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Playdate Has Me Feeling Cranky

conchobhar

What's Shenmue?
Me, just under two months ago:
~$180 CAD was already a bit on the pricey side but I could just about justify it to myself, but this price bump puts it at least ~$220 CAD, and that's a lot harder for me to swallow.

Me today: well I may as well buy the cover as well what's another twenty bucks
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
If I followed correctly it looks like they sold through their 2021 allotment in about 20 minutes. Kudos to them, though, the site is up and you can still pre order, even if it’s going to take a long time to ship.

I wonder if my order is part of the first batch…
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
If I followed correctly it looks like they sold through their 2021 allotment in about 20 minutes. Kudos to them, though, the site is up and you can still pre order, even if it’s going to take a long time to ship.

I wonder if my order is part of the first batch…
I don't know about batches, but the email I got from them said mine is shipping in December 2021...
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
My email makes no mention of a shipping date at all, only that they’ll notify me when it has been shipped. That’s… not encouraging!
 

Lokii

(He/Him)
Staff member
Moderator
I wasn't fast enough... a nebulous "2022" for me.

VWXlrJZ.png
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
Man, if I had a bit more disposable income I would have picked up one of these for sure. Maybe I'll have another chance next year when they're more widely available.

Also, has Panic said anything about future seasons or additional software after the first 24 games? I'm curious about what kind of legs this thing will have.
 

conchobhar

What's Shenmue?
Also, has Panic said anything about future seasons or additional software after the first 24 games? I'm curious about what kind of legs this thing will have.
According to the Wikipedia page, there's another ten games that have been announced (or shown off in some form or another) that aren't part of the initial batch of games, so there's probably going to be at least one more season.

No idea how long Panic will support it beyond that, but the SDK is going to be made available for free, so that could keep it going, too.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
They are planning on more games, though they haven’t landed on a distribution model yet. I still love the idea of a season of games you don’t know anything out about until they arrive on your device, though they seem to have distanced themselves from that idea. I imagine it’s a hard sell for developers.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
Just got a very detailed update on this thing. tldr; everyone's unit is delayed at least until early next year, if not later.

Said update is quite the read. The batteries they used were unreliable, to the point where they switched suppliers and replaced all the batteries in every unit. The chip shortage is so bad that the factory's estimate to fulfill a second order was around two years. So they had to make a revision of the board using more readily available parts to fulfill the second wave of orders. The revision will be functionally identical to the original. The hope is to have all orders shipped by the end of 2022, but uh.

It's an awkward time to be making electronics!
 

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
This lends credence to Steam's claims about the Steam Deck, too. Man, it really is tough sledding for manufacturers right now.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Material and supply chains are terrible for almost *everything* right now. My company is having to raise prices on our milling machines to cover the cost of the parts in them, and that's more about just metal than chips even.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
Shipments are starting, apparently! I have no idea when mine will ship, but they had me confirm my address, so. Things are happening! Things!

Reviews also seem to be coming out but I don’t want to read any of them because I want to avoid spoilers. It is still very weird for the games themselves to be spoilers but I’m here for it.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
It's just like back in the day, when you went to rent an NES game and the whole damn shelf was full of a Whitman's Sampler of previously undiscovered delights. Which one has caramel inside, and which has that gross gooey cherry stuff instead? Take a bite and find out! (Warning: The Pitfall sequel with promising box artwork is more like a circus peanut.)
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
My Playdate has arrived. It needs a charge before I can play it, but I will say it feels quite nice in the hand - denser than I thought it'd be, in a good way. Buttons feel good, crank feels good, screen is pretty reflective when in the light, so I think it won't be like an original GBA or something like that.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Initial thoughts on the first two games:

Whitewater Wipeout - This game is all about precision crank handling (lol). It's quite difficult, and I'm still quite bad at it, but it's a decent little game, if very small in scope.

Casual Birder - I really like what little I've played on this so far - your goal seems to be to take pictures of all the different birds, and you do this by moving a camera around and focusing using the crank. The text you get when you take a picture of a bird is cute, and I really like the presentation of the game in general. No idea how long it'll be, but to be honest I hope it lasts awhile as it's a pretty cute little game.
 

madhair60

Video games
Cancelled my order. To be perfectly honest this looks like a shitty little knick-knack to me, having seen the rollout.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
I'm sure it's fine for what it is, but you're paying a lot of money for a niche product that isn't useful outside of its very specific purpose. You could pay sixty or seventy dollars for a PSP and get a much more versatile machine. The Playdate's $179 price tag comes uncomfortably close to the cost of a Switch Lite, and I'm pretty sure that's going to be a viable format for a lot longer.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
This thing is definitely not meant to compete with any other systems, and anyone who buys one is likely to already have a Switch. What draws me to it is that it’s meant to be a trifle, something content to have a small library of bizarre games and then take its bow. It’s indeed very expensive for what it is, but it’s also very unique.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Someone in the tags referred to it as an "artisanal handheld," and yeah, that sounds pretty accurate. It's like the game system a troop of elves would painstakingly craft in the cover of night for a video game fan who's played everything and is losing faith in the hobby. It's great for someone who needs that fresh approach to gaming, but boy is it gonna cost you.

As for me, I'll just wait for the elves to leave one under my pillow, along with a new pair of shoes. I've heard they're really good at making shoes.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
I kind of figured out the controls in the surfing game and I like it more the more I play it. I thought I disliked it at first but it's actually pretty fun. It gets difficult fairly quickly, but trying to keep a run going is a pretty good time.

Thinking about it, I really like the season way to roll out games. I guarantee I'd not have gone back to the surfing game had I had a dozen other games to play, but with only the two right now, I play both more (and it turns out I now like both, rather than regarding the surfing game as a curio). I like the Playdate! That's a relief, considering the cost lol
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
I've been looking through the non-season games for sale and I think A Joke That's Worth $0.99 is the game I'll trot out when showing this thing to people:
You bounce a tiny man while he tells you a very long joke. It's pretty hard and makes you feel hilariously out of control but it has really responsive controls and consistent physics. It's also a great tech demo for the crank because if you calibrate it by docking and then pulling it out, the screen matches its location perfectly.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
New game day appears to be Monday, by the way, which was annoyingly a fact I couldn't find online anywhere, so fyi lol. I set mine up back on Thursday. Haven't played the two new games yet but I will later today.

I've also been looking at Bloom to sideload onto Playdate. I'm thinking I might wait until season 1 is over to do this - I'm liking getting new games every week. We'll see if I hold off that long though lol
 
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