I farted about with old tech yesterday!
Woot!

-=-=-

Shoecase corner is "functional" but not yet complete. I still need to do all the "how many wires, how many plugs, how much chaos" stuff to get it all up to scratch.

In the meantime, then, I pulled out even more little bits and added to the pile!

The OUYA was hooked up for the first time in a few years, and that's pretty much exactly how I left it.
Hurray!

Then I tried playing with my PlayJam "Flare"..?



I'm not sure it's called a Flare. I've found it in various places with the names Puck and even OTT. I'm not really sure what it's called.
Anyhoo, it's a little Android device.
You can plug it in, and then you get a black screen with some dev-ID text in the corner, looking very DOS like.

There's a few icons on the bottom for options, enabling ADB, that kind of thing.
There's also a button to bring up a menu of all the installed apps, and in there is where I found a bunch of AGameAWeek games. The majority of my OUYA games are all in there.
Gosh, I'd completely forgotten about how much time and effort I put into adding games to this thing!

I sat and played SpikeDislike 3 on it.
The lag.. My god, the lag!!!

You know how people complained about the OUYA controller's lag?
That, but ... I dunno, it felt a little bit worse, if I'm honest.
But then I never really felt the lag on my OUYA that much.
Comparing them side by side, it was definitely worse on this device.

Having looked into it, though, the giant yellow cheap-looking controller that they sent me probably wouldn't have been the final controller.

This controller designed by Pip Tompkin, is likely have meant to have gone alongside the "Puck"
You can see the Puck in amongst the images on that site, even with its packaging, and I must admit, that controller looks pretty damn snazzy.
The two look REALLY nice, side by side.

.. But then the controller looks like it has a bit at the top that might also hold a Gamestick in it, so then what goes with the Puck!?
Or is it a Flare?

Who knows.
Probably someone at PlayJam knows.
I don't know.

I checked through my old emails, and in one dated October 2015, there's one that quite clearly states "It's called FlarePlay"
So, I guess that's the name, then!?

FlarePlay, Flare, Puck, whatever.
All I know is, it still works almost a decade later, and I guess that's as good a sign as any.


"Cartoon @Derek playing on his OUYA." by #ArtFlow.ai

... That's not an OUYA, Greenie!