U.B. Funkeys. WTH*?
Written by Zain on October 8th, 2007{ 25 comments }
It’s great having kids. You get to play with stuff and re-live your youth.
Or not, as the case maybe. I mean, I remember Action Man with the eagle eyes and playing with the Evel Knievel wind up toys (if you were lucky! Man, I’m showing my age…). I don’t seem to remember having to plug things in; download drivers and then spend a couple of hows working out why the damn USB connection doesn’t seem to work and then having to visit the website, trawl through FAQs to find the patch so that you can actually start “playing”.
What am I talking about? Well, it’s some new toy for kids to nag their parents about getting and then have to collect the entire set. Of which there are apparently over 40 of them!
Anyway, funnily enough, there is another tip I’ll be writing about today - although it’s not one on WordPress.
Trust me though - if you have kids and they have one of these new “UB Funkeys”. You might need these tips just to save on a lot of hassle later on!
Okay so if you’re a parent, I’d recommend you brace yourself for a constant stream of “Dad, can we buy a…” type questions. My little boy has just recently been given a U.B. Funkey starter set by his Mum and is now after the remaining 40+. I have to say, toy manufacturers are very clever in their marketing. The basic business model being very similar to linkbaiting (TV ads giving info on the product), purchasing the initial product and upselling the entire product range. Nice one guys. I can definitely learn something here… If I can only get the hype right 
Anyway, my first tip is that the “Funkey” we had didn’t work straight away. The disc with the game and the drivers on it seemed to have problems installing. If you find you have this problem, then you can get a “UB Hub Patch” by going to the UB Funkeys website. This seemed to fix the problem (after at least 45 minutes trying to install and re-install, checking USB port connections etc.!).
The second tip is: Make sure you install UB Funkeys on the computer you want to play it on!
Why? Well, basically moving a character profile is a pain in the butt because there aren’t any guides on how to move your new character from one computer to another! This product’s so new, there’s no forum on it. Luckily, I’m the type of person with enough PC experience and also persistence to work something like this out. So moving the character data from my “work machine” to the “home machine” (where it should’ve been installed in the first place!) only took about an hour once I’d had a proper look at the set up of the folders…
Anyway, if you do find you need to move your Funkey character from one PC to another then don’t despair. It *is* possible to do. Initially, my little boy was disappointed because he’d played for a couple of hours and bought a few things for his “crib”. Installing the game on the home machine, we found that moving the character over was a little tricky and we thought we had to start over from the beginning.
Not so.
Here’s how you do it:
- Go to: C:\Program Files\U.B. Funkeys\RadicaGame\data\
- Inside this folder you should find your character profile name as a folder (i.e. \YourFunkey’sName\ at the end).
- Copy your character folder (most importantly, the “profile.rdf” file that’s inside this folder) to your other machine. The location must be the same.
- Go to C:\Program Files\U.B. Funkeys\RadicaGame\data\system
- Copy the “users.rdf” file from the first PC to the \system\ folder of the one you want the game to run on.
And that’s it. You’re all done and the UB Funky game should now run properly and give you the choice of characters in your “login” screen.
Anyway, I hope that helps some people out. I’m sure over time there’ll be a utility to do this or something. For the moment, this is your best bet if you need to move your character over.
My final tip is, if your kid has one of these then at some point other kids in their class with probably want to get some too. If they all buy different Funkeys, then simply trading them (instead of buying them at £4.99 each!) will save a lot as you really only need the Funkey to unlock certain areas in the game. Much better to leverage your friend’s Funkey instead of forking out nearly £200 notes, I think…
Next post, I’ve got a couple of tips and I’ll be back to my usual WordPress specialities and general ramblings! Got a few other tips as well some updates on FAQ-Tastic (as well as a few other things).
=========
*WTH - for some reason, my no-so-little girl (and her tiny friends) have started using the phrase “What The How?”. It’s quite endearing as they know they’re not really allowed to say “What the Hell” but it sounds very close. Gotta love how ingenious kids can be with wordplay…
Now… if I can only find out what the how “Emo” means (as I understand it, the term describes a type of person)… Answers on a comment please!
October 26th, 2007 at 11:45 am
[...] create in the game are not easily accessible from other computer you’ve started playing on as Knowledge Constructs explains. It would be interesting to connect players together as the games already uses an internet [...]
December 1st, 2007 at 1:32 am
THE GAME SUCKS
December 26th, 2007 at 8:20 am
EMO short for emotional is a type of person who looked depressed but isnt really they are just pretending for attention or fad.
