Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System
play.datePanic never stops surprising me. You'd think you had them figured out, they keep jumping onto another shelf.
It must be fun to work at Panic. It reminds me of how tech companies were in the 90s. Clear mission, but open horizon.
It is partially designed by https://teenage.engineering of Sweden, they apparently among other things came up with the crank.
I was really surprised to hear this. Although I live in Sweden I don’t think I’ve ever heard about TE before. Usually Spotify and Klarna gets the majority of the tech news coverage around here. TE seems like a really interesting company!
Very well known in the music/synth world thanks to their OP-1, which I bought 2 weeks ago: https://teenage.engineering/products/op-1
It looks like a toy, and kind of plays like one, but it's actually a marvellous piece of gear, very capable musically, and providing a fantastic user experience. There's just nothing else like it out there.
The company itself is very unique. Just look at what they came up with [1] for OP-1 accessories: brick LEGO shafts, a bender, and a crank, like the one for Coda.
This OP-1 reminds me of the Casio VL-1 [1], made famous (in Germany at least) by the pop band Trio in their NDW (Neue Deutsche Welle) song Da Da Da [2] [3].
I wonder whether that's accidental, or an homage.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_VL-1
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Da_Da
[3] for example about 1:25 into this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNYcviXK4rg
I coveted mine as a kid. And it had a calculator! All 80s gadgets turned into calculators!
I've still got one of those - the tone creator on it is awesome :)
From what I recall, it's definitely an homage.
You can still buy the OP-1? Last time I checked they were out of stock and you could only grab them on ebay (and you had to pay extra bucks)
OP Z was just released (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19987746#19990334)
You couldn’t find any on reverb dot com?
They restocked at some point in the last few months but sold out instantly.
It's available again, but the price went up considerably, from around $850 to $1300, theoretically, because some design changes needed due to some components not available anymore.
Yup, admittedly quite frustrating because I want one but the new, higher price just pushes it a little bit too high for me to consider...
Teenage Engineer and Elektron are two beloved companies of the synth world from Sweden
Elektron I do recognize! Perhaps I was more in touch with cool things back when the Sidstation was released :)
It's crazy how much they've grown since then. I've had a handful of their current products around to play with and the quality is pretty top notch. They have a habit of being a bit buggy at first, but they also do years of firmware updates so over time it only gets more impressive.
Their OP-1 is one of the most brilliant pieces of hardware I’ve ever used. Very Dieter-Rams esque. Just brilliant.
I have an OP-Z, it is equally as brilliant, also how they built the iOS/Mac app to work as a screen for the OP-Z is really cool, it's very fun to use and the UX (while not easy to master) is very intuitive.
TE does big things for IKEA, we have been trying to run circles around, trying to get more IKEA business, but TE is naturally ahead with them being Swedish
I've been using their software for easily 14 years. It's really cool to see them expanding like this.
It says something that their primary product is a $50 FTP client and I actually don't mind paying for it.
To me it seems like very unclear mission
Their mission, as far as I understand it, is to make software that they enjoy making and do it really well. They had an idea for a software gaming platform and decided they needed hardware to support it, which seems to fit nicely within that goal.
You’re assuming that their mission is something narrow, like “Build world class software for MacOS and iOS”, when it’s probably something much broader like “Build really cool stuff”.
To me this is the dream: a company that is so successful that you get to take risks and build cool things that you want to exist.
It would be so awesome if this worked with Pico 8 or a similar fantasy console. I will be much more interested if the barrier to entry for making my own games is as close to zero as possible.
I want to make my own games for fun, but also to expose my son to the creativity and exploration of programming.
A physical console would make this experience so much more real.
Have you seen https://arcade.makecode.com ? It's a free, open source, web-based editor for making games, and you can download games to a number of hardware boards, or play on your phone or any web browser. The cheapest hardware right now is $25 from Adafruit [0], but more hardware is coming out all the time.
Also this audience might be interested to know that soon there'll be Python support in MakeCode. More details on our language toolchain here [1]
Disclosure: I work for MakeCode :)
[0] https://www.adafruit.com/product/3939 [1] https://makecode.com/language
I played with arcade.makecode.com at MS Build this year and made a Taco vs. Burgers side scroller on the MeowBit. My kids love it! My daughters and I are coding up something with a duck right now and it's uber fun! Thanks for making that platform!!
Awesome! :) We're really happy to hear that.
If you have any suggestions or bugs, please feel free to comment on https://forum.makecode.com/ or https://github.com/microsoft/pxt. We're still in the early stages with Arcade so feedback is especially useful.
This is awesome! Is MakeCode a subsidiary of Microsoft? It looks like it’s based on some Microsoft tech similar to Google’s Blockly I hadn’t seen before. I’m curious because I’m working on a product in this space.
Yeah, we're a team at MSFT (same org as VS Code). All* our code is open source. We use Google Blockly, and we've made a number of contributions upstream to them.
What's your product?
* Our server code isn't open source, but it's basically just a node app serving a SPA. Everything is client side. Works offline too.
My product is called Devev. I moonlit the product for the past few years while working at Microsoft. I quit about a month ago to get it over the finish line. I'm still pre-launch but here are some images: https://imgur.com/a/zLS1g0t
I worked on video games for the past few years and saw many less technical colleagues empowered by tools like Unreal Engine's Blueprint (https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/Blueprints). I thought that the same paradigm may apply more widely but the visual languages used outside of games weren't really hitting the mark.
Devev is a framework for creating visual programming languages. They are supported through extensions. For launch I'm working on an extension which parses TS types and allows you to use the existing code in nodes. That's what you'll see in my image above. This will allow early users to tap into existing libraries published on NPM.
I don't expect much traction with the launch version and plan to target a specific domain shortly after that. I'm leaning towards a build system where you can capture your dependencies in a visual graph. One of the applications I'd been thinking about was allowing users to build and share games or other applications in a web-editor similar to Scratch.
Devev is also a JS SPA and the client editor uses Electron. The client editor supports more features like multiple windows, editors panes and plugins. Additionally the client can parse new Typescript files but not the SPA. For the SPA to parse TS I'd need to deliver TSC over the web which I won't figure out for V1.
This is really cool! I've often wondered if a Blueprint-like editting experiences could be used more broadly. Looking forward to seeing this grow. I think there is also great potential for a very approachable debugging experience.
Targeting build systems seems like a great fit as well, since as you pointed out the build DAG is naturally a graph.
When you mentioned games programming, I thought of Dream's visual programming: https://youtu.be/eMRp3QMAkz8?t=773
I love the idea of using typescript types to define visual code atoms. We do a very simple version of that to create our Blockly blocks, e.g. block definition: https://github.com/microsoft/pxt-microbit/blob/master/libs/r... although I'm sure you could take that much farther.
We run TSC in the browser in a worker thread, here's an example, in case that helps: https://github.com/microsoft/pxt/blob/master/pxtcompiler/emi... We use TSC for typechecking and our own typescript compiler for compiling down to ARM assembly.
Thanks for the reply. If you have any ideas for potential use cases or want to see a short demo of what I have running so far let me know if you'd like to get in contact.
Are you hiring?
Not at the moment.
Very cool! Any plans for making it possible to create Android apps with this?
Games for Android and iOS are a real possibility, but general Android apps aren't on our radar. Our focus is CS education, and I'm not sure general Android apps would be a good fit for that.
That being said, our platform is fairly extensible so someone could create an Android Apps target. They'd need to create a new backend to target the JVM probably and some work to link with whatever pre-built Android binaries.
Another great online game resource: http://labs.phaser.io/
Not affiliated, just also interested in new and emerging easy to use game systems, and this is just the latest in a long line of them I've been playing with ..
tried phaser a year back - it was not very dev friendly - you had to be phaser expert to make sense of it
Same. I tried it a few months ago. Navigating Phaser2 vs Phaser3 alone was so bad that it radicalized me to believe that you should just rename a project after a full rewrite.
Everything I googled would give me results in the Phaser forums and the exercise was on me to figure out which version they were using, which was 100% Phaser 2.
And the API definitely wasn't written for Typescript support. For example, just changing the physics string completely changes the API available which felt like an exercise in obfuscation.
Also found the API so unintuitive that I was trying to repurpose examples to get what I wanted which is always a bad sign to me, like hoping your question appears in an FAQ because the code is too hard to read.
Ended up using https://excaliburjs.com/ which is written in Typescript thus much less guesswork. I really didn't like my experience with Phaser.
We built a few small web games with phaser. It was very easy to start and also easy to finish. You can prototype with it very quickly and there are a lot of resources explaining things to you. Recommend.
I don't know about changes in the last 2 years, haven't used it since then, maybe it's changed for worse but can't imagine
Strange. I've found the opposite to be true. They do a pretty decent job explaining why you need a web server and how to make a basic one. Once it's set up, there are tons of examples and resources to look at.
Go on ebay and dig up a PocketCHIP; it's as close to a first-class mass-produced physical Pico-8 as anyone is likely to see.
Check out BlockStudio [0] (disclaimer: I'm the creator) -- it lets you make simple retro-like games with a text-free program specification method (Programming By Demonstration).
