Are you feeling cranky? I know I am.
The Playdate has to win the prize for quirkiest console currently on the market, and I’d say the Playdate is the most quirky console concept that I’ve seen since maybe the Tiger R Zone in the 1990s. It’s a handheld console which is much smaller than even the Game Boy Pocket, and looks initially like a mini Game Boy. The first thing you’ll notice about it is that it has a crank on the right-hand side.
The Playdate has been made with being fun and quirky in mind, and most of the games made for it are ones designed around it’s unique presentation and controls. It first launched in April 2022, having been developed by Panic, who I had only really heard of because of the quirky release of Untitled Goose Game which they published.
Having been announced in 2019, and released in 2022, it’s something that has been in player’s mind space for some time now, but I only got mine a few months ago. And so did an awful lot of Playdate owners. That is because ethe Playdate isn’t a console that you can order off of Amazon and it arrive tomorrow, nor is it a console that you can pick up in store as an impulse buy.
Panic is a small company compared to the likes of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, and as such, if you want a Playdate you had to order it from them, and would get sent it once they had enough produced. This was smart for them to only make as many as people wanted, but did mean there was a waiting list, and everyone had to get in queue.
This also meant that there is a sense of mystique around the console, and even now, with Panic having recently announced that you could quickly get one ordered from them as they are past the initial backlog, it still feels like a new console.
But this is a sign of changed times. There are now more than just the big three of Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox, and the likes of the Playdate, Steam Deck, Atari VCS and Analogue Pocket, Duo etc are all consoles you pretty much have to get from the source. The Playdate is not like any of those though.
Although it may look like a mini Game Boy, the Playdate shouldn’t be compared to the Analogue Pocket, nor the retro themed Evercade line of consoles. It’s not an emulation device, and pretty much all the games for the Playdate are exclusive to the console.
The tiny console comes packed with 4GB of storage, and a whopping 16MB of ram. Yup that is megabyte not gigabyte. You see, as impressive as the console is, and in so many ways it is very impressive, it’s also designed to be very retro. It has a 1 bit screen that displays everything in two tones. Light and dark. The screen is only 2.7 inches with a resolution of 400×240 and whilst all this may sound limiting, the console is designed around the ethos that with restrictions comes creativity.
I’ve had my Playdate for several months, and as any owner will tell you, you need to wait weeks to see everything you purchased on day one.
The system comes with a season of games as part of the package. There were twenty-four games in the first season, and as things are, it doesn’t appear there will be a season 2. I may be completely wrong on that front, because as I said, for many people this is still a new console. What would be the point is putting out season two when most players are yet to have caught up on season one.
Certainly, for the price of the console, which was $179 USD (and yes, I had to order this from America) having all these games included is a good thing. I’m not sure how the price could be changed if they were to sell it without the season of games, but my suspicion is that the price you pay is mostly for the console, and the games, which range is their size and play length are more of a bonus rather than it be like Nintendo giving away Mario Kart with a Switch and that you get the value of a full priced AAA game.
The price has recently gone up to $199 which is a shame for anyone who didn’t jump in early, but costs go up to produce the console, and so this was a needed step it would seem.
The console doesn’t take any physical media, and so this sits next to the Steam Deck in my all-digital handheld collection. The games on the console come in one of three ways. You can either just get games that come as part of the season where you get a couple of new games each week until the season ends. These will automatically download once you’ve set the system up and connected it to the internet.
Or back in the day for the first owners of the console, you’d have to side load games. There are tons of Playdate games currently available from itch.io and you can get games from there and easily put onto your system.
Apparently, a newer feature, but one that was already implemented into the system from when I got it is the catalogue. This is a store where you can purchase games, and this has been how I’ve got my extra games beyond the season of games onto the console. I’m not against side loading games, but anything that takes away the faff gets my seal of approval.
One thing I’m not so keen on is the loading time with the shop, and the download speed when you have a new game. This is a bit nitpicky, but the games take a long time to download and install considering they’re so small in file size.
Also, when you’re on the eshop, called catalogue, the games sometimes don’t have the graphics or logos load as you’re going through the shop, and the pages for each game take longer than I’d expect these days. Also the shop not having the names of games and just having logos means that you often have to click on each game just to find out what it’s called. It should have the logo with the names listed underneath.
Also, there isn’t any background download system in place which is a shame. These are all things I’m used to on other platforms in this day and age, and although this is somewhat presented as a retro experience, it’s kinda not. There wasn’t anything back in the day that could produce what the playdate can put out. The ability to have 3D style games, even if it’s done with some trickery, and the smooth animation on lots of the titles and resolution is something the Game Boy could never achieve. So, if it’s modern in all these ways, the fact that loading and downloading games is so slow is a real shame.
But heck, enough about the ins and outs of eshops and such like, and lets talk about what its actually like to play games on the Playdate.
