Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath Available Now on OUYA

The Stranger is back with a vengeance: Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath has officially launched on OUYA. Ten years after the dark, atmospheric hybrid first-person/third-person shooter first debuted on the original Xbox, the gritty gunslinger is readier than ever to hunt down outlaws – for a price. You can take up his cause for $5.99, but players who buy the game in the first week after launch can pick it up for the discounted rate of $3.99.

Players will take on the role of the Stranger, a hardened bounty hunter who arrives in the dusty wasteland of Western Mudos to find it overrun by belligerent outlaws. Of course, the Stranger knows how to deal with outlaws, and makes quick work of these cantankerous criminals with his trusty crossbow. But the Stranger is crippled by an unknown ailment, its origins shrouded in the mystery of his past. He’ll need to rake in a whole lot of Moolah to afford the surgery he needs, and time is quickly running short.

Oddworld exists in the space between two beloved genres, combining the adrenaline-thumping action of first-person shooters with the dexterity and spatial reasoning of third-person platformers. It also offers a richly variable combat experience: enemies can be approached head-on and guns blazing, or can be stealthily dispatched from behind, depending on a player’s playstyle and mood.

In Oddworld, the Stranger wields a vibrant menagerie of artillery – literally, as his crossbow shoots exclusively living ammunition. Whether you’re firing a Thudslug to bowl over your enemies, or spraying them with a rain of buzzing, bristling Stingbees, the Stranger is ready for whatever perils he’ll face in his journey.

Check out the sharp-shooting, sand-sifting, crook-hunting action for yourself in the launch trailer below.

You can purchase Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath today on OUYA, iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon.

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Fight for your (After)Life: Skulls of the Shogun Coming to OUYA October 28

OUYA today announced that following a successful mobile launch, Skulls of the Shogun will be available on OUYA on October 28. Players can take up arms as the tough-as-nails General Akamoto, a bone-faced commander who continues to fight even through the cold dark of death itself. Skulls of the Shogun features extensive single-player or multiplayer campaigns, and will be available on OUYA for $9.99.

Skulls of the Shogun combines classic arcade-style pick-up-and-play with turn-based strategy, and is optimized for tactical and adaptive play. The game lets players explore a number of vivid, high-res 2D environments where they can command stoic skeletal warriors, call upon mercurial animal spirit-monks for power and guidance, and consume the skulls of their enemies to gain fiendish new powers. As the saying goes, sticks and stones may break your bones, but wave after wave of heavily armed skeletons will pulverize your immortal soul.

Social gamers can face off against their friends on thirty different multiplayer maps, which can accommodate two, three, or four players simultaneously in local or online co-op. Players who prefer to go it alone can lone-wolf their way through a full 10-15 hours of bone-chilling single-player combat.

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Reagan Gorbachev, Coming Exclusively to OUYA

Team2Bit, the developer that brought you Fist Puncher, today announced that local co-op stealth game Reagan Gorbachev will be coming exclusively to OUYA on October 21. Fans of local co-op and Cold War politics will be able to take up arms as the incorrigible patriot Ronald Reagan and the famously flexible Mikhail Gorbachev, in an epic struggle to prevent the Cold War from heating up.

Reagan Gorbachev is set in the 1980s in an alternate universe, in which Reagan and Gorbachev are kidnapped by militant extremists during the famous 1986 Reykjavik Summit. Of course, the enemy of your enemy is your friend, and these decidedly kick-ass new friends will need to fight as a team if they hope to escape with their lives.

In this top-down stealth game, players must arm themselves with a mélange of munitions – everything from poisoned darts to katanas to high-powered rifles – and sneak or slash their way through rooms riddled with radical extremists who want nothing more than to take their lives. Reagan Gorbachev can accommodate one or two players, and will be available for $9.99.

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Rise and Shine: Back to Bed is Coming to OUYA October 7

OUYA today announced that, following successful Android, iOS and PC launches, the IGF Student Showcase-winning surrealist puzzler Back to Bed is coming to OUYA on October 7 for $3.99. Back to Bed is like a fever dream of Salvador Dali on sleeping pills: the lines that comprise your world bend and twist into impossible shapes; a strange, inhuman voice yowls cryptic messages in your direction; and nothing is ever as it seems.

