Playdate - that monochrome handheld with a crank

[JDTAY]

So what happens when the publishers of Firewatch make a handheld with two action buttons, EDIT: a black and white screen, and a crank? For one, the Katamari Damacy dude makes a game for it.

https://play.date/

The main gimmick here being not the crank, but the weekly delivery of a new game, thus the 'date'. The first 12 weeks are included with the console. I assume there will be more for a subscription price. Price is $149 USD. A little steep, but good cranks ain't cheap.
[doublepost=1558589965,1558589343][/doublepost]BTW, @EvilDragon now that crank technology has been perfected, I assume it's not too late to add one to the Pyra? Fishing games won't be the same without it.

 

[directive0]

Thats weird as hell, but I kind of love it. The distribution model and seemingly closed nature of the device are not my scene. Don't see one in my future but I love the design.

 

[JDTAY]

Their twitter account says they 'want' to allow side-loading of games. We'll see if that pans out.

 

[Nintendo]

Omg, that is soooooo unique and awesome!!!

 

[Askarus]

No, not awesome.
Just weird.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

If it was open for development and had steampunk aesthetics, then I might be interested.

I have doubts about the refresh rate of an e-ink display though.

 

[Gren]

On first inspection, can't say I'm excited at all about this...

However, a very large article (and correspondingly flashy cover) is in the latest copy of Edge that has just popped through my letterbox.
Will have a read and see if my interest is piqued

 

[JDTAY]

If it was open for development and had steampunk aesthetics, then I might be interested.

I have doubts about the refresh rate of an e-ink display though.

Upon further inspection, it's not e-ink, it's just black and white reflective low-power LCD from Sharp. My bad, main post fixed. Sharp makes p good screens, right?

 

[Nintendo]

On first inspection, can't say I'm excited at all about this...

However, a very large article (and correspondingly flashy cover) is in the latest copy of Edge that has just popped through my letterbox.
Will have a read and see if my interest is piqued

On first inspection, can't say I'm excited at all about this...

However, a very large article (and correspondingly flashy cover) is in the latest copy of Edge that has just popped through my letterbox.
Will have a read and see if my interest is piqued

It's so beautiful

 

[JDTAY]

@vcoleiro1 I know you're sort of an industry insider. Did you know about this device?

 

[Nintendo]

Not an industry insider at all ..he secretly works for GamePad Digital (he's their ambassador) though...always endorsing their products >_>

 

[vcoleiro1]

@vcoleiro1 I know you're sort of an industry insider. Did you know about this device?

I'm just a gadget lover that keeps an eye open for news on new things.
I didn't hear anything about the Play Date until it was announced

 

[JDTAY]

Well, their twitter is pretty active. Like 150 tweets in the first twelve hours, before taking a break. They say they're making the SDK available to people who email them, and that it uses C and Lua. Like I said earlier though, they only said they want to allow side-loading, no guarantee.

 

[elw3]

This has to have legend of river king or they completely fail.

 

[kirkanoss]

i here i was thinking the crank was going to charge it lol need some coffee

 

[JDTAY]

Some updates from twitter. They're afraid to commit to more than one season of games until after they see the response and what people make with the SDK. They also say that they're planning to create a "scholarship program" and "game making tools" so that game creators will be more diverse in the future. They say a lack of diversity is one of their biggest regrets about season one of Playdate.

On another note, the crank has me thinking, what if each season had a new piece of hardware with a new 'gimmick'? Would be interesting, and a little expensive. That's just me speculating though.

 

[FBnil]

i here i was thinking the crank was going to charge it lol

Yeah, me too. Like a small olpc

 

[Eight Bit]

i here i was thinking the crank was going to charge it lol need some coffee

Haha! I thought the same and got dissapointed when I saw it wasn't.

 

[JDTAY]

Hate to post in my own thread yet again, but they tweeted within the last hour that side-loading will be possible from day one. Now I kinda wanna get my hands on that SDK.

That Sharp display they use is pretty high quality, apparently. More expensive than a standard color display of the same resolution. They say there's no gridlines, making dithering really effective. And also really necessary, since it is one bit per pixel graphics with no shades of gray.

 

[elw3]

I doubt you will find game makers that still know how to make graphics for that kind of display.