December 28th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Hi
Thank you so much for your tutorial - it solved a problem for us and my little boy now has all his scores, crib and money on the right computer !!
Many thanks.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:36 am
EMO = GOTH PERSON!! freaky!!
———–
Did you know that if you say the number 87 a million times, MY LUNCH LADY WILL FREAK!!
PS…………. NINJAS SING…CAUSE THEY LIKE GANGSTER TURTLES!!
January 17th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Anonymous person #3… the game might suck only because you’re too old for it. Try getting a PS3 or X-Box. I have a feeling that Funkey’s games are for little kids like my 6 year old (even if they are cute for older people too!).
Anonymous person #3 (KJ?) - no problem. I thought this tip would be useful… I spent many hours trying move those profiles so I’m glad your little boy has all his scores and his crib sorted out.
Caitlen - thanks. I now know what an Emo is…although I think Emo’s are actually a subset of Goth rather than just a Goth person.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Have you run across any problems connecting the series 2 UB Funkeys? I seem to have something blocking the full downloads and the tech support people don’t know what it is. I’ve seen others on the web have similar problems, but no solution yet. I get an error when the download gets to 94%. Very frustrating as we can’t play any of the games associated with the newer series of Funkeys. Any ideas? I’ve tried disabling my firewall and anti-virus software to no avail. Sigh.
January 19th, 2008 at 1:05 am
Please post these instructions over at the forums at ubfunkeys.speakeasy.com - it’s a really good funkeys site with a forum and loads of good information. I’d post it, but I think you should get the credit and see the site, too.
January 26th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
We were running UB version 2 when yesterday when it cheked for update it said that there was an update to the Funkiki Island Portal. We downloaded it and now it doesn’t work, we can walk round Funkeytown but can’t access any portal or play any game. We can’t even play games in the crib, they select but don’t load, the screen just goes black. I’ve tried the hub patch but that hasn’t helped.
Any advice appreciated.
February 3rd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
what does the new update do
February 16th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
We had the same problem trying to download the Funkiki Island. I called tech support and they had me right click on the UB Funkey icon and select “Sign in as administrator” from the drop down menu. At that point when it prompted me for to do the download (I was already on-line) we installed it and were up and running again right away.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:25 am
All of these people are wrong (or close) about EMO. Emo is a Genre. It’s short for ” Emotional Music”. It’s the type that’s usually louder music accompanied by an angry, sad screaming voice. Parts of what was said is correct. Like “EMO KIDS” attire. It is some-what gothic. But really, they dress dark to express their sadness, depression and pesamistic state of mind. They usually have their hair parted to cover one side of their face. This is supposedly to hide the stream of EMOTIONAL tears underneath it.
EMO is really a cry for help. If your son or daughter starts taking a liking to Emo music / style, I highly suggest you get them a psych evaluation. Either they just like that kind of music and they’re trying to fit in…or they have something that is troubling them emotionally and this is their way of getting your attention for some higher purpose.
PS> UB Funkeys is very addicting. I’m 22 and I’ve been sucked in to the madness. Mainly because it’s old school mini games with a new school twist. But my computer is crap and wont download more than 93% of Funtiki Island. So I have like 4 ($5 dollar) funkeys that wont work.
February 28th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Thanks ClareBare. I “ran as administrator” and now all my Funkeys are up and Running. I did encounter a few errors and had to Uninstall and re-install the program, so I lost my previous game( which I was doing quite well on, I probably didn’t have to go through all that) but It got it up and running. Thank goodness. The addiction that is FUNKEYS can now progress.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:10 am
ok …so im trying to play with Stich
you know the one with one eye and a big stich
well i get to the game and it wont load
it goes black and says loading stich stalker
but no game
so can any one help
thanx
March 9th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
h;j, .mb…………………………..,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
March 29th, 2008 at 7:24 am
I dont, have 1 but i think if i get 2 today i mite get on and play beouse it sounds grat
April 9th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
hi does any 1 know a good shop not on the internet that sells funkey the new version
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:36 am
Any idea how to do this when going from XP to Vista?? I’ve tried moving the files you mentioned, into a couple places, and I get the user in the drop-down list, but when I pick it, it just goes back to the main menu. :/ The kid won’t be happy with me if I can’t get this worked out.
May 30th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
hi how do you play the games
May 30th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
May 30th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
(L):P:D
June 4th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
its ok
July 11th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
[...] [...]
July 18th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I just tried to switch it worked but it wont let me login in is this a side affect?
September 25th, 2008 at 9:50 am
we already have funkeys downloaded and i brought VLURP on Ebay but when we try to play him it said having problems with porthole? all othet funkeys work!