Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

play.date

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 424 posts

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#141

Post by joezydeco »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #130
snazz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It looks so dumb. I wonder who they are marketing this at? Not your typical Fortnite / CS / Wow gamer. I love indie games and experimental story telling, but $150 for 12 games, and one of them uses a crank... not buying it. Sorry. $50 on steam gets me a whole lot of weird, and I got a ton left to invest in a case of craft beer to enjoy along with it.

Then you do you. But you don’t have to be a buzzkill about it.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#142

Post by reaperducer »

krrishd wrote: post #14
filoleg wrote: post #4

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 partner…

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 :)

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.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#143

Post by [deleted] »

bullfightonmars wrote: post #63

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. https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

[deleted]

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#144

Post by hombre_fatal »

ddingus wrote: post #122
chaostheory wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah same here. I'm not sure I really buy it as control mechanism for playing though.

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.

https://i.imgur.com/tdESids.jpg

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#145

Post by girvo »

minimaxir wrote: post #5
_bxg1 wrote: post #3

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

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.

I miss the GP2X and related...

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#146

Post by wffurr »

GuiA wrote: post #119
_bxg1 wrote: post #3

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

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.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#147

Post by beenBoutIT »

toastking wrote: post #131

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.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#148

Post by landric »

dpedu wrote: post #134
ungzd wrote: post #133

Just remember that company that made this was abusing DMCA to take down videos just for SJW vocabulary policing [1]. Be warned if you want to make games for it, even if SDK will be free and available without signing agreements. Maybe this company is not directly related to this incident and they're just publishers, I don't know. [1] https://www.polygon.com/2017/9/10/16285188/pewdie-pie-racist...

Are you talking about Panic? I don't see them mentioned anywhere in that article so I'm pretty confused as to what you're talking about.

Panic published Firewatch, partnering with Campo Santo, the developer quoted in the article.

https://kotaku.com/the-people-who-published-firewatch-are-no...

I'm not arguing that the person you're replying to is right in their assessment of Panic, just that they're not _totally_ out of left field.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#150

Post by hombre_fatal »

crooked-v wrote: post #85
chc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.
Post reply on HN