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Released two years ago, Playdate is still small and yellow with a black-and-white screen and a cheerful crank on its side. Today, the device has a built-in library of over 100 titles, not including Call of Duty, Dark Souls, The Last of Us, or any other big-budget mainstream game — and that’s exactly what makes it so bad. Breathtaking. The community that has grown up around this handle is lively and creative, and scrolling through the Playdate tags on itch.io or github feels like hanging out in a friendly underground club populated by video game nerds.
I promise it’s less annoying than it sounds.
However, Playdate has become kinder and more convenient with age. Fire control Publisher Panic and hardware studio Teenage Engineering unveiled the device in February 2019, pitching it as a sub-$200 handheld with a monochrome display, cranks, and seasonal drops of free games. Pre-orders for the Playdate opened in July 2021 and the plan was for shipments to begin by the end of that year. However, in November, panic was discovered in its production line and the company was forced to swap suppliers and delay the release. Playdate officially went into players’ hands in April 2022, and overall, reviewers found it to be a hit.
Playdate ships with 4GB of storage and 24 free games, including Kranken’s time travel adventure From the uvula in Keita Takahashi’s studio Zipper By Bennett Foody. Playdate has always supported sideloading as well, which means it’s easy to get titles from it And other distribution sites on the device. In March 2023, the Playdate Catalog was launched, offering a selection of 16 games for purchase. The panic also raised the price of the Playdate from $179 to $199 at this time, due to higher manufacturing costs.
Today, Panic has sold nearly 70,000 Playdates, and its catalog contains more than 100 games, with more added regularly. Panic held a software showcase in February and headlined it an exclusive Playdate project from Papers please And The return of the opera d’en Creator Lucas Pope. Mars after midnight It was released on March 12, and Playdate had a preview that week, just as Adult Storefront does.
Two years after launch, it’s clear that there is no single formula for Playdate. , for example, turns Playdate on its side and uses the crank as a helicopter-style rotor, spinning a propeller shroud onto a demon trapped in a gothic tower. Rotation controls this horned man as he slices down flying enemies, leaving bits of flesh and bone falling from the narrow frame. Then there are titles like , a simple but addictive letter turning game that I recommend to all Wordle fans. Playdate supports first-person shooters, detective puzzles, bullet hells, shooters, puzzle games, RPGs, pocket pets, beat ’em ups, action adventures, racing simulators, and all kinds of subgenres, including some Which was invented specifically for the platform.
Throughout Playdate’s UI and games, the crank turns into hundreds of different tools. There are the standard iterations like a crank to pass and a crank to buy, but there’s also a crank to pour a drink, a crank to fly, a crank to fish, a crank to spin a log, a crank to build a city, a crank to control time, a crank to crank, and a crank to He survives. Literally every game in Playdate reveals a new use case for the forearm or helps demonstrate the ridiculous level of detail possible on a 400 x 240 1-bit display. Many games do both — and Mars after midnight He is one of them.
As the creature in charge of the community room on the Mars colony, Mars after midnight Players open an observation window and select the correct aliens for each session, while also providing snacks, cleaning up with long tentacles, and planning for future support groups. Players use the crank to open and close the peephole in the room, but the game also includes Playdate’s A and B buttons, D-pad and speaker, rolling out new mechanics at a steady pace. The game is populated with adorable, bumbling aliens, cute cartoon set pieces, and even offers a full language.
Like the vast majority of Playdate games, Mars after midnight It doesn’t feel like a shortened version of a larger idea; It was simply meant to be a colorless, powered experience.
I’ve had a consistent issue with Playdate, something I didn’t think would be a big issue when I first reviewed it in 2022. The lack of backlighting in its screen is noticeable and sometimes annoying, especially in low-light spaces. I often find myself tilting the screen toward a window or a nearby lamp, and the device is largely inoperable on a dark plane or bus, or without a light source after sunset. If you remember trying to play the original Game Boy at night in the back seat of your parents’ car, waiting for the streetlights to flash by the window at regular intervals, it’s a lot like that. There’s a tinge of nostalgia here, but mostly it’s kind of depressing.
However, the biggest problem with the Playdate may be the Stereo Dock. Panic unveiled the Stereo Dock in mid-2021 – a really cool charging stand, Bluetooth speaker, and pen holder that matches the Playdate’s cool yellow color. I’ve been wanting to put one on my desk ever since it was announced, but the stereo base has been “coming soon” for a couple of years.
“It’s really still coming,” Playdate Project Lead Greg Maletic told Engadget.
“We apologize to everyone with a Playdate who was patiently waiting to get their hands on the Stereo Dock; it was a more complex project than we expected and we had some false starts,” Maletic said. “We thought we would save some time on this project by having our factory implement the Stereo Dock, but we learned that you don’t necessarily always want that in some cases. The Stereo Dock is very much alive, and we have the physical prototypes to prove it!” We expect to have an official update on when you can purchase one later this year.”
If the worst thing about Playdate is the fact that people can’t get enough of it, then things seem to be going well. The device has not experienced any widespread recalls or hardware issues, its storefront is growing, and its development pipeline is as well and people are still interested in buying it (and the stereo base one day).
With Playdate, Panic has created a new group of curious gaming fans and provided a platform for innovation that will spread across all sectors of development. Playdate is a small, simple, one-touch – crank – gaming machine, and in its first two years on the market, it has discovered wells of creativity in the indie scene. By shrinking the graphics and adding a new input method, Playdate changes the way we think about how to play and make games. With many of the industry’s most influential studios trapped in a cycle of mass layoffs and regularly scheduled crisis, it’s a great time to rethink what we’re all actually doing here. Playdate makes this process natural, accessible, and entertaining.
A device like Playdate doesn’t just happen. I wouldn’t worry about revisiting this thing two years after launch if it was too lame, too complicated, or not serious, but this isn’t a funny gimmick from a company on a press tour. The sense of style, care, and proper priorities built into Playdate is what makes it a blank canvas for so many different approaches to game development. Playdate is a little yellow inspiration machine; It’s a virtual reset button for the entire industry. Actually, I think it’s the reset crank.
Go on, turn it on. It’s very fun.
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