[0] www.blockstudio.app
There is this thing: https://www.clockworkpi.com/
It's awesome and it comes with PICO-8 pre-installed (you only need to add the license key).
It can also run lots of emulators.
It can be coded with Lua. Graphics performance still required considerable optimization. No info on whether development will be open to the public.
Source: know one of the lauch game developers, have cranked the prototype hardware
Heard of Pixel Vision 8?
Anyone into this sort of stuff should check out https://androidarts.com/ there are a whole ton of fantasy console concepts on it.
Wow. This is very cool. It has a whole virtual desktop. Neat.
What's really cool about PixelVision8 is it's a meta-fantasy console. IE, you can define your own spec/constraints and then code up a little game prototype in C# or Lua.
Looks like the PlayDate will support lua and apparently isn't a complete potato according to their presskit page, so it's not out of the question that platforms like PixelVision8 could port its runner to the platform and then you could author for actual hardware using the editing tool.
Recent versions of PICO-8 support full controller operation (browsing cartridge PNGs, launching, and quitting) through EmulationStation.
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=3935
So you could use any Raspberry Pi enclosure as a physical PICO-8 platform.
What we're doing with 32blit is effectively Pico 8 with hardware. I'd be happy if we saw a tenth of the success that Pico 8 has achieved- some of the titles written for it are truly remarkable and seeing how people push the artificial limits is genuinely interesting and something I'd be honoured to foster more of.
I think Dank Tomb's lighting is by far one of my favourite examples - https://hackernoon.com/pico-8-lighting-part-1-thin-dark-line...
I personally love weird single-purpose hardware. Unfortunately it tends not to do very well commercially.
Anybody remember this guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiReader
When hardware is increasingly becoming just a way to interface with a larger platform (IoT, game console subscription services, etc.), I think there will be a certain nostalgia for more static, tactile and analog hardware. I collect records, own a couple pocket operators, and buy physical books for similar reasons.
Single-purpose hardware has identity. It has explicit purpose. If it is well-designed, it has an interface that is intuitive while encouraging a limited amount of experimentation. I think a lot of good software emulates these properties, but often with the tradeoff of being less extensible/integrable/power user friendly.
In my experience, single-purpose hardware also lasts longer because it isn’t as reliant on software updates and maintenance.
> I think there will be a certain nostalgia for more static, tactile and analog hardware
There already is, for me. I'd imagine a product like this depends on that nostalgia to a degree.
After entertaining the idea of getting a smartwatch for years but always feeling unimpressed, I started carrying a dumb casio. There's something great about machines that only do one or two tasks but do it very well. Look at ebook readers. They are not super popular, but they have a solid market.
On this point, I just got a Withings Steel HR [1]: It's a classic analog watch, with a sole extra function of measuring heartbeat and exercise on a tiny LCD in the back of the watch face.
I love that it's purpose-specific and isn't gimmicky like smartwatches. This also means the battery lasts about a month. Plus, it looks good.
Same! In fact there's an entire subreddit devoted to the idea of very specialized tools [0].
There is one example that is still firmly lodged in my head from the labs in my electonic engineering degree. It was this big box with a nice keypad, a screen that could display a few characters, and a big handle to lock in place the integrated circuit you wanted to test. You would slot it in, pull the handle, then type the ID numbers of the particular IC. If it was functioning as expected, the screen would say something like "OKAY" and that was all this thing did. Truly magical! On further googling and reflection I'm now not so sure about how big the handle was, but the machine was something like [1].
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/specializedtools/top/ [1] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Digital-IC-tester-digital-in...
I had a lot of fun hacking with these: https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Wikireader-Adventures
I love single purpose hardware on an ideological level.
On a more pragmatic level, it feels more and more like companies creating semi-disposable toy electronics should be held to extremely high standards when it comes to how they source their components and the environmental impact of the lifecycle of their device, because this is ultimately cheap junk that’s hurting the environment.
"[C]ompanies should be held to extremely high standards when it comes to how they source their components and the environmental impact of the lifecycle of their device, because [it] ultimately [ends up as] junk that’s hurting the environment."
FTFY
All products should be held to that standard, not just "semi-disposable toy electronics", which it's not even clear applies to this.
If we're talking single-purpose gaming devices that failed, there's always the Gizmondo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gizmondo
I don't think Panic is involved in organized crime, though.
Gizmondo is such a crazy story, LazyGameReviews did a 30 minute video about them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv6UaHZxUys
I miss the GP2X and related...
I remember hacking my gp2x adding an USB port, plugging a gps on it, porting driver and a gis/map lib.. so much time to waste and learn new things!
I remember someone back then wrote a script to scrape Google Maps data and make it viewable on the GP2X, so you'd have offline portable maps. This was in 2007 or so, before smartphones became mainstream (not that as a student I could have afforded one anyway, or a data plan for that matter).
Ah those were the good old days! I wish I'd spent more time actually getting code up and running on those and the Dingoo A320 but it really was way over my head at the time.
Still contemplating a Dragonbox Pyra. The OpenPandora, despite a rocky start, played host to some incredible things.
And now I know what a Ferrari Enzo is. Yeesh.
This is one of my most prized possessions: http://www.fm3buddhamachine.com/v2/
I have several of them, and love each of them. My phone has far more capacity, and could stream effectively unlimited music from Spotify, but there's something unique and special about the Buddha Machine.
I have loved Panic’s focused software for many years, and have several Teenage Engineering single-purpose hardware devices too (especially love my OP-1).
I have never typed my email into a signup form so fast.
Oh yeah, those were fantastic little devices. It's a shame that it wasn't popular enough to warrant successors. The OpenMoko people did some really innovative stuff back in the day, but hardware is tough.
The problem with single-purpose devices is they're a frivolous cost. When your phone can do everything, buying a separate dedicated device is inherently impractical. Of course, impracticality is also what tends to give things charm.
Put differently, limitations create interest, but they're also the opposite of cost-effective.
Touchscreens can’t [yet] replace a dedicated keypad for games.
That’s why you don’t see many platformers for mobile. The ones that do exist auto run for you or put virtual buttons on the screen, which I haven’t found to work well.
Still, even a mainstream game console is far less specialized than this one
Not even digital controls could really replace analog controls. While as impressive as the Pubg controllers (essentially a gamepad with a dock) are I'm still amazed there is still no "the one mobile analog input" device is out yet.
I'm OK with five devices that do five things well instead of one device that does a poor job at five things.
I've never heard of that, but would've loved one. Kinda useless with cellphones, but I could see that being nice for backpacking if the battery lasts long enough.
I've actually ordered one from ebay last week. Looking forward to it.
Not to discount the hardware, which looks absolutely beautiful, but what strikes me the most is the business model.
A new game, every Monday, delivered wirelessly to your pocket.
What excites me about Playdate is that it is something only an outsider with no attachments to existing business relationships could make.
Games released today are still encumbered by the regional and geographic thinking of traditional software distribution. While Steam, the App Store, etc have certainly democratised some aspects, they are still an exception to the traditional model that generates the most revenue.
Episodic games tried to bring seasonality to gaming. That didn’t really work (Episode 3 anyone?). Fortnite has been the most successful at it, but it is still a AAA game attached to a big publisher. It’s the evolution of the old model.
Playdate and Apple’s upcoming Arcade feel like the beginning of a new model and that’s really, really exciting.
I'm actually really dreading the Apple Arcade business model. The game developers are compensated by time spent in their game. This means that, similar to the current craze for open world games, shorter, more experimental games will simply earn less. Thus, meaningful content will be stretched even thinner to fill up more of the user's time. It's another nail in the coffin of single player narrative experiences.
Streaming services, like Google's recently announced Stadia will probably have similar compensation models.
A number of businesses have moved towards models where compensation is directly tied to time spent consuming: Kindle pays authors by the page, YouTube monetizes based on watch time.
I really think it harms the world by incentivizing creators to pad and fluff. Dickens is great, but you can really tell which of his works were published serially, because it affected how he wrote.
At the same time, paying a flat amount for each created work incentivizes creators to pump out a huge pile of small works. It's all singles and no albums, which I also think is bad.
The programmer part of my brain wonders if you could solve this by simply picking a function somewhere between O(n) (pay linearly by quantity consumed) and O(1) (pay a fixed price for the whole thing). The obvious middle point is O(log(n)).
I wonder how well it would work if creators were paid by time spent consuming but with a function that offerred diminishing returns the larger the quantity was?
In that case you incentivize sybil attacks, because publishing content across multiple identities is more lucrative than a single one.
Games like Rocket League are my favorite payment model. ~$20 to get in, with semi optional small transactions over time. $5 here and there. I've spent over $100 in my hundreds of hours in game. I guess that's close to your "O(log(n))".
The App store and Steam are certainly not the exception. The traditional model with geographic restrictions is not making more money. Do you have citations for that?
Your sentiment is great, but I think the world has moved far beyond where you are coming from and that isn’t where Play will differentiate. The subscription new games is neat though, but iOS will have that this summer.
Seasonality has been achieved in games like Magic the Gathering, League of Legends, Hearthstone, and Path of Exile.
I think the key factor is content leveraging. How much the game's core systems can leverage assets to create varied gameplay. Because with seasons you have to help your customers get excited about relatively small batches of content.
