Hello,
I was just thinking - there are many games already available on the Android and it seems that they could technically run on OUYA, but there would be no way to control them, since it lacks touch screen.
So I got an idea for a possible solution, that would make at least some (maybe I exagerrated a bit in the title ^^') existing Android games playable without having to port them - by mapping the controller to specific areas and simulating touches.
The simplest scenario is with games which are controlled by virtual d-pads and buttons - simple buttons are easy - assign each button on the controller to specific spot, where will be a touch simulated, when the button is pressed.
With analog directional stick, you can do similar thing - simulate continuous touch, which will be displaced from the center of the virtual movement stick by the current magnitude and direction of the gamepad's analog stick - the same way you displace it with your fingers when playing on the screen.
What would be a bit more complex are games that have additional ways of controls, like the Minecraft PE, so the mapping would require more work (the virtual buttons would work the same, but what would need to be solved is the camera rotation and block placing.
Of course, some games would be entirely impractical and unplayable with the game-pad, like the Fruit Ninja for example. You could emulate the touches as some virtual cursor, but I doubt it would work very well.
So the generic form of this idea would be some kind of service running in the background, capable of emulating touches based on the controller data, based on some configuration data (or simple scripts) made for each specific game and the goal would be of course to make the configuration for the games as simple as possible - as little work as possible.
What do you think? Would you like something like this?
I would probably try to do it myself, but I won't have the OUYA until April, so maybe somebody else will do it by then.
I was just thinking - there are many games already available on the Android and it seems that they could technically run on OUYA, but there would be no way to control them, since it lacks touch screen.
So I got an idea for a possible solution, that would make at least some (maybe I exagerrated a bit in the title ^^') existing Android games playable without having to port them - by mapping the controller to specific areas and simulating touches.
The simplest scenario is with games which are controlled by virtual d-pads and buttons - simple buttons are easy - assign each button on the controller to specific spot, where will be a touch simulated, when the button is pressed.
With analog directional stick, you can do similar thing - simulate continuous touch, which will be displaced from the center of the virtual movement stick by the current magnitude and direction of the gamepad's analog stick - the same way you displace it with your fingers when playing on the screen.
What would be a bit more complex are games that have additional ways of controls, like the Minecraft PE, so the mapping would require more work (the virtual buttons would work the same, but what would need to be solved is the camera rotation and block placing.
Of course, some games would be entirely impractical and unplayable with the game-pad, like the Fruit Ninja for example. You could emulate the touches as some virtual cursor, but I doubt it would work very well.
So the generic form of this idea would be some kind of service running in the background, capable of emulating touches based on the controller data, based on some configuration data (or simple scripts) made for each specific game and the goal would be of course to make the configuration for the games as simple as possible - as little work as possible.
What do you think? Would you like something like this?
I would probably try to do it myself, but I won't have the OUYA until April, so maybe somebody else will do it by then.