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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

#81

Post by Cthulhu_ »

martijn_himself wrote: post #78

The Playdate seems an ideal device for busy dads and mums who would pick it up to play a few games here and there and are into programming and maybe would like to teach their kids how to program. I've had a quick play with the tools and API Panic provides and they seem very, very good. The games on it seem to be ideal for short stints of gameplay and are made by some very creative folk. This seems to be the ideal tar…

The Playdate is... limited though; it's very small, much smaller than e.g. the gameboy or DS, so it's not particularly ergonomic. Fine for playing around with on occasion, but it's not a platform for spending long hours with. And it made the same mistake as the GBA did - no backlight.

It does not feel like good value for money. But then, it's positioned as a niche / quirky device, manufactured in batches once a year or so, not a mass market device.

I do hope they build a follow-up some day though - make it twice as big (at least), add a backlight, make turning it off more obvious, and give more clarity about the availability and cost of games.

Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design

#82

Post by Cthulhu_ »

fn-mote wrote: post #21

Re: 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…

There are plenty of free or cheaper alternatives, although platforms like pico-8 are (intentionally) hard to work with, especially as a first introduction to building games and / or coding.

Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design

#83

Post by Doxin »

nosrepa wrote: post #65
Doxin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd imagine they know as they developed games for it. Their point was the audience size due to it being niche, not that it's hard to test.

ah I guess I sort of elided actually... saying the point I was trying to make. If it's just about showing games off to your friends (which with a course like this is pretty likely) you can point them to the emulator.

yeah if you're aiming to make a proper professional game with aims of making profit... the playdate probably isn't the way to go. But then I recon that's part of what makes it an awesome platform. It hasn't been captured by capitalism yet.

Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design

#84

Post by JKCalhoun »

fn-mote wrote: post #21

Re: 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…

ArduBoy ($99) [1] comes to mind. But your point is taken.

Also Playdate claims there are educational discounts, so I suspect students aren't paying $199 (or is it a little over $200?). (EDIT: another comment suggested $195 is the student discount—ouch!)

[1] https://www.arduboy.com

Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design

#85

Post by Cthulhu_ »

albertodenia wrote: post #60
hyperbolablabla wrote: post #6

Having 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!

The challenge with Playdate games is that it's a relatively niche market; the number of consoles sold is... probably more than 100K at this point but less than a million (https://x.com/playdate/status/1757478578491732486), of which only a percentage will buy games in addition to the "free" ones.

I suspect any developer whose game gets picked for the "free" games will get a compensation, but I have no idea how much that would be. This link https://x.com/playdate/status/1757478578491732486 suggests that two years ago, all Catalog developers (so not the free games) earned about 500K total / shared amongst each other.

TL;DR: by all means make games for the Playdate but not if you want to make it your livelihood. Personal grumpy take, not based in up to date facts.

Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design

#87

Post by JKCalhoun »

stevewodil wrote: post #43
Spinfusor wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it had a backlight, I would have bought one by now.

Sometimes I concede on this point with certain devices, but the screen on the playdate basically requires light at a specific angle for it to be at all discernible, so I don't blame you and can't recommend it as a result

A kind of tintype display.

Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design

#88

Post by JKCalhoun »

nosrepa wrote: post #19

Not to mention that they just announced season three of games!

I'm not familiar with their marketing/ecosystem. Do they gather together the best games and have a whole "season" you purchase? And repeat this every year?

Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design

#89

Post by oulipo2 »

Jach wrote: post #62
oulipo2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's the intention, sure, and as long as prospective Masters students know that's what they're getting into and paying for, and are looking forward to it, then it's fine or whatever. But it still strikes me as a silly constraint, just as it would be to require an in-house engine that sucks, or requiring students to develop for some old Nintendo hardware, or requiring students to fit everything in under 96k.[0] Anyo…

No, because the goal of the university is to teach students to think. Not necessarily just to "acquire the skills to apply in industry". Constraints are great for that.

So is teaching them assembly, even though most people no longer directly code in ASM. But a constrained language that's close-to-the-metal gives them an interesting view of how computing really works, etc

So I'd say it's actually much better for a class teaching coding and creativity

Re: Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design

#90

Post by analog31 »

bigfatkitten wrote: post #54
jubilanti wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What are the statistics on this? There are about 500k professors in the US, and they make up about 1/3 of college teachers. Also, most academics would object to this situation, so it's not apparently OK. There's a growing movement towards open-sourcing textbooks or replacing them with other kinds of online materials.

Don't get me wrong, I think that college education is due for reform.

There are examples of finding better ways to do it. My son's textbook costs were very low. The regional state university that he attended had some kind of thing where you rented your textbooks and turned them back in, often with a nominal or zero fee.

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