Through that lens you find that narrative driven single player games are the worst candidates for seasonal games. It's more suited to match-based multiplayer games with sensitive meta games.
I don't think this comment is very accurate.
The first party stores do not make more money than Steam and other third party stores combined with mobile
I also don't really know what business model you're describing. Subscription with a weekly game drop? PSN is the subscription for online Playstation services and it comed with several free games a month. There are a few existing "stream any game" services as well, PSNow, Origin's subscription etc.
I refuse to believe that anyone came up with a crank based input system organically.
Here's what I think happened. They decided that they wanted to make a low power black and white game system for people to use while camping. They decided that a crank charger was the best solution for this and went ahead with development.
Further into the process they discovered that they couldn't get the power budget low enough to make cranking a viable option, but they were too far along to abandon it completely.
Then someone had a brilliant idea. Lets make the crank an input system, and develop crank based games.
Look at some of the other products Teenage Engineering has produced. They have a crank control for the OP-1 (https://teenage.engineering/products/op-1/accessories) plus other LEGO accessories.
So maybe the easier explanation is they hired some good industrial designers, who had happened to previously work on various cranks, and they possibly pitched the idea to the Panic team when asked to design the game device?
The point standing that it was an odd choice for a game controller anyway you cut it and most likely wasn't through some UX problem solving process related to games.
But what if the wacky random choice of a crank unleashes some new game mechanic we haven't seen before? Wouldn't it be fun to break away from D-pads once in a while?
That’s an R&D/lab question. Not a production device question.
I'd like to think there's some nascent game developer out there that would think up something cool once they have their hands on a production piece of equipment.
You can't always lab-grow your most creative ideas.
It THOSE guys! I’ve never used the OP-1, but I love watching people on YouTube make music on it. It seems like an amazing piece of hardware.
Check out “red means recording” https://youtu.be/7z4hoazra_g
I get the impression that you may not have played a lot of indie jam games. A hand-crank is one of the least weird things I've seen done. Hell, I once made a game where the controller was two people arm wrestling each other. At least a crank is practically usable.
As a self-described inveterate hobbyist, I completely understand looking around a workshop full of parts and saying "gee, what could we do with that?" And buying parts completely at random just to full future sessions of "Mystery Meat Monday"
Line Wobbler! https://wobblylabs.com/projects/wobbler
I played this at the Videogames exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The breadth of visual effects they can achieve with just a 1-dimensional display is surprising. https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/videogames
This is so cool! The future looks bright again,im starting to feel we’re gonna survive the touchscreen takeover and will go back to revisit physical analog controllers.
The tone may not have been clear, but my post was at least partially tongue in cheek.
I'm sure someone could come up with this idea and probably did, but getting to the stage of actually releasing a commercial product with a crank makes me think there is more to the story.
Too bad not a lot of people saw Namco's Panic Park:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaGF4z03UvY
You're literally shoving the other player out of the way.
I'm skeptical of this explanation only because the idea of cranking a handheld gaming system has been reasonably debunked by a variety of commenters in this very thread. I would expect (possibly naively) that the creators of this hardware knew - at the ideation stage, prior to any meaningful development - that literally cranking the machine to recharge it would never work.
Reminds me of the story of the crank charger for the $100 "One Laptop Per Child" (OLPC), as told by one of the team members:
Everyone loved the crank charger built into it, but it exerted really large forces on the chassis. Our industrial designers came to us and said "This is a totally solvable problem: We just need to make the chassis out of milled titanium!" We were like: "Thanks guys, but that's so far out of budget..."
When I first saw the Playdate I thought the crank was a really odd use, a one-trick pony. Then I saw that Teenage Engineering was partnering on the design and it totally made sense.
I think they just read Bret Victor's rant about touchscreen interfaces ruining interface innovation: http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...
I refuse to believe that anyone came up with a crank based input system organically.
Is there a Hurdy Gurdy app yet?
I dunno. Remember this piece of antiquity?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_joystick_port#/media/Fil...
It was a great controller for some games, like Breakout.
> Some games use the crank exclusively...Some don’t use it at all.
Not speculating at all. Just wanted to point that out.
You're approaching this from the wrong end.
Think about vinyls, cassettes, VHRs, typing machines.
It's all about the cool factor, the "authentic", the "vintage". That's where the crank it's coming from.
The weirdo typing love letters on a mechanical type writer on the park bench. The weirdo cranking this thing on the subway, with his Air Buds on and the expensive sneakers.
Occam's Razor
From the Media Kit page, it looks like this device will use a Sharp memory LCD display (LS027B7DH01), which is similar to an e-ink display, but without refresh issues. The same display as in the SwissMicros DM42 [1].
Same tech as the Pebbles too!
RIP. I miss Pebble.
It would be cool if the crank was also used to charge the device's battery.
Apparently the issue is torque for such things, the OLPC was originally going to have a crank but the force was too much for the laptop body to take long term.
It was removed because it wasn't going to generate enough power without cranking it constantly. And the ergonomics weren't great for kids. They did end up making an add-on crank at one point, but I don't think it ever was widely distributed
They need to put a handle on it. Then it could be like those handheld fishing games.
https://www.amazon.com/Radica-Games-Bass-Fishing-Handheld/dp...
OLPC would have needed a lot more power than this device, plus due to its small size the whole thing could be machined aluminium.
Especially if there's games that utilise the mechanic. could just have a much lower torque (and therefore lower-current-generation) since it's going to be used a lot. Missed opportunity.
Is OLPC still around? I feel like I haven't heard much of anything about it for quite a few years.
Maybe at this point it's supplanted by smartphones?
that's what i thought it was for, and then maybe it could be used to charge something else with crank-power through usb
Yeah same here. I'm not sure I really buy it as control mechanism for playing though.
It looks uncomfortable to spin the crank while using the other controls, which means you’d want it to be used exclusively if at all.
There was a great fishing mini game in one of the N64 Zelda titles.
This crank would have ruled.
I had one of those dedicated fishing games back in the day with a crappy LCD display and a crank. Played it to death.
The Dreamcast had a game and controller to go with it.
Ahh, the Dreamcast. I love those consoles. Recently picked up one basically new. It's archived for the grandkids, along with some 8 bit machines and a six switch Atari VCS (2600).
In a few years, we are going to revisit the golden era again, and it's going to be as fun as it was last time.
I've seen those things. Had no idea they were that engaging.
The Digital Crown on Apple Watch is a thing though. I’m ready to give it the benefit of doubt.
Most apps don’t use it and Watch OS 2 introduced the ability to scroll with your finger instead of the crown, since no one was using it
I'm surprised you say that - I have an Apple Watch and I genuinely love the ability to scroll with the crown - I don't block the display with my finger and I get tactile feedback.
I’m more concerned with how long this thing is going to last.
I view it more as a collectible art piece that you can interact with.
Yeah, if the crank charged the device, it would have been an instant buy for me.
Ditto. Missed opportunity to charge while you interact. Imagine if the buttons also squeezed out charge as you hit them. Would be a fun concept.
it wouldn't be a meaningful amount of charge. same with solar panels on electric cars.
Not a meaningful amount of charge from gameplay, I agree. But it could have a "charging mode" where the screen goes off and you just turn the crank for 5-10 minutes to get a substantial charge because it already has the hardware thingie built-in.
You overestimate how much energy you get from cranking
Tell that to the Boeing 737 Max geniuses that included a handcrank to restart the engines.
The crank looks a bit delicate for this purpose and I can imagine its lifetime would dramatically decrease for no real benefit.
That was my first thought as well. But would it actually be practical? Anyone have an educated guess as to how much cranking it'd take to get 30 minutes of play time?
Optional power drill adapter.
Though, if the drill isn't gas-powered, this would be kind of silly.
Optional bicycle adapter!
I thought at first that was the only reason to have the crank.
Would not work very well, you can only produce a few watts of power with a crank. And I bet it consumes tens of watts of power.
Between Panic and Teenage Engineering I actually have faith in this being a worthwhile endeavor. From the face of it I would expect this to go the way of the Ouya, but with those two at the helm it could actually be something cool. It's a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant casual mobile gaming space.
> stagnant casual mobile gaming space
Between Switch and a lot of great mobile games I'm not sure how it's stagnant.
Do people consider the switch a mobile platform? I mean it sort of is but... It's really a console. Depends how you define mobile, if mobile === carry in your pocket it's not. If mobile === independent from a TV then yes.
In London, it does not appear to be treated like something mobile – but in Tokyo it certainly is. You will see kids – mainly boys – huddle together around Switch screens or playing using the wireless wherever you go in suburban Tokyo.
> In London, it does not appear to be treated like something mobile
I saw a fair few people on the tube with their switch!
I’m one of them
I've seen one or two people using the Switch on the London Underground. Rare but not non-existent.
️
Until recently, I exclusively played my Switch while travelling - it’s great for planes.
It’s now permanently in my backpack and I play it on the tube on my daily commute. It’s great
It’s very common for high school kids (in America) to take their switch from class to class and play during free periods. A lot of people take their switch everywhere in their bag and just prop it up when they want to play a quick game of smash with friends.