Back to Bed follows the misadventures of Bob, an unusually active narcoleptic who regularly falls asleep on the job and then sleepwalks out of his office, stepping blindly into the dangers of the big city. Players will take on the role of Subob, the green quadrupedal manifestation of Bob’s subconscious, in its desperate mission to keep its corporeal body alive. Subob must navigate detailed, physics-defying 3D levels, and use its wits (and environmental elements) to detour Bob around countless dangers – everything from precarious cliffsides to aggressive alarm clocks to gaping maws slavering up out of the ground, hungry for Bob’s blood.

The game’s unique art style is inspired by history’s favorite surrealists: the game features Salvador Dali’s obsession with time, Magritte’s iconic green apple, and Escher’s impossible lines and angles, all seamlessly combined into the ultimate dreamscape.

To take a closer look at the inside of Bob’s head, check out the trailer below.

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Neverending Nightmares is Available on Steam and OUYA

OUYA today announced that Neverending Nightmares, the highly-anticipated 2-D psychological horror game that condemns players to awaken into nightmare after unending nightmare, is available on OUYA and Steam for the discounted price of $13.49 for this week only (following launch week, the game will be priced at $14.99). The game will also have a free-to-try demo on OUYA. Nominated for two Best of Show awards during E3 2014 and called “scarier than any ghost story or zombie infestation,” Neverending Nightmares confronts players with the most terrifying monsters of all—the ones that exist only in their minds.

Neverending Nightmares puts players in the shoes of Thomas, a disturbed young man who is doomed to dream, fear-wracked and rattled and far from the comfort of the waking world. As he tumbles through endless night, Thomas will encounter the apparitions that dwell in the spaces between sleep and sleeplessness, where the bounds of reality begin to bend and warp and each new sight is an unequaled horror. It is up to the player to evade the denizens of darkness, to discern reality from illusion, and to learn the terrible truth behind the nightmare.

For all its fantastical, phantasmagorical imagery, Neverending Nightmares is grounded by its all-too-real source material. In designing the game, developer Matt Gilgenbach drew inspiration from his own personal struggles with mental illness. Gilgenbach hopes that Neverending Nightmares will help to create awareness, inspire empathy, and show gamers going through similar struggles that they are not alone.

Neverending Nightmares’ remarkable visual style and harsh colors contribute to the disjointing world that players are trapped in. Inspired by the art of Edward Gorey, this starkly sparse color palette highlights the player’s disorientation and isolation as they venture through the darkness.

To get a closer look at the terrors that tug at Thomas’ subconscious, check out the trailer below.

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Neverending Nightmares Coming to OUYA and PC September 26

Neverending Nightmares, the psychological horror game that has been called “gorgeous” and “repulsive” in the same breath, will be launching on Steam and OUYA on September 26. In the game, players will take on the role of the harried and haunted Thomas as he awakens into nightmare after nested nightmare. Thomas must evade the phantasms of sleep and safely traverse these horrorscapes in a desperate attempt to discern fact from fiction; to survive until morning, he will have to learn the truth behind the nightmare. A success story of OUYA’s Free the Games Fund, Neverending Nightmares will be available for the discounted price of $13.49 on Steam and OUYA during launch week only.

Though its disturbing imagery and cast of monstrosities are in many ways a tribute to traditional horror, Neverending Nightmares pulls from deeper source material: it is inspired by developer Matt Gilgenbach’s real-life struggles with mental illness. The intimate nature of the game’s inspiration has made the development process both therapeutic and torturous for its creator, and he hopes that it will drive awareness and inspire empathy in its players.

Neverending Nightmares’ stark, vivid art style is inspired by Edward Gorey, rendered in striking black and white penstrokes and enlivened with splatters and splashes of lurid blood-red. The game also features a dynamic light-and-shadow system that sketches dark areas in and out of existence.

For a close-up look at the horrors that await you, check out the launch trailer below.

