OceanBattle

Ocean Battle is three boxes and a couple of cables:

• Two consoles. These are identical — each simply reads Player Console, with nothing marking one as Player 1 or Player 2. Each has a 12×12 grid of light-up buttons, a small screen, and a dial you can turn and press. This is where you sit and play.
• The brain. The referee. It runs the game, keeps score, and holds the single speaker. You don't interact with it directly — it just needs power and both consoles plugged in.
• Two console cables and one power supply. Each console connects to the brain with a ribbon cable. The power supply plugs into the brain.

The consoles have no brain of their own on purpose — everything the game knows lives in the referee. That's why a console can be unplugged and plugged back in mid-game and pick up exactly where it left off.

1. Power off first. Make sure the brain's power switch is off before you plug anything in.
2. Plug into the brain's ports. The brain has two ports, A and B. For a two-player game, plug one console into A and the other into B. To play solo against the computer, plug a single console into A only. Push each cable on until the latch clicks — the plugs are keyed and only fit one way, so don't force them.
3. Plug in the power supply to the brain, then to the wall.
4. Switch the brain on. Both consoles wake up to the title screen — the grid runs a slow, colourful wandering pattern while you wait. You're ready to play.

Each console has three things you touch. The screen and dial together are one physical plate, labeled Captain's Console on the unit — that's the small sub-panel you're actually looking at and turning when you play.

Starting a game

At power-up both consoles show the title. Whoever presses the dial first becomes the host for that game — the host chooses the board size and rules. From there the Player's Manual takes over.

Two settings you'll reach for, both from the dial menu:

• Volume is shared — there's one speaker, in the brain — so changing it on either console changes it for both. It runs 0 to 10, and 0 shows as OFF.
• Brightness is per console, since each has its own grid. While you adjust it, the grid shows a fixed pattern echoing the TRaCK logo, so you're previewing the actual brightness on real pixels rather than guessing from a blank grid. Set each console to taste.

What survives a power-off

Your settings are remembered between sessions, so you're not resetting them every time:

A game in progress is not saved. Cutting the power ends the current game — which is the honest behaviour for a thing on a table.

Ocean Battle can update its own firmware over WiFi. The brain has no internet connection of its own — it borrows your phone's or computer's for the minute or two it takes to check for and download an update.

1. Enter Update Mode. Press and hold the Reset button on the brain for 3 seconds. Hold it — a quick double-press instead resets the current game, not the firmware.
2. Join the brain's WiFi. The brain's screen shows a network name and password unique to your unit. Join it from a phone, tablet, or computer. On a phone, keep your cellular data on — you're joining the brain's WiFi for the connection, but still need your own data to reach the internet.
3. Open the update page. Go to 192.168.4.1 in a browser. It checks the latest version and shows you what's available.
4. Start the update. Keep the page open and don't unplug anything while it runs.
5. Let it finish. Each console updates in turn — one not connected is simply skipped — then the brain updates itself last and restarts automatically. The page tells you when it's safe to close.

Both the brain's own screen and each console's screen show their own progress as this happens, so you can follow along without looking at your phone.

• Keep it dry. It's open electronics — no drinks over the grid.
• Clean with a dry or barely-damp cloth. No sprays or solvents on the buttons or screen.
• Give it air. The brain and power supply get mildly warm; don't run them boxed in or under a blanket.
• Carry by the console body, never by the cable. Unplug by the connector, not by pulling the ribbon.
• Store the cables loosely coiled. Sharp kinks in a ribbon cable break conductors over time.

When in doubt, the safe reset is: power the brain off, check both cables are seated, power back on. Because the brain holds all the state, a clean restart fixes most oddities without losing your saved settings.