So yes, I would definitely consider the switch mobile
I've played roughly 1000 hours on my switch, so far. Most of that is on the commuter train.
As a single data point, I've only played the switch with a TV once or twice, when I was playing with friends.
It fits in a big pocket (or two) or a medium-small purse. I'd call it mobile.
yeah, I bring it around with me, as a portable gaming device. I consider it a mobile platform, plus I have big pockets.
My mind immediately went to Ouya when I read the article, but the concept here seems interesting, and I hope it does better than Ouya did.
It doesn’t have the same goals as the Ouya. The Ouya wanted to be the next big thing, it wanted to be a platform. This wants to be a nice, fun, arty thing and definitely not be a platform. I don’t think it makes much sense to compare the two.
A possible point of comparison for me would be Fujifilm’s very successful line of Instax instant cameras. They are similar to other cameras (phone, compact, DSLR, mirrorless) in that they take photos but framing them as a competitor to other cameras doesn’t make much sense.
Taking photos with them is much more expensive (given that nobody will give up their phone for an Instax camera and practically all phones today will take better photos than Instax cameras, just purely from a technical point of view, ignoring aesthetic preferences) and the photos you do take are just much more impractical than digital photos. But that doesn’t matter at all since all of that is not the point of Instax cameras.
In the gaming space the biggest actual competitor is still probably Nintendo, but not with their “normal” Games, more with their “weird” experiments like Nintendo Labo. I could actually imagine someone deciding between Labo and this.
Where's the SDK? That's what I'm interested in. I don't wanna be limited to just twelve games.
Edit- looks like an SDK exists, it's just not available quite yet: https://play.date/media/
Chatter on Twitter from people at Panic indicates that you program it in Lua. Seems like C might also be an option. There’s definitely going to be an SDK.
Yeah but mac only
They say it'll be a mac only sdk...
This looks really cool and would be great for a fishing game.
I wonder about the lack of backlighting though? Hopefully the screen is much better in this regard than the original non-backlit GBA, which was difficult to see in low light conditions.
It was tricky getting light to hit the screen in just the right way: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/06/13/lame-boy-advan...
They're using a transflective LCD, so it should be plenty visible even in lower-ambient light conditions. Nothing like the original Gameboy.
Doesn't a transflective LCD have a backlight? The media/FAQ page says pretty clearly that the device has a reflective LCD with no backlight, same as the GBA, which the parent comment was referring to.
As far as I'm aware these LCDs switch between black or very reflective silver and not so much black and white. Doesn't really matter what the ambient conditions are since the black is always reflecting way less light than the silver.
If the crank orientation can be changed, it can act as ship's navigator wheel and valve
that... would be so cool. I'd love to see ship games, or a u-boat game. Heck even operating the crank to elevate and/or turn an anti-aircraft gun or tank turret
I'm kind of hoping for Tetris.
This is gonna be fun: "Every Monday, via WiFi, owners receive a new game, the notification light on top of the case blinking to announce its arrival. Whenever you have five spare minutes, you’ll be able to reach into your own shirt pocket, and make time for your Playdate."
This is going to be a tough sell.
$150 dollars is very expensive for a portable game system, which will compete with any tablet/phone that can play games that have better graphics and game play.
The problem is that this is competing with entire ecosystems of games that have been around for almost a decade.
This isn't meant to compete or be "the best". I think your comment is entirely missing the point of what this is.
This is more of a play on nostalgia and classic bulky simple handhelds. It would be in the same category as the NES Classic Edition or the Sega Genesis Mini. It's fun and almost a collectible honestly.
"It would be in the same category as the NES Classic Edition or the Sega Genesis Mini. It's fun and almost a collectible honestly"
The NES class edition and Sega Genesis only work because of people that remember playing these games as a kid (like me). I have the NES classic edition and my teenage nephews were bored pretty quickly after they played it.
Nostalgia isn't usually there for something new that looks like the games I used to play when I was younger.
I don't fully agree, there are many games that manage to imitate the "old school" look and feel pretty well, I don't see why this couldn't pull that off too. But I could be wrong, we'll see how well it sells once it comes out.
By referring to it as a collectible, I also meant that this will most likely not going to be a huge success, but more of a niche product. I see it as an indie hardware; the Cuphead of Gaming Systems if you will.
Cuphead was well after indie games had been well-established. Go back a decade and change -- if it does well, this could be hardware's Cave Story or Braid or Spelunky.
If the game play is there and it's fun, it could be successful.
It won’t be. The games industry is littered with hardware that flopped. Most indie games fail to turn a profit and even the likes of Sega and Nintendo have released hardware that has failed to sell. Apple couldn’t even make a successful console and they had tried. Yet this thing is weirder and significantly less appealing to the mainstream so they’re reliant entirely only a super niche crowd to turn a profit.
While I’m sure they will sell some devices and they will likely become a collectors item in the future; I can’t see them selling enough to make this worthwhile nor keep people playing on it long enough to be considered anything more than an expensive yet short-lived novelty item.
Hopefully I’m wrong, but as a collector of games consoles - including many of those that failed - I’m not filled with any confidence about the Playdate.
> It won’t be. The games industry is littered with hardware that flopped.
What do you think Panic means by successful?
From the PlayDate's site:
> Stock will be very limited. Sign up early.
It doesn't sound like they're trying to take over the gaming industry here.
I wasn’t expecting that to be their mission with a device like this. What I mean by “successful” is two things:
1. Have any longevity beyond a novelty. By that I don’t mean hundreds of hours clocked up; I just mean people will use it for more than a couple of hours before putting it in a draw to never be seen again.
2. Make a profit. Obviously including all the time spent in design et al as well.
Personally I can see this both being unsuccessful in terms engagement as well as financially unsuccessful.
Mobile games:
1] are infested with IAP/psycho crack time gates
2] cant cost more than a dollar or so, no one will buy them
3] have no buttons, and the number of games that work well without buttons is few.
4] have a horrible reputation, people discount games just for being mobile
5] ridiculously fragmented hardware, who knows what screen size or device type you're targeting if you develop for mobile?
6] are too high res. All new game systems are. Low res games with few buttons can be developed cheaply and quickly (i.e., 20k instead of 5M)
I want some simple games with real buttons. I want to make some. I'll pay for it. I think others will too.
I do think $150 is a little high, but that might also convey a sense of value, rather than "another crappy emulator box thing"
Also check out the pimoroni kickstarter 32blit then. it's a bit cheaper than the play date (but not by much and at full retail cost will be pretty much the same) but has better scope and will be open source. it's not a Pi-in-a-box-with-retropie but a STM32 microcontroller with a light OS/SDK layer on top. a development toolchain that looks a lot like the editors for Pico-8
Sadly I think no one will ever pay money for games for an unadvertised, not-sold-at-retail, open source game platform, which means people aren't going to make quality games that cost money to develop, which means adoption will be all the lower. So, that means it's not "viable" in a commercial sense. I would rather like to run a sustainable business, which seems more plausible with the playdate than anything else on the market outside nintendo/sony.
Sorry, I didn't infer that you were looking for a commercial sales games platform. You are right about the 32blit, however I don't think you're right about the playdate. If the 32blit is a niche product (which I'll admit it definitely is) the playdate is being made as a niche within a niche product and the numbers that are made in total will be a limiting factor. While the HN crowd seem to be able to see this for what it is and mostly wouldn't think twice about splunking 150 on this, I'm not getting the same feeling from any other handheld/retro/modern gaming communities. a few collectors are going "well it looks nice and well designed..." they're also the type who will buy one just to sit it on a shelf with their other oddball gaming hardware. I doubt the playdate will be any more viable to base a game business on than the 32blit, however from a different set of reasons, but along the same lines as people who buy the Pocket Operators as neat gadgets, but have no intent to actually make music with past the first few days of novelty. of course you could try the Pico-8 games on itch.io route which is a well travelled path and probably a much bigger target audience
I completely disagree with 6]. Mobile app developers crank out high res throwaway games for less than $20k.
You know, I think it would actually be a lot harder to sell a $50 portable game system than a $150 one.
Both price points are in about the same range of disposable income for the target audience.
But $50 is a cheapo, side thing... as junky as the maker felt they could get away with. Not necessarily bad (Personally, I really appreciate things that are made as cheap as someone felt they could get away with, especially games. The cheapo-ness tells an interesting story and sometimes these things absolutely amaze me.) but usually pretty bad.
$150 is a centerpiece. It's a product that delivers at some decent level of quality/aesthetics. From the website I think they nailed that. (It looks like the handheld console you've made out of Lego and then imagined the details of what the real thing that the Lego model represents.)
So the $50 portable game is maybe too crappy to be a centerpiece gift (to another or to yourself), but maybe too expensive to fit in as a second-tier gift (e.g., a Christmas stocking-stuffer).
While this might qualify as "the gift of the year". (Or purchase for self of the year.)
The experience on the cheap device will probably be inferior in virtually every way to the phone you already have in your pocket.
But this device is different. Your phone doesn't have a crank. (Nor does whatever handheld system you may already have). It doesn't look like Lego. It doesn't have a black-and-white screen and it doesn't have a new, unique game coming out every week. (well your phone has seemingly a million games coming out each week, but in a diffuse, general way where you have to discover them for yourself and figure out for yourself if the IAP are too annoying or not, etc.)