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TowerFall Ascension Available Now on OUYA

TowerFall Ascension, the update-rich expansion to Matt Thorson’s iconic OUYA launch title TowerFall, is now available on the console’s storefront. With a multitude of new maps, a host of new characters, special arrows that deliver delightful new ways to die, and an all new quest mode, TowerFall Ascension adds a new level of depth to the frantic couch combat fans have come to love. OUYA TowerFallers who already have the original title can snag the sequel for free. For the uninitiated, the game is available for $14.99.

With TowerFall Ascension, Thorson has built additional depth into the game while meticulously maintaining its highly praised balance, ensuring an equitable and engaging gameplay experience for all combatants. On top of the fifty new arenas, a completely new 1-2 player Quest Mode, and four new archers, the expansion provides a number of quirky and completely game-changing features. Ambitious archers can try pulling off melee stomp-kills after enabling Ghosts, which allows dead players to rise again as monochrome phantasms whose very touch spells death. Crank up the chaos by letting everyone start with Laser Arrows that rebound and ricochet at lightning speed, or bring intimacy to your combat by removing arrows altogether - the opportunities are virtually endless.

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Magnetic By Nature Coming to OUYA on August 20th

OUYA today announced that Magnetic By Nature, a puzzle platformer influenced by art-deco architecture and governed by the universal laws of magnetic attraction, will be released on August 20. The debut title from Team Tripleslash, Magnetic By Nature will be available for $9.99 exclusively on the OUYA store, and is coming to PC, Mac and Linux at a later date.

In Magnetic By Nature, players take on the role of the last robot alive in the ruins of a fallen machine-age civilization. Empowered with the ability to control their own magnetic field at will and surrounded by a veritable playground of magnetized metal, players can launch themselves through the air using the forces of attraction and repulsion. By swinging between polarized points, they can traverse a beautifully desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland on their quest to reactivate their decommissioned robot companions.

The richness of the game’s colorful, tastefully muted art style and dynamic soundscape helps to flesh out the vibrant world of Magnetic By Nature. With its fluid, unconventional movement mechanic, over 100 unique levels, and a multitude of both static and reactive magnets on which to swing, the game is a refreshing new take on the platforming genre.

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Juicy Beast’s Toto Temple Deluxe Coming to OUYA July 24th

OUYA today announced that Toto Temple Deluxe, a local multiplayer party game in which players must dash and smash into their friends to get ahold of a priceless egg-laying goat, will be released this Thursday. Produced by Juicy Beast, the Montreal-based creators of smash-hit high-jumping platform game Knightmare Tower, Toto Temple Deluxe will be available exclusively on OUYA on July 24th.

The goal of Toto Temple Deluxe is simple - get the goat, and hold on to it as long as possible! Up to four players can challenge each other in fast-paced goat-based keep away, dashing through the game’s arenas deep under the sea, inside an active volcano, and everywhere in between. Players can unleash super-charged power-ups to turn the tide of a round, and the finely tuned auto balance system helps keep every round interesting for veteran and new players alike.

With free for all, team battle mode, and single-player challenges, Toto Temple Deluxe’s quick cat-and-mouse (or should I say cat and goat?) gameplay caters to both casual and hardcore gamers.

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The Sandbox is Available Now on OUYA

Get ready for deus ex machina (in the most literal sense of the words): The Sandbox, the hit world-building game from Pixowl, Inc., is available now on OUYA for free with in-app purchases. In The Sandbox, players are given free rein over an entire pixelated world. It would take an act of god to bring order to these wild virtual landscapes, and fortunately, players are empowered to do just that. With godlike powers of creation and destruction and dominion over more than 150 different dynamic elements, vengeful and benevolent deities alike are encouraged to indulge their god complex in this dynamic, inventive title.

In The Sandbox, players step into the shoes of an apprentice god who has been given his or her own world for the first time. Take divine intervention to the next level and leave your mark on the landscape: combine simple elements to make more complex ones, then combine those complex elements to construct whole societies with living things, intricate machinery, art and music. Players can take charge of hundreds of pre-built campaign levels, from the rise of man to the apocalyptic end of human existence, or jump into free-play mode to play with physics at will.

Originally launched in May 2012 for iOS and Android, The Sandbox has been downloaded and enjoyed 10 million times on mobile. The game’s OUYA debut marks the first time The Sandbox will be playable on the big screen from the comfort of your couch.

