of it.

Installing the Environment

Install CYGWIN (Install everything, MOAI uses a bunch of modules, be safe and get them all)

Install adt (Eclipse IDE with built in Android SDK and plugins)

(install to c:\adt-bundle-windows-x86_64)

Install android NDK (copy into subdirectory of adt-bundle-windows-x86_64)

Install Apache ANT (install to c:\apache-ant )

Add ant directory to your path

Add ndk directory to your path

You can use the [Start]->[Control Panel]->[System]->[Admin System Settings]->[Advanced]->[Environment Variables] and edit the value of the path variable.

(Make a copy of the previous path first before you edit as it’s hard to repair if you break it)

or you can use the command line

It’s important to get these 2 directories added to your path otherwise all sorts of things will go wrong as the build process won’t be able to find things it depends on.

Start cygwin

The Cygwin terminal places you in your user’s home directory on your the virtual linux.

To get access to your filesystem you need to:

cd /cygdrive/c

This places you at the root of your hard drive (C:\ in DOS speak)

Optional: If you already have a MOAI source codebase you want to work from,
you can use that instead.

Get the most stable MOAI from the git repo into c:\moai-dev

git clone git://github.com/moai/moai-dev.git

Once the source code for MOAI has been retrieved to moai-dev

cd /cygdrive/c/moai-dev/ant   

(remember in cygwin / takes you to the root of cygwin - not the root of C: )

Run the script to compile MOAI and generate the project structure.

(this will trash any previous projects - be warned)

Pay attention to any errors, this part will fail if anything is wrong with your environment settings.

./make-host.sh -p com.yourdomain.moai  

(make sure yourdomain does not contain [-] characters, it breaks java when compiled as it can’t be used in a namespace..

Changing Settings files.

modify settings-local.sh file.

Set the android_sdk_root to point to your android SDK.

modify the src_dirs to point to your game code.

(note that the path is to be visible to cygwin e.g. “cygdrive/c/gamedev/awesomegame/” )

Modify settings-global.sh file

change the requires=( … ) line to read just

requires=( “miscellaneous” )

Save the changes to the files.

Run the script to build the project file.

./run-host.sh

If this works properly, you’ll have the files you need to start a project.

Bear in mind that cygwin may not have created the directories with the correct permissions. So to save yourself a lot of heartache, set the permissions on the untitled-host folder to give yourself permissions to add to it modify etc. You can also rename it to something more suitable.

Once you’ve completed this section without any issues, you shouldn’t have to repeat this unless you’re re-compiling the MOAI source.

Compiling the Android Project

Start ADT and click the file menu, choose Import.

Then navigate to the directory c:\moai-dev\ant\untitled-host/Host/build/project

If you moved your host to somewhere else, then use that directory.

At this point, your game files should be in the Host/build/project/assets folder.

Once you have the project imported into ADT, you should be able to run it as an Android application.

Note: I’ve noticed a permissions issue when I try to build  the APK, if you get messages saying that you can’t add to the apk, then you need to set the permissions on the folders again as the permissions didn’t inherit when the new build folders were created.

Building Moai for OUYA

To build for the OUYA console, you follow the exact procedure for a standard Android build but with source code (for now until MOAI includes OUYA code in it’s standard host) .

Bear in mind that this is an unofficial Fork of the MOAI engine and may not have newer fixes or features.

The git repo is at: https://github.com/krusmir/LionK1tty-based-moai-dev

krusmir/LionK1tty-based-moai-dev

Once you’ve grabbed the repo either with git or by downloading the ZIP and saving it to c:\moai-dev

(or anything you need, personally mine is called c:\moai-dev-ouya so I can have both Android and OUYA builds )

You can build the project using the steps above. The only change being that instead setting

requires=( “miscellaneous” )

instead you need

requires=( “miscellaneous” “ouya” )

OUYA Specific development

Deploying to an OUYA

Take a micro-USB cable and connect the OUYA to your PC.

Windows will not be able to install the driver initially - so you’ll have to follow instructions on the OUYA web site on how to connect it.

You’ll need to make sure your Android SDK has the Google USB driver installed.

In the directory ( atdbundle/sdk/extras/google/usb_driver/android_winusb.inf), make sure you add

;OUYA Console  

%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_2836&PID_0010  

%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_2836&PID_0010&MI_01

to the [Google.NTx86] and [Google.NTamd64] sections and save it.