Games are about new and fresh experiences so anything you already own and have been playing for 10 years is at a serious disadvantage, despite that it's cheaper to keep using it because you already own it.
This isnt hard for Nintendo, but Nintendo fans are fanatics.
Nintendo have had their fair share of failed consoles as well
I am really excited about this. Firewatch is an amazing game with amazing execution. Teenage Engineering's OP1 is supposedly really good hardware (from what i heard and saw on youtube). Single purpose devices like this are more enjoyable to use since you aren't always itching to use a different app etc. The gradual "rollout" of games with a new one each week sounds like an exciting thing to look forwards to every week actually! Although the price is steep (for a student), i'm pretty sure i'll get it as this sounds like a well crafted and enjoyable experience
I love this so much. I'm such a sucker for simple gaming mechanics, and I have some faith that these specific people could make this work.
I know devices like this often fail to thrive in the market, but Teenage Engineering has some experience making this sort of single-purpose device work for customers. Panic seems to be very passionate, quality and delivery oriented, and good at doing an exceptional job on familiar products. There might be some potential here. I'd absolutely take my chances on this thing if I could get my hands on one! My kids would love it too.
Personally the association with Teenage Engineering makes me more concerned that this will not be as exciting as it sounds. TE's Op-1 is a fine piece of kit, but their recent offerings have been very underwhelming. Also the placement of the crank and the form factor look very un-ergonomic.
Can you comment on the Op-1 and what makes it great?
The OP-1 is a well built, self contained musical instrument (sequencing, synthesis/sampling, effects, mixing) with a very clean industrial design and solid construction.
The main issues people have with it are 1) long-standing software bugs that don’t get fixed 2) TE doesn’t seem that focused on producing it anymore- it was out of stock for a couple years, and they raised the price significantly on the new batches.
It's an opinionated piece of hardware, designed and manufactured more or less uncompromisingly for a specific musician experience. I decided it's not for me (though its follow-up, the OP-Z, is a lot closer), but I absolutely adore Teenage Engineering's approach to pretty much everything, even when it's not personally my style.
made this in bed at 3am last night. sampled the vox straight from my phones headphone output into the line in on the op-1. its a beautiful piece of hardware that i take with me wherever i go.
Not from personal experience, but it seems that it's an all around decent synth/sequencer/sampler that makes a good musical scratchpad. People like it, and if I had a g to spare, I might join in.
The Pocket Operators are pretty cool, for the price, no?
I think it's cool. I'm not that old, but games these days mostly seem to be about squeezing every last dollar out of the consumer through shady means. I think this is part of why I don't play video games anymore. It's nice to see something different.
$150 for what looks like 12 simple games isn't that much different.
1) I don't mind paying for games. I just don't want the game mechanics to be designed to divert me towards spending more money on the game.
2) It's 12 games to start with. I'm sure there could be more later on.
They say that the production run will be very limited. Which means there isn't much incentive for gamedevs to make more games later, as the audience can never expand beyond the initial sales.
They've clarified that the _first_ production run is very limited. There will be more production runs after that.
Point taken, but this is the difference between $12 for a Bud Light at a huge sports venue versus $12 for an interesting and memorable cocktail at an out-of-the-way bar. Both are expensive, but the latter is something you can't get anywhere else and might barely even turn a profit when everything else is factored in.
They claim to have an SDK. Assuming that goes public (why wouldn't it?) it's 12 games + anything else they release + anything the community comes up with.
And a free console
That's an interesting interpretation of "Season One is included free of charge."
I think they're more referring to evolution of skinner-box and lootbox type of games, but yeah, this device was probably funded with a subscription model in mind.
Then buy different games? There are so many games out there, you don't have to buy from the sleaziest, profit-whoring of them.
N++, Papers Please, Geometry Dash, Return of the Obra Dinn, Ori and the Blind Forest, 1001 Spikes, Hollow Knight, the list goes on. Then you have things like The Talos Principle, which does have DLC, but it's many hours long, or Humble and their bundles and monthlies, or that Lichess and Pokemon Showdown are legitimately completely free.
The Playdate looks like a fun toy, but it's vastly more of a cash grab than the games I play regularly.
Isn't $150 expensive? Or may be I am just too poor, to throw money at anyone who asks for it.
It's expensive but not nearly as expensive as I would expect a Teenage Engineering product to be. For example, their most famous product, the OP-1 (a small digital synth with a small LCD screen) is $1300.
To be fair, they also sell things like this for $59: https://teenage.engineering/store#po-20
That's the same price as a Nintendo 2DS, which is about as cheap as mobile gaming comes. So I mean, you might have opinions about how good a value it is, but it is not a very high price point for its market.
Used 2DSes or 3DSes are ubiquitous and around $110 or so.
But $20-40 for each game.
A $40 game provides 20-100 hours of high quality gameplay, which I think is a good value.
Playdate is not in the same market as the 2DS, or really anywhere near it. It's not trying to compete on any of the games-industry metrics, nor could it.
It's like comparing the latest Avengers movie with a niche YouTube show. You can compare the price of a movie ticket with a Patreon subscription, but what are you even comparing?
No, it doesn't. It only might. You or your kids might play it for 10 minutes and never touch it again.
How many people on HN have $100s spent on Steam games they haven't even installed once and probably never will? Or games they finally played but didn't like, yet too much time elapsed for a refund?
You could make the same argument about anything. No product is worth the money it costs if you never put it to use.
That was my impression. If I’m paying $150 anyway I might as well buy a DS.
Still, I guess there is a niche for this. It just isn’t me.
> I guess there is a niche for this
Nerds with disposable income who will play with it for a few hours, after which it’ll take dust on a shelf.
For $150 you get the console and 12 games. That's not too bad.
Based on the technical specs $150, even with 12 games seems like price gouging. It's not too far off the Adafruit PyBadge someone else mentioned in another comment only that comes with a color LCD and more buttons for only $35 ($25 if you get the trimmed down version). Sure it doesn't come with a fancy case and it's missing an analog crank (really?), but there's literally hundreds of free games you could get for it that I'm willing to bet are as much fun or more than every single one of those 12 free games that Playdate will include.
Sorry, this looks like a overpriced gimmick. The digital equivalent of a pet rock, or a more modern (and far more expensive) take on a tomagotchi.
Why are you willing to bet that "hundreds of free games" made by internet randos for a cheap gizmo are more fun than every single one of the 12 games made by experienced game developers?
If you are looking at technical specs and a budget system, it's not for you and that's okay.
This thing looks beautiful and that by itself is worth a premium price to a lot of people. I bet it's going to sell out instantly.
It would entirely depend on the quality of the games, wouldn't it?
I compare it more to a subscription to Kindle Unlimited or Netflix. With the difference that once I played them all, I can even sell all the games and the device.
I'm prepared to pay 12$ for a good book. Then pointing to free books as an argument that said book is not worth 12$ is not really applicable. I am not just paying for some book, I am paying for a specific book. Like, say, there is a new book out by Neil Gaiman. I will buy that unseen, even if you tell me that I could get a free book by Somebody INeverHeardOf instead.
In the case here, I loved Firewatch and I am willing to give Panic the benefit of the doubt.
It'll probably be worth a lot as a collectible in the future.
Oh, I have some 1st gen Pebbles to sell you then :)).
I'll give this idea one plus - it's a got a playful, fun design. I get the idea of going simple and fun with this.
As a device to plunk down $150 on, no way.
- If the crank is so fun, they didn't manage to show it.
- Hopefully they'll show more games, because the promise of 12 black and white games involving two buttons a crank isn't awe-inspiring.
- The 2DS is the same price and is vastly more powerful and capable. Obviously they're going for simplicity and quirkiness but objectively it's just a real hard sell here.
- Nintendo is rumored to be making a cheaper more portable Switch along with a Switch Pro this year, and I bet that cheap one is going to be $200.
I just think the only "why" of this thing is "because we could." That's totally okay, but I'd be shocked if this was any more than a limited run item, and even more shocked if anything beyond those initial games ever make it to the platform.
That's fine. You're not their target market.
I think it's a hilarious idea, and will 100% buy one if I can. I have zero interest in buying a 2DS or Switch though.
Teenage Engineering seem to have a nice little "lifestyle business" producing electronics that most people just go "But why?"
(Also, the crank is demonstrated in the last image is you scroll right down the page. It looks fun!
Don't be quick to dismiss a physical control from Teenage Engineering. Those Swedes are geniuses. Have you seen the OP-1? They are masters of constraints that push creativity along. I have no doubt they can make a crank fun.
Teenage engineering does make a handheld musical toy thing. I have a couple. They are very bare bones music calculator-sequencer things.
They're called "pocket operators". Oddly fun to make beats on.
https://teenage.engineering/products/po
This one has some better pictures and soundcloud audio.
https://www.engadget.com/2015/04/22/teenage-engineering-pock...
youtube has a lot on these little things.
I’ve never heard of them before this post. Their other products are far cheaper and seem to have a more unique place in the marketplace.
This is literally a game boy with a crank, you can get a thousand-game library device with dual color screens for the same price.
