Don't Eat Soap! - Hamster Republic

[bob-the-hamster]

I am pleased to announce that my game Don't Eat Soap has been approved for the OUYA store!







Please give it a try, and let me know how it goes! Be sure to try two-player mode, if you have access to a second controller and a friend

[ravenmdm]

Always loved Bubble Bobble. Anything that captures that spirit is cool in my book. I'll have to check this out next time I'm on the system.

[jetmanuk]

Nice game! Just could do with some insanely catchy music (like bubble bobble). Plays well and I like the humour.

[bob-the-hamster]

Thanks!

I am happy with the existing music, althoug maybe the music volume is too low in relationship to the sound effects?

Also, if anybody has a chance to test with a PS3 or XB360 controller, please let me know if it works. I *think* they ought to be supported, but I don't have them to test with.

[Jakenut86]

Loving this game and PS3 controller works great

[bob-the-hamster]

Thanks, Jakenut86! I am glad the PS3 controller works. Anybody had a chance to test with an XB360 controller yet?

[MegaManV]

Just downloaded this earlier today- great fun, though the music could be better.

[bob-the-hamster]

Last week I began work on creating 不要吃肥皂 , a Chinese translated version of Don't Eat soap.



My game engine has zero support for multi-language, and zero support for unicode strings, however, there is so little text in the game, that I decided it was realistic for me to just replace all the display text with sprites.

I don't speak a single word of Mandarin, so I started with google translate, and I am going to have to trust to the help of other proofreaders to help me fix any mistakes.

This will not be a separate mode in the existing apk, I am implementing the translation in a new separate copy of the apk.

One thing that is going to be really difficult is the high-scores table. How am I going to allow players to enter their names into the high scores? I can't use real unicode strings, so how do I do it? I would love to know how existing Chinese arcade games handle high scores lists-- especially old arcade cabinets. Does anybody know? Do we have any ouyaforum regulars who live in China?

My workaround for now is to use unaccented pinyin, but I don't yet know if that will satisfy OUYA or not.

[Kaimega]

Hmm... not sure on that, as Unaccented Pinyin doesn't necessarily work in general. Because Chinese is so tone-sensitive saying something like sisisisi doesn't really work, as 'si' can mean 4 different things (2 most notably being '4' and 'death'). You might be able to get by with si1si2si4 however..

[bob-the-hamster]

Maybe I can cram all the pinyin accents into my ascii font, if I keep it all uppercase. Still I am not going to pursue it any further until I know if OUYA will accept pinyin at all, or if I need to find a pure Simplified Chinese solution.