Panic! at the Playdate

[Greendog]

It’s yellow. It fits in your pocket. There’s a crank. It comes with 24 free games to get you started.

I didn't see a thread on here about one of my new favorite games consoles; the Playdate from Panic.



Does anyone else on the forum own a Playdate? 🧐

[Mr EliteL]

I haven't got a Playdate console, but it does look pretty neat, especially for it's size. The crank is unique to me, never seen anything like that used for a gaming console. Others I see looking at Amazon, because I have no clue outside of what the big names are doing, is try to look too much like the past top handhelds from Nintendo and PlayStation, or a Switch-like with a hand grip controller on the sides, or have apparently 10k-40k games pre-installed?! I doubt they get much audience. Although I can imagine this Playdate would get players as an alternative if they're avoiding the big names, or having something smaller on the side, and very easily portable.

[Greendog]

Since the Playdate games are small, they are cheap, and so I try and buy one or two each month. This month I bought:

A Fool's Errand ($6) -- where you can climb an infinitely-spiralling tower, dodging traps and creepy things.

 

Inspector Waffles Early Days ($7) -- A detective game featuring cats and dogs!



And I've been playing through a previous purchase; Mars After Midnight ($6) by Lucas Pope - the dude behind Return of the Obra Dinn and Papers, Please!

[Maniakkid25]

I'll be honest, until I actually saw those images, I honestly said "Emulation box with a power crank -- nothing to see here", and ignored it. Seeing that it actually has unique games has me super intrigued. I didn't like the idea of games constantly changing on it, but seeing it has a storefront where you can, you know, buy the games you like assuages that fear. I'd be interested in one, but given my massive backlog of games and systems, I can't see myself going out of my way to get one. It is a very interesting system, though, I will say.

[ShiraNoMai]

I had the same thought process, Maniak, but I also noted the new Lucas Pope game that Greendog pointed out wasade for that thing. Completely forgot that was a thing.

I'd consider it for sure even for that alone. Lucas Pope has such a wild brain for game ideas.