Maybe nobody else besides TE is making cool portable synthesizers but this is definitely something that’s been tried before.
Obviously it’s a novelty and not trying to be a million seller, but I’m struggling to see who would buy one based on the price and features considering the alternatives.
If it was a little cheaper, I would probably pick it up for my nephew. But at the current price point it’s just way too expensive. Vague promises of future content are not enough to justify the price IMO.
Love the compliant mechanism buttons
(I just recently learned about compliant mechanisms - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97t7Xj_iBv0)
Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compliant_mechanism .
Is this cute? Yeah, absolutely, but there are actually a lot of cute little handheld gaming devices just like it, except they have nicer screens and don't cost $150.
Like the Bitboy, Pixel Classic, PocketGo, Pocket Sprite. Even the Micro Arcade series which are credit card sized single-game handheld with full color screens.
Those all appear to either emulate other consoles, or come with games built-in, though. This seems to be closer to the MakeCode consoles discussed elsewhere in these comments, since it sounds like it will allow you to make your own games for it (although it's not clear yet how easy that will be).
In that respect, it seems fairly unique to me, if only because it is beautifully designed and polished. It seems like the other options for making your own handheld games are either a bit clunky (eg Adafruit's PyGamers) or require quite a lot of know-how and effort (eg Gameboy or DS homebrew).
I hope that this will result in a bunch of new high-quality indie games. It seems that people are unlikely to invest a lot of effort in making spectacular games for the PyGamer, because the audience is small... Nintendo-handheld homebrew has the potential for a larger audience, but requires so much work that I imagine a lot of potential creators are dissuaded.
I'm on the lookout for a shiny indie-friendly portable that's easy to develop for, because I think that could lead to some exciting new things. Maybe this is it.
It only works for this crowd if it's either impossibly rare and hard to come by or expensive enough to keep it out of the hands of most non-hipsters.
How do you know any of that? There's no photos on the site to indicate how polished it is, no mention of being able to run homebrew on it.
That’s fair, I don’t know for sure (hence “I hope...”).
I think shininess is fairly likely, because they are collaborating with Teenage Engineering, who have a reputation for making nice things like the OP-1.
Homebrew is much more questionable. On their “media” page they imply that an SDK is forthcoming, but they certaibly don’t make it as clear as I would like.
At any rate, the point I was going for was less that I am 100% behind this gadget, and more that I think there is room for more options in this realm, and this ticks at least some of my boxes.
pimoroni 32blit may well be everything you described... easy to develop for (LUA or C++, comes with free assets and tutorials) Nicely designed (ok, it's not finely CNC'd aluminium but it looks a lot nicer than most of the chinesium or other indie-cades out there) and open source - they've said the toolchain will run on linux too (I specifically asked)
My feelings are not positive on this one. Trying to be for the sake of the guys making this but here is my problem...besides being very let down that the crank has nothing to do with charging, the price is just too much. Canadian here so 150USD is just over 200$CAD. For 200$ I can very easily pick up a used ipad or iphone and my kids would love to have either one of those. They play lots of games, they watch videos, they surf the internet, they make video calls, and 100 other uses I am sure. So though this device might be cool, it would be a pretty hard sell for me and my kids. The value just doesn't seem to be worth it.
Your kids aren't the target market. This is for a young or older adult who has been into gaming his entire life and wants to pay a premium for a very well game (hopefully) device with can offer a unique experience. It's somewhat of a novelty item, but I see there's definitely a market for it.
What those devices do not do is deliver a likely novel game experience. This one does 12 of them.
That is 12 opportunities to put the gadgets down and focus on the new game.
Each of those are roughly $16 each. It is hard to get through McDees for that sum.
So when it is time, the idea is to set the world aside and have a bit of fun. You may be surprised.
The kids may groove on it, and just trade those times with fast food or something. Maybe an hour or two spent exploring the games, talking about the experience, seeing who likes what, why, etc... with Dads full attention plays better than you might think.
I love seeing products like this, but I fear 150 is a bit beyond the impulse buy price that probably is needed to get big sales.
Having said that it looks neat.
The audience with required cash reserves is there. It just that it has higher standards and needs to see consistently glowing stream of reviews to trigger an impulse buy.
Not impossible by any means, but still rather unlikely.
I'm really excited about this. I've always kind of wanted Teenage Engineering tech because low-fi, tactile, single purpose devices always appeal to me, but I seem to have anti-musical ability so couldn't justify one. This is something I could actually use and enjoy, and I would love to take a crack at developing for it.
Reminds me of Ouya[1], which was $99 console and I think did not have much luck as a gaming platform.
Ouya is reaching its end of life on June 25th, 2019. [1]
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/22/seven-years-later-the-ouya...
Man they worked with Teenage Engineering for this? That's a pretty incredible team. I am amazed.
I dont know how much it costs to make specialized hardware. But i think there was a missed oportunity in cartridge based handhelds. There were a couple of games for GB,GBA and DS that had gimmicky controls that came from the cartridge. As the gyroscope for Yoshi Tipsy Turvy, Wario Ware Twisted and Kirby Tilt n Tumble. Another one was Guitar Hero for the DS and i think there was one with a light sensor for the GB? This feels like it has the same spirit. Wish them good luck.
Don't forget "Boktai The Sun is in Your Hands" for GBA.
It came with a solar sensor on the cartridge that required the gamer to go outside to charge their solar gun in order to kill vampires. Very cool, but it grew annoying fast.
The crank is really interesting. It's such an off the wall choice for a user interface. It will be cool to see how developers take advantage of it.
Fishing games, although judging by the appearance it probably isn't capable of offering any real variable resistance UX unless they have some clever patents attached.
They should have made it a Dynamo charger. Apocalypse GameBoy.
It's been 60 years, but there is precedent: the R1.
https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/77290/wrc...
I don't see how it is better than a traditional joystick. And I think it might easily got broken.
things that have cranks: Ships bridges (speed, turning etc) Large gun emplacements (Anti-aircraft?) Tank turrets Submarine periscopes Cranes (old fashioned ones) Fishing
I think it will specifically work if it's giving the feeling of moving something big and heavy. It doesn't need to have the resistance, most of the above are pulleyed and geared so they are easy to turn.
It's in addition to a d-pad and two buttons.
well, most modern controller has joysticks in addition to d-pad and buttons too. It doesn't invalidate my point.
This is interesting, but I can think of lots of things I'd put on the side of the device to make it unique besides a crank. It's an oddly specific way to provide analog and/or constant input (if it does indeed crank 360 degrees) from the player. An actual analog stick? A dial? A trigger? A switch lever? A touch sensitive pad? A trackball?
Maybe these guys are really into fishing?
I think they were trying to do something really different. I'm interested to see what Bennett Foddy does with the crank. If you aren't familiar, he's a master of making games that really emphasize the control scheme. Check out out QWOP, it's lesser known cousin GIRP, or Getting Over it (which is one of those games that sounds horrible but is actually really fulfilling to play)
The crank is all about "hipster" and "conversation starter". You're supposed to look like a weirdo cranking that, thus be super-cool.
Hipster couples everywhere will have the crank to thank for bolstering their courage up to a level where it was possible for them to talk to one another. Eventually it will come to be viewed as an integral part of the tragic grand hipster narrative. That's the idea anyway.
What a fascinating concept. Makes me feel out of touch with consumers these days, I'd have imagined the appeal of this would be very low but since the Panic team has a great track record and volume manufacturing is not cheap I guess they have assessed their demand.
I'm curious who is buying this instead of e.g. a GPD XD (full android clamshell with dedicated game controls).
I just had a look at the GPD XD website [1], and my first impression is that the design looks a bit cheap and tacky. I really like the look of this playdate console, and I'm sure it feels great to hold and use.
I also don't want to spend my time wading through thousands (maybe millions) of games. The free ones are usually bad, and the good ones come with a ton of ads or in-app purchases. It's just exhausting. I'm still looking for a nice iOS game similar to "Raptor: Call of the Shadows" - just a vertical scrolling game where you can complete levels, upgrade your ship and weapons, beat bosses, etc. I've tried a few different games, but I still haven't been able to find one where I can just pay $20 and own the full game (with no more nagging, advertising, or pay-to-play features.)
I like the idea that they're just going to send a few games, and release one per week. It sounds nice to not have to make any choices, and just enjoy the full curated experience.
I don't know if I'll get one, but those are the reasons why I would consider it. I've also been thinking about a Nintendo Switch, but to be honest I'm not much of a gamer.
I think its positioned more at 'us' vs the consumer. Small run for game/gadget lovers with some disposable income and memories of when everything wasn't formulaic IAP-driven nonsense.
What's the benefit of that kind of Android console vs getting a clipon controller?
I knew Teenage Engineering had something to do with this on first sight.
This. So much this.
There’s much to be said about a handheld gaming device that isn’t constantly distracting you with notifications and alerts. My iPhone constantly teeters between Do Not Disturb and full-on ring volume.
Looking forward to mandatory immersion in the art, story, and gameplay of a dedicated handheld gaming device, a la the original Gameboy.
