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Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

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Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#411

Post by abrugsch »

PostOnce wrote: post #399
abrugsch wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#412

Post by joezydeco »

dmix wrote: post #408
joezydeco wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#413

Post by criddell »

fendy3002 wrote: post #223
Reedx wrote: post #61

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...

If the crank orientation can be changed, it can act as ship's navigator wheel and valve

I'm kind of hoping for Tetris.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#414

Post by criddell »

orclev wrote: post #189
bmuon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#415

Post by gadgetoid »

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

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...

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#416

Post by gadgetoid »

girvo wrote: post #145
minimaxir wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#417

Post by joshstrange »

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!

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#419

Post by eridius »

kkarakk wrote: post #409
eridius wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I trust Panic. They have an extremely long history of producing really high-quality Mac software, and they published Firewatch (which was excellent).

Panic is, ironically, a "moral panic" type of company. When e-culture shifts, they shift their policy accordingly. I would not trust them for stability.

What do you mean by this? What has Panic shifted on? The only example I can think of where they've shifted on anything is they released Transmit for iOS, then after a while they discontinued it, and that's because it simply wasn't making enough money for them to justify the cost of maintenance.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#420

Post by andrekandre »

hbcondo714 wrote: post #418

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

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