GRcade

Key information

System Playdate
Manufacturer Panic Inc
Launch Q1 2021
System cost £149.99 TBC (Includes console and twelve games in the Season One game service)
Game cost Season cost pricing TBC

Background

Panic Inc wrote:We love video games.

We love the places they take us and the feelings they give us. We’ve grown up with them. It sounds silly, but they really mean a lot to us.

Playdate is our celebration of the video game.

We reached out to some incredible game designers, some you've heard of, others you haven’t.

We showed them Playdate and asked, “Want to make a game for it?”. Then we lost our minds when they said “Yeah!”

So Playdate isn’t just the hardware.

It’s twelve brand new video games, one each week.

What are these games? Here’s the thing: we’d like to keep them a secret until they appear on your Playdate. We want to surprise you.

Some are short, some long, some are experimental, some traditional. All are fun.

When your Playdate lights up with a brand new game delivery, we hope you can’t wait to unwrap your gift.

And there’s so much more to come. Playdate is alive with possibilities and surprises, future games and new ways to make them. We’ll have even more to talk about at launch.

Video

>Engadget: Playdate hands-on (20 August 2019)


> Panic Inc: Make games for Playdate (22 September 2020)



Useful links

> Wikipedia - Playdate - click

> Panic Inc - Official Playdate site - click

> Playdate Community Wiki - click


jawa's verdict


Playdate looks super-unique! Bold yellow... a sharp black-and-white-screen... and that crank! The system feels fresh and I love the idea of lots of interesting and quirky games arriving. It's a small device that slips into your pocket or your bag; ideal for carrying around with you and enabling sharp bursts of fun and hijinx.

A lot will depend on the games themselves, of course. It sounds like Pani Inc have lined up a number of developers and the really great aspect is that any coder can write games and upload them to the system. This has the potential for accessing lots of different ideas and it could really expand the life of the system.

The season subscription service is an interesting approach; it seems that you wil make an (as yet unknown) payment and then recieive up to twelve games each season to play as and when you want.

This product would seem to be for folk who like the idea of playing funny, unique games on the go. It's a different, quirky approach and it has the potential to be a lot of fun!

Jawa if your so desperate to spend money I've got a bank account you can send it to.

The Watching Artist wrote:Jawa if your so desperate to spend money I've got a bank account you can send it to.

To be fair, this looks ace.

The Watching Artist wrote:Jawa if your so desperate to spend money I've got a bank account you can send it to.

I'm unlikely to buy any new system at the moment, dude. It's neat to get into the excitement of new consoles and ideas, though :-).

Okay, so I'm on board for this one!

Subscription? So if it bombs, you end up with a brick?

rinks wrote:Subscription? So if it bombs, you end up with a brick?

I believe a season is twelve weeks; one game per week. If Panic Inc folded, you'd have the console and whatever games you'd downloaded at that point.

Even then, it wouldn't be a brick. Developers are free to produce games and upload them. It's one of the big attractions about the device; it's an open platform. Potentially, you could get games written by enthusiasts for years, as with computer systems.

Ah, if you get to keep the games, that’s better.

Christopher wrote:

The Watching Artist wrote:Jawa if your so desperate to spend money I've got a bank account you can send it to.

To be fair, this looks ace.

I do like the yellow

It looks like fun, but £150 + subs is a lot for a Gameboy with a load of games you won't be able to play because you broke the crank handle. Sub £100 and a decent subscription model and maybe they have my interest.

The name also makes it sound like one of those creepy isometric view social media platforms where kids get groomed. That won't help.

Dowbocop wrote:...a Gameboy with a load of games you won't be able to play because you broke the crank handle...

It's hard to say without actually trying it out but, looking at the website and videos, the build quality appears to be good.

The crank is mechanical and folds into the side of the device when not in use. I suspect it will have undergone some pretty rigorous testing but it will be interesting to hear some hands-on experiences.

twitter.com/gingerbeardman/status/1322239189346406401

Daily Driver looks neat. Use the crank to drift your car!

Dowbocop wrote:It looks like fun, but £150 + subs is a lot for a Gameboy with a load of games you won't be able to play because you broke the crank handle. Sub £100 and a decent subscription model and maybe they have my interest.

The name also makes it sound like one of those creepy isometric view social media platforms where kids get groomed. That won't help.

I think Jawa's original post is a little misleading. There's no subscription. When you buy the console you get a free season of games. This involves a new game released every week, for more than 12 weeks.

They haven't decided how games will be sold from then on, however anyone can make a game and distribute it however they wish.

twitter.com/playdate/status/1293636196917055488

This puzzle game is in production...and, yes, Doom is on Playdate! Crank the chain gun in this demo .

Yoshimi wrote:I think Jawa's original post is a little misleading. There's no subscription. When you buy the console you get a free season of games. This involves a new game released every week, for more than 12 weeks.

They haven't decided how games will be sold from then on, however anyone can make a game and distribute it however they wish.

Yes, the console includes the Season 1 game range; a set of twelve games to be released weekly. It seems likely that there will be a charge involved to gain access to the games in future seasons although this has yet to be confirmed. I wonder if Panic will stick with the approach of grouping games or make them available individually?

I'm very keen to play around with this

But also jawa your sig images are not vertically aligned and it haunts me

I’ve been eagerly keeping an eye on this since it was announced well over a year ago.

Panic are a great company - not only have I bought a load of Mac software from them over the years but they published both Firewatch and Untitled Goose Game AND, way back in the dim and distant past, they sold amazing Katamari t-shirts that I still treasure.

I love that each model is a developer kit. I love the simplicity of the device. I love that they’ve got Keita Takahashi involved. I love pretty much everything about this.

This looks cute and charming and has a bunch of dev talent making games. I love it.

Jawa please adjust the club logo so it lines up to the amico one when placed beside each other, thnx.

Yeah the logo thing is killing me, I've had to block images on the forum to spare my eyes!