19th August 2024 - The Playdate
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I received a Playdate yesterday. For those who are not aware, the 
Playdate is a small yellow handheld games console which is a touch 
perculiar. 

The device itself is roughly half a smart phone in size albeit 
slightly thicker. The body is yellow plastic with 40% being a screen. 
The rest are a d pad, an A button and a B button. Along side the 
screen is a speaker grill and a menu button. In 3 corners, there are 
metal 'screw holes'. On the bottom is a microphone, a 3.5 mm headphone 
socket and a USB C connector. The top has a small button with a LED. 
This is the standby button and notification light. So far, fairly 
normal. The right hand side has possibly the most distinctive part. 
There is a metal bar which can be pulled out and turned into a crank. 
This is a rather curious analogue input method. The screen itself is 
simply black and white with no backlight. The lack of a backlight is 
annoying but the black and white adds plenty of character. It makes 
the artwork pop in a way I think it would fail to do with colour. The 
device is pretty light and certainly pocketable.There are flip cases 
available for added protection. 

Hardware is all well and good but the software is the soul of the 
device. When you first turn your Playdate on, there is a great 
introduction and tutorial. It has great animation and gets you 
pressing buttons or turning the crank. You are dealing with creative 
people who want to have fun! There is a great deal of characterisation 
throughout. When you turn the device on, you press the standby button 
twice. Each press opens an eye so you can see exactly where you are in 
the process. I love this side of the device. 

One of the cool parts is how the team gave encouragement to people to 
buy. They decided to give everyone who bought the device a season of 
games. Two a week for 12 weeks. Not bad. These seem to appear on 
Mondays as I am suddenly on week 2. The games are odd, charming and 
fun. So far, I have:

Whitewater Wipeout - a game where you control a surfer and use the 
crank to spin the surfboard. All about the high score thanks to 
pulling off tricks. 

Casual Birder - You take photos of birds and are trying to win a 
competition. The crank is used to focus the camera. Think pokemon 
without the pitting poor animals against one another.

Crankin's Time Travel Adventure - You are a clockwork tin man who 
seems perpetually late for a date. You use the crank to control time 
forwards and backwards while avoiding insects and other hazards. 

Boogie Loops - Simfin' in game form while animals jiggle about to the 
music.

The games are designed for short bursts of play. They are all 
interesting. I am struggling with Boogie Loops. There seems to be too 
much information on a small screen. I might need to play with the 
screen forwarding. There is a way of running games on the Playdate 
while the screen is forwarded to a PC. This seems a nice option but I 
have not tried it yet. So far, Casual Birder and Crankin's Time Travel 
Adventure are my favourites. I am looking forward to the other games 
too! 

There is a game store which can be accessed via the internet and via 
the Playdate it self. There are plenty of games in a variety of 
genres. Most seem to be in the $2 to $3 range with some at $10. The 
games are all in the Megabytes or less in terms of size so you can fit 
plenty on the device's 4 GB memory. I have installed some puzzles 
games such as:

Soko - sokoban move the block game
Sketch, Share, Solve - Nonagram puzzles
Smolitaire - Card games of the solitaire variety
Reel Steel - You are a team of thieves who go fishing for riches 
from the local billionaires
Recommendation Dog - You find out what people like and get them that 
stuff

The Playdate is a curious device but glorious for that reason. It has 
charm by the bucket and is a welcome distraction device for short 
bursts. It will find itself coming along with me on my travels. The 
lack of a backlight is the only real complaint but I guess it would 
only reduce the quality of the screen. It is not a cheap device to buy 
but it feels well thought out and well built. Delivery to the UK took 
2 weeks with the tracking not being great. 

If you want a charming device to give you some unique games, go for 
it! If you want realism and serious games then definitely look 
elsewhere.