The Broken Invisibility of 400 Roku Games

[@MasterEth]

I have been informed by one of the roku developers that there are about 15 more games I didn't cover due to having to sideload and use a Simulator, but i did cover all of the ones in the official app store, these are the ones that use this work-around: Prince of Persia, Lode Runner, DK, Moon Patrol, Quartet, Poker Clock, Retaliate, Pong, Asteroids, 3D Test, Draw2d Benchmark, Custom Video Player, and a few unnamed test demos. *edit made on 3/13/24* *edit 2* another developer told me that there is a whole OTHER section of roku games of about 200 games, however, alot of them are the same as the catelog of 400 games. "Ok, I know the UI flow is broken but have you noticed the list of games here? : Streaming Store->apps->"Games" row->scroll right to the end->See All Here are 200 games that should not include nearly as many broken or dupes." -Roku Dev *edit made on 3/15/24* *edit 3 - 3/16/23* thank you for 2.4K views in 3 days, here's a list of all the working games since one of the devs asked me for it. No broken games and no duplicates: Working Games (full list) 1 Retaliate 3 Rainbow Dash 5 Wheel of Fortune 13 Candy Bear Free 17 Tiles 21 Text Twist 35 Neon Party Games 39 2048 Free 42 Color Swap 'n Drop 44 Biniax 50 Druid's Tower 55 Hangman 57 Rockswap Adventures 60 Texas Hold 'Em 61 Color Fill 'Em 63 Super Stickman Golf 67 G4R-KaBoom!! 69 MiniGolf 74 Four in a Row 75 Trivia Channel 76 Flying Fish 77 Mazes Plus 80 PokerHD 81 Candy Bear 84 Mystery House Free 85 kuglo 90 Minesweeper 92 Sofa VS Sofa Trivia TV 93 Photo Puzzle 95 AstroBlast 96 Party Trivia 97 Quartet 100 Tangrams 101 Pathogen 2 102 Dracula's Coffin 105 Monster Bombers 115 Ants Free 116 FreeCell Pro 118 Balls and Boxes Free 119 Color Bowl Free 120 Color Jump Free 121 Twilight Divide 123 RUN CMD 128 Snow Battle 130 Deal or No Deal 131 Pinball 132 Buzzer Run Free 135 QuizTV 136 Falling Down Free 139 Snakes Free 143 Knife Smash 145 L'ABBAYE DES MORTS 155 Candy Bear 2 Free 161 The Breakout- The Pirates Saga 162 Monstrum Match 163 Letter Sensei 166 Match It Up 168 Math Game 181 Harvest Tale 184 Astroid Shooter 185 Helix Bounce 186 SNakes Ad Free 188 Missle and Defence Ad Free 199 2048! Deluxe 200 Super Maze Deluxe 229 Pumpkin Run 232 Pixel Protectors 240 Monster Squisher 245 Stax Sort Puzzle 247 Unite Free 248 Unite 254 Sweet Sugar 255 Color Line Free 258 Taipan 259 A Nominal Wandering 260 Dino Jump 261 Flappy Foot Chink0 266 Hit and Blow Multi 267 Pigs Tails 269 Ninja Slash 272 Mining Mayhem 278 Tank Combat 283 Hatchimals 287 Street Ninja 289 Click Hero 293 Dino Square 306 Puppy Merge 310 Starfarer 312 Trivia Crack 313 Micro Pets 314 Ring Hop Free 316 Castle Runner 317 Brain Puck 318 Bubble Wrap 319 DOTS 320 Shut the Box 322 Catch The Egg Game 324 Terrarium 326 Air Hockey 328 Penguin Hockey Goalie 332 Funny Football 335 Realm and Valor 336 Wordleful Puzzle 340 Anagram Game 342 Farm Escape 343 Tetris 345 Stake Game 368 Hanfuda 349 6-ball puzzle 353 Hex 354 Last Call 356 Riptide 359 Ninja Kidz The Game 363 Guess The Word 364 Total Skidom 367 Pixel Dash 368 Fruit Cutter 369 Bike Racer 370 Stunt Extreme 371 Street Racer 372 Hangman 373 Mission Destruction 374 Road Cross 375 Zombie3D 376 Jungle Adventures 377 Stunt Racer 379 Drag Racer 380 Boss Baby 381 HappyKids 382 Jet Blocks Carrot Mania Pirates Oh also I was invited to a developer slack group because of researching this video and they have been so cooperative and kid, so shoutout to all the roku game devs!

[@imfatkid420]

Hey check out AVGN tiger electronics trust me you will understand

[@cocotower]

Until Roku opens up more low-level API stuff, I can't write my Tandy CoCo 3 emulator. I need access to the video framebuffer or a quick way to write to the screen in the way that an emulator needs to.