In my experience with it over the last few months it’s been really fun. I’ll admit that as I waited for the season of games to unfold I had a few weeks where I didn’t check it out every week, so when I returned to it I had four or six games waiting for me. This was cool, but also a little overwhelming in a sense. It’s partly why it’s taken me a few months to do my review on the channel. When I first got it I was super keen to chart my experience and review the console and games straight away, but that would have almost been unfair to give my in depth thoughts.
I’ve now had enough time to go through plenty of the season of games, and also a bunch of eshop games, and see what the Playdate experience is like.
In terms of games available, I’m so impressed with the creativity of ways that indie developers have found to use the crank. Not every time is a hit, and often games will have various options of control methods. So, you can still play with the dpad if you’d prefer in many instances.
The game that drew me to the console most was Time Travel Adventure where an almost stick figure like character has to rush to meet his girlfriend after having woken up late. You use the crank to fast forward time, but have to be increasingly precise in how fast and slow you crank it to dodge obstacles. The animation in the game shows what the console is capable of for a smooth experience.
The screen is super reflective and so whilst it’s not backlit, it looks really good. There’s no sense of the ghosting that you’d get on the original Game Boy, or probably the handheld with the worst case of ghosting, the Tiger Game.com.
Whitewater Wipeout is a surfing game which takes some time to get used to, but again, the graphics are great and everything looks like the Aha music video Take on Me. The game is also a great showcase of how the crank can be used for precise movement when surfing.
Forrest Byrnes is a 2D platformer that plays really well, and other than when you’re rescuing a kid from down the well or moving through a menu, you don’t need to use the crank to play most of the game. Forrest Byrnes is up there as one of my favourite on the system, and one I find easy to jump back into to play lots when using the Playdate.
Like a lot of the games here, this game is short and sweet. Some of the games are ones which call back to the days of getting a high score, and that is the main goal on an otherwise short game, and some have a bit more meat to them.
I won’t go through each of the games in the season as part of this review, as I can go into greater depth for all my favourites in later videos, but there are loads that are worth putting some time into.
I will note that as almost all the games are original to the console, and when I say that, that is what I believe to be the case, but I don’t actually know. Some of these indie games may have versions elsewhere. I do know that Tapeworm Disco Puzzle and Chew Chew Mimic have full colour versions of those games available as I’d played them first on Evercade.
There is a facebook group for the Playdate that has a good community of users who can point you in the direction of which games you should play and download next. I do feel that there needs to be a greater effort or way for players to know which games are the best to get and also know what to expect from the games. The Staff Picks section of the eshop is useful, but then you’re just reading the blurb that will always shine a game in the best light possible.
The console is quite small, so you may start to notice it be less comfortable to hold after an extended gameplay session. I like that it is flat in that it has a small form factor, but the logistics of holding the unit one handed to use the crank with the other means you’ll end up feeling the sharp edges of the device press into you more than if you’re holding it two handed.
The dpad is nice, but not the greatest dpad ever. It more than does the job for the games I’ve played on the system though. There is a home button which is useful, although as a Game Boy like device, it does feel like it’s missing the Start and Select buttons. Sometimes in games you’d use those buttons in ways that Home doesn’t quite achieve.
Having now been in the hands of public for two years, I feel the console is still getting going. The more people that have it and discover it, the brighter the future will be for the handheld. The biggest strength of the platform is that they opened it up for users to be able to make their own games for the system. I love the mirror app that you can use to stream and capture footage from the system with. As you’ll have seen on this video, a lot of the gameplay footage is footage that I’ve captured via the mirror app. This is super easy to use and you just connect the Playdate to your PC with a USB cable. You don’t even need a capture card to be able to mirror the screen.
Then you can either use a software development kit available via download, or use online tools to be able to create and design your own games for the system. Personally, I’m very interested in looking into this more in the future, but with other projects, including this youtube channel, I’m not sure how much I’ll really get into it. Time will tell though.
In terms of the future of the platform, I’d love to see some more well known games get 1-bit versions developed on the system. I don’t know how likely that is, but whilst I’m happy with the quirky indie games that populate the system as it is, I’d love to see how some big name franchises could translate to the strengths and limitations of the system. P-Racing has shown that something like a Sega Rally or Forza wouldn’t be an absolute impossibility on the platform. The first person dungeon crawler Legend of Etad also gives a view of what a first person shooter on the Playdate would be like.
I’m not sure if they’d ever do a second Playdate system, like a Playdate 2 or a super Playdate…if they did, in theory wouldn’t that just be a Game Boy? But I can imagine there one day being a Playdate Pro. Something with a backlit screen, more ram, and potentially a analogue stick. Imagine if one day there was a system with dual cranks?! I mean I think that would actually be impossible to use, but it’d look cool. It’d be like the system has arms on either side of it.
So, the big question is, should you get a Playdate console if you’ve yet to jump on board? The answer is an absolute yes…if you like indie games, and are impressed with creativity over spectacle. There are some real gems of games that you can’t get on any other platform, and whilst they may not all be triple A experiences, they will be perfect if you want to slip the little console into your bag or pocket for a quirky alternative to playing on your mobile phone.
What would you rate this game?
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