I have a bunch of Teenage Engineerings Pocket Operators. I definitely see this as something very similar. It will probably be surprisingly powerful as a platform, but still not going to be trying to compete with the Switch. They'll concentrate on making a fun experience over pushing the boundaries of technology.
This looks pretty cool! There have been some horribly misguided niche consoles lately, (see the Amico), this one looks great by comparison. I can see it working as kind of a novelty product. I think the price point is a little high, since it's close to Nintendo handheld prices.
The going rate for a used 3DS XL is about $110.
Initially I thought it was just another Gameboy imitation, but a crank? Wow, that would add a whole new dimension to it. At this stage of the gaming industry when everybody keeps making very similar games and products, any unconventional creative ideas are more than welcomed!
Design wise this looks similar to something teenage engineering would make. Which I think is cool, I like their stuff. Specifically the op1 with the hand crank functionality
"By the way, the crank came from our friends at Teenage Engineering. They were our partners for Playdate’s design. Isn’t it nice?"
This looks neat. It reminds me of what you might get if Nintendo built the GameBoy today with similar tech constraints (BW screen, only two buttons, motion controls, etc.)
Hmm, I was expecting this to be like the PGS and friends kickstarter scams but it's by Panic which I respect very much. I've used almost everything they've made and I've played Firewatch (Great story, not really a game as much as a choose-your-own-adventure-story but your choices don't matter).
I'm probably not going to be buying this day 1 but this is very interesting and if anyone can do it Panic can. Best of luck to them!
I'm wondering if that crank would work for a leftie?
I'm left handed. But when I use a mouse, I noticed after decades that I'd always been controlling them with my right hand. Attempting to switch now feels as awkward as trying to write with my right hand.
So I guess the answer is, it's whatever you're used to. Using my right hand for mouse-related tasks was not something I decided on consciously, or due to convenience, since early models (I'm talking C=64 era) did not have the handed designs of today's mice.
It took you decades to realize you use your mouse with your right hand ;)?
Kidding aside, I am a leftie and feel same way. I guess that is where the mousepad was when I learned.
If it was a problem, wouldn't game controllers in general be a problem? There's always the assumption that left things (buttons, joysticks, etc.) are for movement and right things are for actions. Would it be better for a leftie if there were mirrored versions of game controllers?
It also doesn't seem obvious that using one's less dominant hand for movement is optimal. Kind of like playing guitar. As a righty who go my start trying to learn solos, I always felt like the left hand had the harder job.
You can get used to a game controller, or well, most of us do eventually. At anyrate, you can find left handed game controllers on the market.
But that is a crank, it requires a bit more dexterity, like holding a pen.
That crank better be detachable in a slick way that keeps it from inadvertently popping out constantly or it's going to annoy the hell out of anyone who isn't a hardcore fan of the crank-based game genre. IRL it's probably not detachable and it's going to jangle around and annoy while gradually self-desructing in a way that leaves it useless yet permanently attached/annoying.
It folds into the side. That's why there's a hole.
My ps4 allows me to remap keys and it’s a blessing.
About the same as Apple Watch for lefties right? (source: am leftie)
You mean this?
https://www.imore.com/how-set-apple-watch-left-handed-use
Sounds like Apple did the right thing in that case, but I'm not sure how one could move the crank over to the opposite side. Maybe by turning it upside down and having the controller buttons at the top?
Maybe they have a version just for you ;)
I appreciate everything Panic has done, and how they pushed apps to a higher UI and innovation level. I probably will get a Playdate.
The first handheld I've owned was a Greenhouse G&W. I do wish to get back the simplicity and joy of games from that area.
I don't like the language of the page though, e.g.
"we hope you can’t wait to unwrap your gift."
A gift which I've paid $149 to you? My understanding of gift is different than that of Panic I assume.
Realistically, this thing is going to live and die based on 1) how good these games are and 2) who gets in on the initial batch
if the right people get their hands on these (i'm thinking influencers, game critics, but the kind of people who are receptive to new ideas and) and the games are worth playing, it could become a must-have item.
If either of these fail, it will fall into relative obscurity, as these products usually do
It would be cool if the 3d model was also an emulator.
Pimorini (I think they are quite famous as Raspberry Pis retailers in Europe) recently started a kickstarter for another handheld console: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pimoroni/32blit-retro-i...
i don't like that these devices don't use any sort of graphics accelerators though. that seems to be the most "fun" part of programming the retro architectures these things are inspired by. it's a pity there isn't any market for such chips anymore. i guess an FPGA is an option.
I would be VERY interested in a VERY detailed description of how they, as a software company, handled this hardware project.
I hope this becomes popular. Unlike iOS and Android it has physical controls and hopefully I can develop for it cheaply.
Mark Zuckerberg apparently tried to buy Panic, the creator of Playdate
https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/24/panic-playdate-facebook-...
＞ He didn't want to be part of another Silicon Valley software company gobbled up by a giant.
this is why i love panic, they are independent, creative and have genuine passion for their art... i’d love someday to start a company like that
and playdate, reading that intro page made me genuinely smile, what a cool product idea
I want to be mad that I can’t play Firewatch on my phone but I hope I can never play it on my phone.
Not too sold on the price but it will download 12 games every month for you, if I read that correctly. That is pretty cool. The crank mechanism seems silly but with some creativity perhaps you can do interesting things with it, like fishing.
Game releases for Season 1 are said to be weekly, not monthly. I didn't see mention of more Seasons. They say they have a C/Lua-based SDK which sounds interesting.
Personally I think it would be cool if it had an FPGA on board for offloading and being a bit more consol-esque (=fun) but logically it's probably just a big old ARM core SoC driving the display directly.
I thought it was for charging it on the go. Is it just an input knob?
It's an input device. Charging is presumably over USB.
Check out bittboy (http://bittboy.com), a similar handheld console which has emulators for NES, SNES and GB/GBA/GBC games , at less than 1/3rd of the price.
Its interesting but for these kinds of projects its the software library that will mean everything to how well this goes. I'm not going to spend that much for a device to play tech demos when I already have handheld gaming devices
This is really cool. I might buy one if I am feeling impulsive. I love purpose-built hardware like this!
Would feel more comfortable if I knew they'd allow people to build and sideload games though.
Aside: this website is very choppy in Chrome on Ubuntu.
They make really good PR. Twitter was exploding yesterday. The topic "Software Development" on the original Twitter client only had tweets about this gaming system. (And not a single half naked cosplayer programmer.)
It has a really high price for just a crank and a good design. I think that I could wait for the day games are launched, perhaps they will be long enough and entertaining. I still dont have much expectations.
It looks cool, I was at Funomena when Crankin was being developed and helped Akira Thompson with some Lua code, didn't realize it would end up on a new handheld 3 years later :).
It's a smart looking design. But that recessed speaker grille is going to fill up with fluff and grime pretty quickly. Especially if kids use it!
I could smell some Teenage Engineering influence when I first saw it. That being said, I do kinda want one. It's a neat little bit of design.
This is so wird, I just want one to support the weirdness A new game every week? Presumably subscription-based - which I'm less wild about.
The crank must be an analog of the Apple Watch crown.
If anyone wants to do a startup together designing a cheap, retro-style handheld game console with an open app store, please email me :)
This will sell to indie gamedev scenesters and they have the perfect designer roster to hit that audience.
From a commercial success standpoint, I'm bearish. Common pitfall in comedy is to make jokes for comedians. This scene has a similar problem where they love to make games for game devs.
I don't think they intended for it as anything but not a substantial cost loss because they wanted to make it, not because they wanted a 3DS IT PRINTS MONEY GIF of it, so that's probably a feature, not a bug.
This was a good Twitter thread on that topic from a couple of weeks ago: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1126531195666411521.html
I totally agree and as a gamedev really want one. A decent handheld with development as easy if not easier than PICO-8 will be a lot of fun even if the community is niche.
Panic team is amazing. Neat product. You guys combined virtual gaming with physical elements. Congratulations!!!
sort of related to this (indie gaming hardware), I recently got the Adafruit PyBadge. You can program it with CircuitPython, Arduino or MakeCode (a microsoft visual coding IDE). fun if your idea of fun is making the game and then playing it, or figuring out how to port some existing game.
Even closer to this is the Arduboy[1]. I've had one for a while and even wrote a Tetris game for it. It's SO tiny and light!
And sprite_tm's PocketSprite (pocketsprite.com)
This looks awesome. I wish I had made it.
Makes me wish I had finished writing my book on making your own video game console!
Strange. I've found the opposite to be true. They do a pretty decent job explaining why you need a web server and how to make a basic one. Once it's set up, there are tons of examples and resources to look at. https://gamalaptop.vn/laptop-gaming/
The crank is cute but I want a paddle controller for games like Tempest and Pong.
New poster child for not doing product naming and ergonomics by committee.
I like the crank idea only if it also charges the battery as you play.
Have you ever tried a hand-cranked radio or torch? They need a lot of cranking. I'm not sure it would be tractable.
This kinda looks like it has an epaper screen? Or at least a simple black and white lcd. Potentially uses a lot less power than a torch.
At that price, it likely wouldn't be e-ink. But even more so, the framerate of e-ink tech currently on the market isn't suitable for moving graphics. There are a few companies working on different ways to solve this problem but the existing e-ink patent is quite a thorn.