[@MasterEth]

Ok

[@MasterEth]

That makes sense

[@penguruvods7395]

You should develop a roku game and submit it now

[@MasterEth]

I was kind of considering it for the video, but honestly, this video took like 6 months to make and completely drained me so I just wanted to get it done lol

[@egaxorz]

i actually used to play tetris on roku rather frequently. one of the few games that doesn't make you want to shoot yourself playing with upright remote controls.

[@MasterEth]

tetris is great on roku, although i question the legality of the "licensed" games on roku, one of my next videos will tackle the possible piracy of a "games without a fanbase" video

[@piersonlawrence3467]

Often watching KZbin I find videos like yours where the quality and effort put into it is so impressive that I almost forget or don't notice that you only have 200 views or 4000 subscribers, which is crazy! This is impressive work for someone starting out and I commend you for your work!

[@cupofdirtfordinner]

+1

[@MasterEth]

Thank you so much! I've found similar people like that too! I've been going at this since like 2016 so It's been almost a decade of videos, and I'm planning on tackling more gaming topics like this in the future

[@MoonRiver_118]

felt like I was going crazy when I was bored scrolling through available Roku channels and saw games. if I weren't deathly afraid of giving my credit card info to them I def would've tried them

[@MasterEth]

Considering how many Broken games and slots there were, I didn't not give them my credit card lol

[@Blippys]

great video man

[@MasterEth]

Thank you

[@donnietobasco4526]

Wow. Never had a Roku, never had the need. But the fact that this exists and no one in the indie/retro scene seems to be talking about it is wild. This is right up my alley.

[@MasterEth]

hence why i made it

[@ThatGuyRancid]

I never thought I'd care about the preservation of Roku games, but here we are. Now, all that's left is getting Doom on Roku

[@MasterEth]

Doom on roku would go crazy

[@leotheliongames]

Bless the KZbin algorithm! Great work!

[@MasterEth]

the algorithm is finally in my favor again lol

[@apierce4565]

how does this only have 600 views??? your content is so high quality! youve gained a subscriber, i cant wait to see what else you make

[@MasterEth]

it's almost at 2K lol about once a year this happens, typically on a video that is more commentary based, but the fact that it happened on a video of mine that I'm really proud of makes me happy

[@pokenutter]

I remember our first Roku was the Angry Birds red model from way back in the day. It used a motion sensor in the remote, which made it thicker than a normal Roku remote.

[@MasterEth]

i wish angry birds was still on roku

[@mateo-ism]

This reminds me of the Fire TV games video i did Just 1000's of broken, awful games and in the sea of crap, a few gems brilliant video as always bro!! Happy Birthday

[@MasterEth]

When I was making this video, I was reminded of your video for sure

[@ImCliffordToday]

“Mom, can we get a wii?” “No, we have wii at home” Wii at home: (Great vid, btw man!)

[@MasterEth]

haha thank you!

[@SmokeBreakWithHuck]

I enjoy Crazino Slots more than I should on Roku. Good video!

[@MasterEth]

Thanks! I never understood the appeal personally. My problem comes into play when they start asking you for personal info or when the site hosts way too many Slots games. Roku Games currently have an identity crisis, and it's kind of hard to gauge whether it's for families or adults, since both types of games are on their platform, and are accessible to all ages, even Slots, which is a bit of a problem, especially when you consider how easy it is to spend money on these games if you have a payment option already set up.

[@darkguardian1314]

A long time ago (2011), Roku came out with a streaming device with gaming remote (RC03). The controller was similar to the Wii with acceleramators and you hold it sideway to use the A B buttons. It didn't have shortcut buttons to other streaming sites like Hulu. I play a few games but they were very rough wiht only a couple gems in the bunch. After my third Roku needed upgrade, I still got the games but the controller was no longer available.

[@MasterEth]

@@darkguardian1314 I tried so hard to find a roku controller for the video, but I figured most people wouldn't have a roku controller so I just used the remote instead

[@DanielFiala]

MasterEth back at it again! Great video man, and great job scoping out such an obscure but cool gaming thing lol

[@MasterEth]

That is what I do best lol

[@azup8235]

good video, i got about half way through this when i realized it only has 177 views. definitely should have way more, incredibly underrated.

[@MasterEth]

thank you so much! :) it's at like almost 2K after two days. Reddit going crazy

[@BlueMareen]

This reminds me of playing the terrible and laggy games through Dish Network on my CRT back in 2008. Thanks for the nostalgia trip and I hope you get more popular!

