My playdate has been collecting dust since I got it and the initial few games I tried didn't stick. Any suggestions on good games for it?
In the end, my personal favorite game was selling it on ebay
In that game, the house always wins.
Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design
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Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design
#52Playdate development has been a great experience. The limited colors and RAM helps me reduce my project scope such that I would actually finish them, and the limited CPU makes optimization exercises more rewarding. And it's not just all constraints either -- the sound/synth system is quite nice, and the crank is fun input method that takes some hands-on experience to fully appreciate. The only downside is that there…
you can run playdate games on the desktop using the emulator included in the free SDK. It won't be as fun as running it on an actual device, but nothing stopping people from actually messing with making playdate games without a playdate.
Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
A $200 textbook should absolutely be out of line
Anna has an archive for students who can't afford books.
I love Anna but it's also a poor school that doesn't have its own library that has at least a few copies of every textbook used by classes + inter-library loans. Can be a nice way to make friends by sharing a physical book to study and do exercises from in a shared workspace.
Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design
#54Re: price point HN readers who can write a console game before bedtime are not the target audience. A handheld device that Just Works and creates an authentic experience is worth a lot. For a college class, a $200 textbook isn’t out of line (the ones people still buy…), which makes this a very reasonable investment in one’s education. Are there other, cheaper routes? Of course. For an introduction? Fewer, and nobody…
A $200 textbook should absolutely be out of line
Professors making students buy the textbook they wrote for $200 is especially out of line.
In any other industry they call this corruption, but in academia it’s apparently ok.
Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design
#55Re: price point HN readers who can write a console game before bedtime are not the target audience. A handheld device that Just Works and creates an authentic experience is worth a lot. For a college class, a $200 textbook isn’t out of line (the ones people still buy…), which makes this a very reasonable investment in one’s education. Are there other, cheaper routes? Of course. For an introduction? Fewer, and nobody…
A $200 textbook should absolutely be out of line
For an advanced course that is how the economics works out. They are expensive to produce and have limited demand, and typically only for a few years until they are replaced.
Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design
#56For a Masters program it's pretty weird but I assume prospective students will be aware, and they move on to learning Unreal, so...
It's always struck me as a bit silly how so many schools use some very niche tooling as part of "simplifying" or "adding constraints". I would have thought that such stuff was kept at the undergrad level. Even DigiPen (where the "famous" undergrad CS-like degree has you writing your own engine (though used to also have an elective for GBA games)) has a separate newer game design degree that had classes mandating some crappy in-house engine or in later years joining teams with students from the other degrees and using someone's custom engine. When I was there, a friend was able to get a professor's exception one semester and allowed to use a mobile-first engine that got out of the way and let him design while also making it easy to add polish, easy to playtest and develop (it used Lua) and show or give to others since everyone has a phone, etc. The crappy in-house engine stymied the efforts of everyone else, and only ran on Windows. It took a while longer before the formal curriculum had other students allowed to move beyond the in-house crap to consider things like the entire field of mobile games and mobile design, VR games and design, and eventually learning industry-standard tooling that employers will expect familiarity with. (I think the courtesy of using an industry engine was extended to the main degree program too vs. continuing with a custom one; I'm not sure what ratio Unreal/Unity/Godot/other/custom have there these days.) And while last I've heard an in-house engine is still used at the beginning (and even replaced the second semester "make a game in pure C with only the Windows text console for 'rendering'" project), it's a rewrite of a successor and apparently isn't as crappy now.
For the Playdate itself, I've never seen the appeal... I have no interest in going back to that sort of screen. My Game Boy Color, besides having color, also allowed me to have a wormlight attachment plugged in to make up somewhat for not having a backlight. I don't think the Playdate has support for that. And the price...
Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design
#57The Playdate looks like what you'd make if someone only described the games kids made and shared on the TI-83 graphing calculator and then asked you to build a device.
It’s for Gen-X dads to buy and pay themselves on the back about “productive constraints” while they play games that suck.
Hey man, I was just trying to invent an excuse to buy one and you had to do that. Well … played.
Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design
#58Re: price point HN readers who can write a console game before bedtime are not the target audience. A handheld device that Just Works and creates an authentic experience is worth a lot. For a college class, a $200 textbook isn’t out of line (the ones people still buy…), which makes this a very reasonable investment in one’s education. Are there other, cheaper routes? Of course. For an introduction? Fewer, and nobody…
The article mentions you can use the free PC/Mac simulator which doesn't require a device
Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design
#59For a Masters program it's pretty weird but I assume prospective students will be aware, and they move on to learning Unreal, so... It's always struck me as a bit silly how so many schools use some very niche tooling as part of "simplifying" or "adding constraints". I would have thought that such stuff was kept at the undergrad level. Even DigiPen (where the "famous" undergrad CS-like degree has you writing your own…
The article makes it quite clear as you read that the appeal is the constraints, it allows the students to think outside of the box, and ask themselves a lot of interesting questions
Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design
#60Having made multiple (dare I say) fairly successful games on the Playdate, I can attest to how fantastic the developer experience has been and how easy it was for my non dev collaborators to get going. Pulp was a great in road for them to get started with game dev, and it's been a blast (despite how limiting Pulpscript is for a professional dev)
I'm genuinely curious: do you mean successful as "played a lot" or as "commercially successful"? Do you think Playdate is a viable market for indie devs? Btw it'd also be great to check your games, if you'd like to share some links!