The demo was definitely not an e-ink screen, but then again, it was a simulation so who knows for sure.
I tried to find battery specs on the page but couldn't.
That's because they all crank so easily. Surely if they used gears and required more force to convert from few rotations to many it would be better?
I think it would add unacceptable weight. And the mechanical stress would probably cause a redesign of the whole product. You don’t want the screen to crack the first time your 8 year-old gets a little enthusiastic about winding it.
I don’t know. It already looks pretty robust.
They could add an automatic self-cranking mode? Or an add-on crank-automator - perhaps solar-powered.
Why the name playdate?
From the linked Edge article [1]:
> Then there's the contemporary modus operandi that gives the console its name. Every Monday, via WiFi, owners receive a new game, the notification light on top of the case blinking to announce its arrival. Whenever you have five spare minutes, you’ll be able to reach into your own shirt pocket, and make time for your Playdate.
It's part of the "gimmick".
After the device is released and is available for sale, a new game will be released for it and downloaded automatically each week for the first 12 weeks, when downloaded a little light will light up and you can have small play date with the Playdate.
That's IMO the only clever part of the device, the syncing up with users everywhere anticipating the minute a new game drops. It'll work great until a game fails to resonate with any particular user at which point negative sentiment and disappointment get attached to the device.
I'm sure it's a fun challenge for the game designers with the limited screen, and a crank mechanic.
But I'm really hoping they are also able to make some games with some depth and replay value to them for the players, a la the early mario, spyro, sonic or pokemon games.
Not even April 1st.
I think they might have just revolutionized gaming.
I can't wait for my turn.
Me too. I really like their spin on the Gameboy.
Yeah but they are reinventing the wheel
Teenage Engineering make really cool stuff too! :)
Wow! I was not expecting this at all. Exciting!
Everything Teenage Engineering touches is gold
Image links are broken for me.
Super ambitious, but I love/respect the fact that there's still people out there driven by sheer passion and originality, rather than money.
I've ranted many a times about the hypercapitalistic race-to-the-bottom approach that Valve/Epic/etc are taking. This is a breath of fresh air and they have my full support.
Can the crank charge the battery?
a crank but no analog stick? bold
why is every comment saying how cool this thing is?
Surely HN has been taken over by bots. 800+ up-votes for some cheap looking dysfunctional "gaming console" that has no real hardware available yet. And there is nothing exciting or cool about it.
Some days I think the time of HN has passed because of posts like these being up-voted that much.
Slightly off-topic, but the website design looks like a worse version of Teenage Engineering website (https://teenage.engineering/products/po) with larger font size (a bit too large imo). Not dissing the website though, it isn't that bad overall, just thought it was interesting, since I haven't seen many others attempting that.
EDIT: after a closer look at the page, I realized that they explicitly mentioned partnering with Teenage Engineering on parts of the device design. The website resemblance makes more sense now :)
Bottom of page:
> By the way, the crank came from our friends at Teenage Engineering. They were our partners for Playdate’s design. Isn’t it nice?
Edit: you took a closer look while I was typing. You're excused. ;)
Upon closer look, they got some nice game development partners too, like Keita Takahashi of Katamari fame. This partnership (with both Teenage Engineering and the likes of Keita Takahashi) seems like a perfect synergy in my eyes. While I am still not super excited about the product yet, I am very glad someone out there is going for stuff like that.
the website design looks like a worse version of Teenage Engineering website
It's a style that Panic has used for years:
Yeesh, that isn’t good on an iPhone.
It's funny, I was also going to comment on how this has a very Teenage Engineering vibe before I found out that they're affiliated :)
Was thinking "this looks like a teenage engineering product" right as "Teenage Engineering" came on screen.
I just checked TE's web site, and it's good to see so many products marked "sold out." I hope it means that people are starting to realize that technology doesn't have to be boring.
In my experience, it does mean exactly that. Went to the local modular synth store (which I like a ton; they have tons of events like weekly meetups, workshops, etc.), and they often tend to run out of Teenage Engineering PO series devices. Talked to the owner (as it is a small shop, so he more often than not works the register himself), and he confirmed that they cannot stop ordering new batches, since they get sold out so quickly. And that's despite the fact that they sell it not any cheaper than through other channels (official website, amazon, etc.).
Can confirm, had to wait a few months before I could get my hands on their PO-33 sampler — one of my most cherished pieces of hardware now and def worth way more than its price tag to me (as someone who doesn’t generally buy music equipment).
I like the visual style.
It mostly works well on mobile, but the layout results in hilariously big images on desktop.
The top unit could benefit from scaling to the viewport height. Right now the grey section is 100% the height of the viewport, meaning that scrolling is not an obvious interaction. Having some yellow and text peeking up could make that more intuitive.
It is ridiculous on a 2560x1440 screen. It seems to be designed for a "10ft television" view distance. Much better at 25% zoom.
Not sure why you're being downvoted. The site is awful on desktop - definitely designed for mobile alone. Which seems strange - considering the target market for this.
Ctrl+-- makes it tolerable on desktop.
Ya, it works as an ad, even if I wouldn't want this kind of design for more serious content.
Agreed. It's a great design.
Speaking of company/product names in the new top-level domains making cool domain hacks that aren’t even really “domain hacks” anymore (like TE’s great one), I was astounded to note yesterday in the giant Apple thread that Apple doesn’t seem to own “macbook.pro”.
Playdate is way more usable on mobile. I can't really read the text of teenage engineering
Thanks for pointing this out. The device instantly reminded me of the Teenage Engineering products, but I didn't read thoroughly.
This company seems well aware they aren't a match for Nintendo. Based on the comments, Hacker News does not seem very aware.
Much like how Teenage Engineering's OP-1 is not competitively priced. This is another example of an insightfully designed, well built product for adults. Older millenials looking for a sentimental package so they can feel like it's their 8th birthday again. They are reunboxing a gameboy color.
Their goal isn't to revitalize the dying, Nintendo/Smartphone dominated scene of handheld gaming. Just a small company releasing a niche product in a low quantity for a low risk profit.
No different than a craft brew or a local farmers market.
This is the best take, and I'm excited to live in a world where hardware entertainment devices don't require mass market appeal and can be "artisanal."
In many ways, I think this is the antidote to a lot of the bad behaviors Silicon Valley has developed in the last several years. Sometimes not achieving hyperscale is OK.
Agreed. I've been thinking about a market for small batch or boutique electronics in various markets for a while. There is boutique furniture, small batch alcohol, all sorts of small runs that would never compete with the big guys but still make money and are fun for people to buy. More people should get into it. The biggest barrier to entry may be that you have to self fund for these smaller attempts.
There's a huge number of boutique products in music technology, particularly synth modules and guitar effects pedals. They're relatively simple analog products, so it's entirely feasible for one person to design and manufacture a small batch in their bedroom without a big investment.
There's also the fact that making consumer electronics is incredibly hard, and even when talented engineers attempt to fulfill their overfunded kickstarters they often fail.
I'm not saying I don't love the idea of boutique electronics. I'm just saying it's not really for the faint of heart.
I feel like with electronics, its so complicated to make it durable and long-lasting while also being very good in function that if it's worth making at all, its worth making well - in a way with mass-market appeal.
That's not to say that spending loads on marketing is a requirement. Stuff like the original few OnePlus phones for example prove that if (at least in some sectors) tech is good and cheap, people will spread the word
Not competitively priced? Yes it costs a lot, but it's pretty easy to drop a grand on music equipment. You could buy a decent guitar, a vintage synth, half of a small Nord 4 piano, or a drum kit. It's dead on midrange for an instrument of that calibre, which it absolutely is. It seems expensive because its popularity and apparent ability to turn anyone into a musician make it appeal to the amateur market, who would normally buy a Squier strat or a practice drum off Craigslist. TE caters to these folks with less ambitious products. The OP-1 only really competes in the sense that these folks just save up for longer, because it really is worth that much.
Whether or not it's accurate for the OP-1, I think your analysis applies perfectly to the Playdate.
Absolutely. I never had a Gameboy, so now I hope I can kind of make up for the missed experiences with this gadget.
Just buy a Gameboy. Good games are timeless.
I’d pay a lot to play one more game of “Nobunaga’s Ambition.”
Which one should I buy? I don't really know the Nintendo world.
I'd recommend a Gameboy Advance SP, because the older, non-backlit, screens were genuinely poor under some non-ideal lighting situations, and you still get support for older generation games. But a standard Gameboy Advance or even Gameboy Color is still good. I'd avoid things prior to the Color personally.
GBA SP: Play Summon Night Swordcraft Story, SRW Original Generation 1+2, Castlevania Aria of Sorrow, Yggdra Union (Warning: extremely difficult), Harvest Moon, Riviera (I played the PSP version)
NDS: Ghost Trick, The World Ends With You, Ragnarock DS, Devil Survivor, 999, Rune Factory 3, Disgaea DS
If you're not concerned with retro aesthetic, get a Game Boy Advance. It's compatible with the entire back catalog.
I like the idea of having weird hardware like this produced. I can see it becoming a collectible. I don't love it though.
I'm curious though, did someone see this and really want it?