Playdate - that monochrome handheld with a crank


ible

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i like it, very nicely designed. i'm tempted, but i would also want to develop for it, and i have very little time for that nowadays...
 

JDTAY

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https://www.kotaku.com/video-games-should-be-weirder-1834991545

Playdate inspired this article that wants games to be weirder. I like their criticism of data analysis based game design. Good games give you what you want, but great games give you what you didn't know you wanted. Playdate does say on their site that they want to be a surprise in an industry that doesn't surprise often.
 

AVahne

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Very cool device, but also very expensive. If only it were cheaper AND HAD A GODDAMNED BACKLIT SCREEN.
 

elw3

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Just compare the art in early games with the fake hipster pixelation you currently see. Thats basically my concern.
Back when screens and hardware where limited they hacked pictures together that showed colors and shapes surpassing what was actually showable.
Now just imagine you put a modern programmer/graphic-designer used to fancy sdks/gimp in front of a b/w screen and tell him to display a landscape.
They may know about dithering and how to make grey tones, but i simply doubt you find many ppl that are willing to put enough effort into it to truly master it.
So in the end there wont be many games that truly use that screen to the limit. If any other than tech demos at all.
 

FBnil

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This has to have legend of river king or they completely fail.
How about adding all the ideas of Pokemon Go?

Or how about a horror where you get these pulses on your display where the monsters are and need to run far away from them. (while cranking. faster cranking slows down the monsters).

Or a game of Desert Bus, where the steering wheel is the crank, and you need to keep the bus on the road... for 8 real hours...

A game of airwolf!
 
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levi

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This was mentioned today in the MetroUK's newspaper gadget roundup. They mentioned the similarity with the gameboy, they mentioned the colour and I think they mentioned the screen was black and white, but there was no mention of the crank!
 

ible

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some "news" (just stuff coming along, orders later in 2020):
https://play.date/update-dec/
looks like the plan is to have an SDK available for everyone (not just developers) eventually. i think i'll start saving up for it; it's a cute little handheld. if the SDK is open enough, i'll probably press go.
 

spud42

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This was mentioned today in the MetroUK's newspaper gadget roundup. They mentioned the similarity with the gameboy, they mentioned the colour and I think they mentioned the screen was black and white, but there was no mention of the crank!
the article ible linked said this.... "We also engineered a brand new crank using an all metal-to-metal contact on the bearing surfaces. It’ll be stronger, more reliable, and serviceable with just a hex screwdriver. "
the case looks ok but not sure of the way it opens.
 

ible

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news: https://play.date/update-oct/

TLDR: seems like linux is supported for development, each handheld can be get uploaded your custom software, no app-store to worry about (third-party installs ok); orders will open in 2021 due to delays. they're ordering enough for a first batch of 20,000
 
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ible

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sorry, i don't imagine you can do development on the device itself. i meant, you can develop for the device on another computer and upload your software there. it's a pretty low-spec processor...

their advertisement is that "every device is a development kit"
 

TeDaDeS

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It's an ESP32 and I assume you develop on your PC and you can upload and test on the device itself.
With commercial consoles you would have to buy a development kit with SDK to create the game, this console comes with an SDK and you can run the created games directly on your handheld.
 

traylorpark

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It's pretty neat! Super pocketable. I imagine you could likely dev for the thing on the Pyra too .... maybe ...
 

ible

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some big announcements:

retailing for $180, and they'll have a (probably optional/extra cost) stereo dock for charging and bluetooth speakering. preorders start next month.

and they'll have a web-browser based game making toolbox sometime later this year... pretty snazzy.
 
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