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Age of Zombies Available Now on OUYA

Age of Zombies, the tongue-in-cheek (or should I say brain-in-cheek?) top-down shooter from Halfbrick, is now available on OUYA for free. For the first time, players can take on the shambling hordes of putrescent dead on the big screen, with true twin stick console controls.

Players will step into the sleeveless suit of failed salesman turned time-traveling badass Barry Steakfries, and will journey through both time and space to take down the blighted army of Professor Brains. Face off against cadaverous cowboys and gangrenous gangsters, noxious ninjas and moldering mummies, and prevent the sinister Brains from reducing the human race to so much groaning, putrefied flesh.

Age of Zombies features both Survival and Arcade Modes, letting players share the game’s fast-paced trigger-happy gameplay with friends for double the zombie-slaying action. The OUYA launch marks the first time this title will be available for set-top consoles.

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Narrative-Driven Horror Experience Whispering Willows Coming Soon to Ouya

Whispering Willows, a horror puzzle game from Night Light Interactive that features beautiful 2D visuals and a haunting, well-spun narrative, will be launching on OUYA on May 27. Additionally, the game will be available on Steam on June 17.

In Whispering Willows, players will take on the role of Elena, a young girl with the extraordinary power to project her spirit outside of her body, as she explores the shadowy, atmospheric world of the Willows Estate. As a spirit unbound by physical form, Elena can traverse otherwise-unsurmountable obstacles and interact with other ghosts to piece together the dark history of the house – but she will have to use both her spectral and physical forms in order to solve puzzles, navigate through the sinister estate, and find her lost father.

The game has already won a number of honors for its atmosphere and story, including winning the Seattle Indie Gaming Competition in 2014 and the Cerebral Indie Developer Grant in 2013. Whispering Willows also placed as a finalist in the Captivate Conference Game Design Competition, and won “Most Immersive” at the 2013 OUYA CREATE Game Jam.

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DUCK GAME Lands on OUYA

OUYA today announced that DUCK GAME, the only local multiplayer combat game to feature a dedicated button for quacking, is now available on the OUYA store. Built single-handedly by Vancouver-based developer Landon Podbielski, DUCK GAME rekindles the joyous chaos of old-school local multiplayer gameplay with fast-paced PvP action for up to four players.

DUCK GAME is couch co-op in its purest and most ridiculous form, pitting combatants against each other in rapid-fire avian deathmatches. With quick individual rounds and infinite replay value, DUCK GAME gives players the chance to learn an opponent’s strengths and weaknesses before punishing them with bullets, lasers, rockets, grenades, swords, old-fashioned muskets, or sweet sweet saxophone serenades (and more). Behind DUCK GAME's retro graphics and chiptune music are nuanced game mechanics that reward strategic play.

With 50 different arenas, more than two dozen weapons, and a level editing tool for players to build their own arenas, DUCK GAME is a must-have for the local multiplayer enthusiast.

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DUCK GAME, Coming to OUYA May 13

OUYA today announced that DUCK GAME, a fast-paced local multiplayer battle royale, will be coming to OUYA on May 13. With frenetic head-to-head combat, a smorgasbord of weapons, and a dedicated button for quacking, DUCK GAME is the ultimate couch multiplayer game for settling a score.

Designed by Vancouver-based game developer Landon Podbielski, DUCK GAME is a non-stop quack attack that pits up to four friends against each other in fast-paced multiplayer combat. With tons of weapons and more than 50 different arenas to fight in, players must adapt and adjust strategy on the fly. Gain aerial superiority by combining a jetpack with a mini gun, corner opponents with a net gun, or rain good ol’ fashioned grenades on them from afar.

DUCK GAME’s infinite replayability and persistent ridiculousness will have friends and foes battling beak and nail to decide who is king of the couch.

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Magnetic By Nature, Coming Exclusively to OUYA This May

OUYA and Team Tripleslash today announced that Magnetic By Nature, a fast-paced adventure platforming game that gives players power over magnetism to traverse a machine-age landscape, is coming exclusively to OUYA first. The game is a total redesign of Magnetic By Nature: Awakening, a proof-of-concept demo for Xbox Live Arcade launched in 2013, and will be available on OUYA in early May.