This video explains the steps http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=454JFvFTxww

Handling Controllers.

Here’s a handy table of controls and how they’re mapped along with a brief description.

The icons are from the OUYA Dev kit. https://devs.ouya.tv/developers/docs/interface-guidelines

There are listeners which have to be defined to see the OUYA events.

MOAIOuyaAndroid.setListener ( MOAIOuyaAndroid.OUYA_MOTION_EVENT, onGenericMotionEvent )

MOAIOuyaAndroid.setListener ( MOAIOuyaAndroid.OUYA_MOTION_EVENT_TOUCHPAD, onGenericMotionEventTouchpad )

MOAIOuyaAndroid.setListener ( MOAIOuyaAndroid.OUYA_BUTTON_DOWN, onOuyaButtonDown )

MOAIOuyaAndroid.setListener ( MOAIOuyaAndroid.OUYA_BUTTON_UP, onOuyaButtonUp )

The event handlers are defined as:

function onGenericMotionEventTouchpad(touchpadX, touchpadY, player)

…

end

function onGenericMotionEvent(leftAxisX, leftAxisY, rightAxisX, rightAxisY, l2Axis, r2Axis , player)

…

end

function onOuyaButtonDown (keyCode, player)

…

end

function onOuyaButtonUp (keyCode, player)

…

end

You’ll note that the player number is passed as the last parameter. This is 1 to 4.

Also, there is no way to directly query the state of the sticks or buttons, instead you get the events when something happens.

Also note that the Java code handling the sticks takes the deadzone into account. So you need only check for values in the -1 to +1 range in either axis.

Button	OUYA Name	Typical Use	Maps to MOAI
	O	The OK/Select button	Button code 96
	U	The Secondary OK button	Button code 99
	Y	The Tertiary OK button	Button code 14
	A	A - The Cancel / Back button	Button code 97
	D-Pad	Used for accurate directional control.
			Button code 21
			Button code 22
			Button code 19
			Button code 20
	L1	Left Shoulder Top	Button code 102
	L2	Left Shoulder Bottom	General motion l2axis
	L3	Left Analog Pressed.	button code 107
	LS	Left Analog Stick	General motion leftAxisX leftAcisY
	R1	Right Shoulder Top	Button code 103
	R2	Right Shoulder Bottom	General motion r2axis
	R3	Right Analog Pressed	Button code 107
	RS	Right Analog Stick	general motion rightAxisX rightAxisY
	Touchpad	The Touch Pad. Acts as a touch screen.	motion event touchpad touchpadX touchpadY
	System	The System button - Used for pause menus, be aware that pressing this button for more than a couple of seconds quits the game	Button code 82

Here’s a handy list of constants:

AXIS_L2 = 17

AXIS_LS_X = 0

AXIS_LS_Y = 1

AXIS_R2 = 18

AXIS_RS_X = 11

AXIS_RS_Y = 14

BUTTON_A = 97

BUTTON_DPAD_DOWN = 20

BUTTON_DPAD_LEFT = 21

BUTTON_DPAD_RIGHT = 22

BUTTON_DPAD_UP = 19

BUTTON_L1 = 102

BUTTON_L2 = 104

BUTTON_L3 = 106

BUTTON_MENU = 82

BUTTON_O = 96

BUTTON_R1 = 103

BUTTON_R2 = 105

BUTTON_R3 = 107

BUTTON_U = 99

BUTTON_Y = 100

In App Purchases

The business model for OUYA has always been Free to Play. This doesn’t mean Free games however, it is perfectly fine to offer a Free to play Demo of a game which requires payment in order to continue or even a Free-To-Play game which offers in app purchases for in-game-items.

Purchases and card details are handled through OUYA’s market place. All the game has to do is talk to it.

Checking purchases

When the game runs, after a purchase has been made - it’s important to check to see if the game has been purchased or not. Part of the ODK deals with this.

Sources and Thanks

Thanks to gamesfromscratch for getting me through the build process so I could create this document. http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/08/28/Setting-up-a-Moai-Android-host-build-environment.aspx

Thanks to Krusmir for putting the OUYA MOAI branch together