[@MasterEth]

Oh gosh my grandma used to have dish network and i never knew those had games

[@BlueMareen]

@@MasterEth Much like Roku's games they were very buried in sub-menus and almost all of them were not worth the bandwidth I used to play them. I think the best ones I played were a rip off, Great Value brand Gradius and a Breakout clone

[@MasterEth]

Good to know, it's crazy how games Just exist on these platforms but no one knows about them

[@goopyhead]

I remember i really liked those

[@JessicaFEREM]

roku did have that one roku with a gaming controller which was like the wiimote on it's side.

[@MasterEth]

I tried so hard to find a roku gaming controller but couldn't find one anywhere

[@SebastianWoodard]

I think you’re talking about the Roku 3. This is around 2014 or so, and when I first heard about and had a Roku, which is a Roku 3 I still own. It came with Angry Birds Space preinstalled

[@MasterEth]

Good to know

[@nixielad]

12:09 Is it just me or are those penguins on the sides from Club Penguin?

[@MasterEth]

@@nixielad WAIT HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THIS

[@FedraHere]

Nice! Love it

[@MasterEth]

Thanks

[@BoyOHBoy123]

I'm pretty sure Tetris Friends used to be on Roku TV.

[@MasterEth]

It probably was at some point but I'm pretty sure it got removed

[@egaxorz]

@@MasterEth hi hi! 4 months later revisiting this, i can confirm that tetris friends specifically was on roku, as well as whatever else i played. i remember it very vividly.

[@MasterEth]

@egaxorz good to know

[@ZugTheDragon]

Good video! However I'd just like to point out, Dolphin, nor emulation in general is not illegal :) You're supposed to dump your own games from CDs from them, downloading the games for it online is illegal, just like with everything else

[@MasterEth]

ngl, the dolphin part of the video was mostly a joke. Emulators are a complicated thing legally hence why i mentioned it, it'll also tie in with a future video at some point.

[@ZugTheDragon]

@@MasterEthAh, I get that!

[@Pupppeteer]

Thats crazy all those broken games just sitting on their service haha. But the strategic shooter game seems interesting. Shootem up games can be pretty fun if not a bit repetitive though. Not like any of these I'd actually commit time to but still its good to see some interesting mechanics here and there just a shame these developrers got their games hidden away.

[@MasterEth]

Pupppeteer!!! It's been awhile how you been? yeah idk if you saw my community post but I'm currently in contact with some who is planning on having all the broken and duplicate games to be removed, so looks like my video might actually have an impact for change for once lol

[@Pupppeteer]

@@MasterEth I've been on survival mode hahaha close to coming back but also still in hiatus mode. Overall in a better place though how about you? You look well and sound great. Nice!! I didn't see the post because I try to not be super super active on KZbin but well done on making them see sense in improving the platform.

[@MasterEth]

I feel the survival mode. Overall I've been good for the most part. Just trying to make more videos this year since I got a new system in place. And yeah I hope roku actually makes a change

[@m3t4ldood]

i want to learn how to make roku games

[@MasterEth]

In the sources there should be a link to texh you how to do it

[@cupofdirtfordinner]

good video

[@MasterEth]

thank you

[@goopyhead]

This better have that dog racing game i grinded 80 quintillion dollars on

[@MasterEth]

I remember that game vividly lol I think I cut that from the good games list just because I ran into some glitches, other than that tho it was fun

[@goopyhead]

@@MasterEthNeon party games is another one i played at my grandmas i had to convince my cousins to play with me because i just had to see the multiplayer and it was pretty fun actually

[@MasterEth]

Neon Party Games is a banger

[@goopyhead]

@@MasterEthI also remember playing ants, snake, doodle jump, and i saw pac man championship edition??? it was priced tho idk if it’s still there (this was all 2 years ago they’re probably still on her roku)

[@MasterEth]

Ants and Snake were on there, the other ones got removed I believe

[@Bluevolon]

I hate stuff we like games. Their game's are absolutely horrible and poorly made.

[@MasterEth]

I agree for the most part

[@Bluevolon]

​​@@MasterEth the only good games I see on Roku are pathogen 2 Titles candy bear 1 & 2 rainbow dash neon party games dots retaliate ants.

[@bbgjiji8592]

u just pmo

[@MasterEth]

funny how pmo means "piss me off", "put me on" or "project management office". So because of that idk how to respond, but either way, I appreciate your comment :)

[@fatteneddessert]

fake news

[@MasterEth]

Which part?

[@fatteneddessert]

@@MasterEth do i know you?

[@MasterEth]

No?

[@fatteneddessert]

@@MasterEth that's what i thought

[@MasterEth]

Lol

[@jockohomosexual]

i remember going through some of these games on my own time forever ago, and also being shocked that nobody had talked about them. there is a world where i spent half a year on this instead. crazy. anyways the best game i played was definitely quartet because it felt like the only one that really was made with the roku controller in mind, shockingly addictive.

[@MasterEth]

Quartet is a good one