Magnetic By Nature explores platforming without platforms, putting players in the role of the last remaining robot exploring the ruins of an advanced civilization. Using the power of magnetic attraction and repulsion, players must manipulate magnets – and themselves – through wickedly difficult puzzles. Success relies on carefully balancing pushing and pulling on the level itself - go too far in one direction, and you’ll meet a nasty end. With a striking art-deco style, atmospheric sound design, and more than 100 levels of magnetic mayhem to navigate, Magnetic By Nature is an engrossing single-player experience that platformer fans will love.

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Thralled Coming Exclusively to OUYA this Fall

OUYA today announced that Thralled, an interactive experience that tells the story of a runaway slave in 18th century Brazil, is coming exclusively to OUYA in the fall of 2014. Capturing the intense emotions of slavery, loss, and freedom in the colonial New World, Thralled will take OUYA players on a provocative journey that will appeal to gamers and non-gamers alike.

Thralled follows the journey of a young woman named Isaura, a slave traumatized by the disappearance of her child and tormented by memories of an agonizing past. After years living under oppression, she escapes from the sugarcane plantation where she was kept captive and takes to the thick forest to locate her lost son. Hunted by her former masters, Isaura must traverse the wilderness in secret and overcome both real and imagined threats. Thralled depicts Isaura’s search for freedom with vibrant color and dramatic art design that immerse players in the journey, and sacrifices, that Isaura must make.

Originally created as a student project from Miguel Oliveira and his team, Thralled was listed as a finalist in the Serious Games Showcase & Challenge in 2012. An early demo of Thralled will be shown at the OUYA booth at GDC, giving members of the press their first chance to experience Isaura’s journey first-hand.

More information, including a trailer and art assets, can be found on the Thralled website: http://www.thralled.org/

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Mad Catz and OUYA Announce Content Agreement to Bring OUYA to the M.O.J.O.

Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. and OUYA announced today a content agreement to bring OUYA to the Mad Catz M.O.J.O. Micro-Console for Android. In addition, the price of M.O.J.O. will be reduced to an MSRP of $199.99 in the United States with similar price adjustments taking place in all major territories.

Announced earlier this week, the OUYA Everywhere initiative aims to bring OUYA to a wide variety of devices, with the M.O.J.O. Micro-Console being the first. OUYA on M.O.J.O. is expected to debut later this spring with all existing and upcoming OUYA content available on the Mad Catz Micro-Console.

"Up until now, the game console experience has been locked inside a box,” said Julie Uhrman, CEO and founder of OUYA. “Together with the hardware veterans at Mad Catz, we end that. Today’s announcement signifies the inception of a truly open platform where independent developers can bring their creations to the platforms where gamers actually play: everywhere."

“With more than 680 games and 33,000 developers signed up, OUYA features an impressive catalogue of content from AAA developers and independent publishers, all of which are designed to replicate the core gaming experience, taking advantage of the TV and controller,” said Darren Richardson, the President and CEO of Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. “This agreement with OUYA encapsulates our vision of an open software platform powered by M.O.J.O.’s high-performance hardware, and supported by the entire ecosystem of GameSmart gaming accessories. We believe today’s announcements will widen the appeal of M.O.J.O. introducing it to a greater number of passionate gamers.”

For additional information, please visit: www.madcatz.com/mojo/

For more information on OUYA, please visit: www.ouya.tv

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Team2Bit Brings Fist Puncher to OUYA February 25th

Team2Bit brings their hit indie title, Fist Puncher, to the OUYA next week as part of a two-game deal. Launched last year after a successful Kickstarter, Fist Puncher is the creation of brothers Jake and Matt Lewandowski as an homage to classic beat em’ up 8-bit brawlers of yesteryear. Adding two OUYA-exclusive characters to an already impressive roster of 15, Fist Puncher features more than 50 crime lord crushing levels and hits the OUYA store next Tuesday.

Fist Puncher is one of two games the Brothers L plan to bring to OUYA this year. During next month’s annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, they’ll debut their new indie to press and show attendees in the OUYA booth. Not much can be revealed just yet, but expect a pair of bitter rivals to join forces and determine the fate of the free world only on OUYA.

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