conchobhar
What's Shenmue?
The Verge had an article on good games to sideload. My Playdate probably isn't going to arrive any time soon, but I'm already eyeing Sketch, Share, Solve (a picross clone).
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Playdate Has Me Feeling Cranky
- Thread starter Sprite
- Start date
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
I stopped playing because of those. You have to crank at speeds so high that it feels like you might damage your Playdate. I don’t know what they were thinking.
Also please remember that discussion of season games is spoiler territory, though I guess that one is an outlier since they revealed it alongside the system.
The second week is kind of a dud imo.
Also please remember that discussion of season games is spoiler territory, though I guess that one is an outlier since they revealed it alongside the system.
The second week is kind of a dud imo.
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
I gotta say, this thing is living up to my main expectation, which is a huge rush of anticipation wondering what the mystery games will be, especially now that I’m completely unspoiled on the rest of them. The custom wrapping paper when a game arrives is some Nintendo-level UI delight.
Week three behind the jump:
Week three behind the jump:
Pick Pack Pup - Best game so far, and the one I'm most likely to come back to on a regular basis. It's a unique take on the Match 3 genre, when you make a match it stays on the board until you clear it, but also blocks you from moving anything through it. You have to think really hard about how one match affects the next, and it's the first Match 3 game I've played where sometimes you want to avoid blocks falling into a chain, because you don't get extra points for doing that and it might screw up your board.
Lost Your Marbles - Ehhh. A bland visual novel paired with physics puzzles that do not play well with the tiny screen. It takes a long time to get your bearings in each stage and when you figure out what you have to do, you need to do it thrice. I find it pretty frustrating. I'll keep playing through to the end but I don't see myself coming back to this one.
Lost Your Marbles - Ehhh. A bland visual novel paired with physics puzzles that do not play well with the tiny screen. It takes a long time to get your bearings in each stage and when you figure out what you have to do, you need to do it thrice. I find it pretty frustrating. I'll keep playing through to the end but I don't see myself coming back to this one.
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
Week four:
So far the season is 50% hit/miss for me. Can't wait for Monday!
Echoic Memory - Worst game so far. It gives you a bait and switch of thinking it'll be a cool DJ music game, then dumps you in a factory where you hit a button to hear music then find another button that plays the same music, turning the crank to adjust distortion. I didn't play for very long though so maybe there's more to it?
Flipper Lifter - Freaking great, if barebones. It feels like a lost Game and Watch Gallery game where you move penguins up and down an elevator. Figuring out the optimal way to score seems tricky and fun, because penguins are very patient when waiting for elevators but lose their minds if you make them wait once they're on the elevator. Later levels add some wacky layers.
Flipper Lifter - Freaking great, if barebones. It feels like a lost Game and Watch Gallery game where you move penguins up and down an elevator. Figuring out the optimal way to score seems tricky and fun, because penguins are very patient when waiting for elevators but lose their minds if you make them wait once they're on the elevator. Later levels add some wacky layers.
I haven't had a lot of time with it as the Playdate is Karen's and I have a bunch of other devices I haven't had tge time to really explore (the Deck, the Pocket etc.) But I can confirm that she's been really digging Time Traveling Adventure and literally nothing else, but that one game has more than justified the purchase for her.
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
I’ve definitely not been giving it the love it deserves, mainly because I haven’t been playing games in general very much and it got overshadowed by my PS5. Mondays are still very exciting, though, and I’m sad that next week is the last week. If they do a Season Two I’ll be in.
The first couple weeks are duds for me (I actually kind of hate Time Travel Adventure), but every other week has had at least one game I enjoy. They’re all very slight, and I’m curious what the original, smaller line-up was. None of them are killer apps, imo, though a couple of them are really creative (the corrupted chess adventure and the cryptid hunting SRPG are particularly inspired). I probably would not have purchased many of them on their own.
They also tend to not use the crank much, which is fine with me as it’s pretty awkward unless the whole game is built around it. I’m curious how southpaws are with the thing. The games that are built around the crank usually either work fine in the upside down mode or else don’t require much precision, but I of course can’t speak to how big of a barrier there is accessibility-wise.
All in all, I think my expectation of it being a trifle is correct. It’s very expensive for what it is, and if what you’re looking for is a legitimate games platform you’ll probably end up disappointed. If you're the kind of person who lusts after weird tchotchkes like the Pokémon Mini and finds joy in handheld systems in and of themselves, it’s a delight. Every time I pick it up and hold it I get a little burst of happiness looking at the crisp screen, then I play it for fifteen minutes and put it away for days.
So… yeah! I’m glad I bought it, but anyone considering it should go in with open eyes. It’s an ~experience~ rather than a proper platform, but if that’s all you want, it delivers.
The first couple weeks are duds for me (I actually kind of hate Time Travel Adventure), but every other week has had at least one game I enjoy. They’re all very slight, and I’m curious what the original, smaller line-up was. None of them are killer apps, imo, though a couple of them are really creative (the corrupted chess adventure and the cryptid hunting SRPG are particularly inspired). I probably would not have purchased many of them on their own.
They also tend to not use the crank much, which is fine with me as it’s pretty awkward unless the whole game is built around it. I’m curious how southpaws are with the thing. The games that are built around the crank usually either work fine in the upside down mode or else don’t require much precision, but I of course can’t speak to how big of a barrier there is accessibility-wise.
All in all, I think my expectation of it being a trifle is correct. It’s very expensive for what it is, and if what you’re looking for is a legitimate games platform you’ll probably end up disappointed. If you're the kind of person who lusts after weird tchotchkes like the Pokémon Mini and finds joy in handheld systems in and of themselves, it’s a delight. Every time I pick it up and hold it I get a little burst of happiness looking at the crisp screen, then I play it for fifteen minutes and put it away for days.
So… yeah! I’m glad I bought it, but anyone considering it should go in with open eyes. It’s an ~experience~ rather than a proper platform, but if that’s all you want, it delivers.
conchobhar
What's Shenmue?
I'm still waiting on mine! I'm a little bummed by the time it arrives it seems like everyone will have moved on, but c'est la vie.
Has anyone tried out the variety of non-official games? I don't have mine yet, but there are already a bunch of "playdate" tagged games on itch for example: https://itch.io/games/tag-playdate. I'm sure most of these are trifles, but it seems like it could be neat to explore every now and then.
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
There’s a $29 indie bundle of 13 games on itch.io right now as a kind of homegrown “season.” I’m definitely considering it. Of note is a Picross clone, a Pyoro clone, a micro Koei-style sim, and “A Joke Worth $0.99,” aka the best PlayDate game. Though, uh, that one is already pretty cheap 
Also apparently the reason Season One doesn’t have a fishing game is because the idea is so blindingly obvious that everyone just assumed someone else would make it, which is hilarious.
Also apparently the reason Season One doesn’t have a fishing game is because the idea is so blindingly obvious that everyone just assumed someone else would make it, which is hilarious.
conchobhar
What's Shenmue?
My Playdate finally arrived last month!
It is quite a nice piece of hardware. It's smaller and lighter than I assumed, but it's the perfect size to slip into a pants pocket and carry with you. The buttons are nice and clicky, and the crank has just the right amount of resistance to it — enough to be satisfying to turn but not enough to become onerous. The screen is indeed very crisp and legible. Like Sprite said, it's just a delightful thing to hold and use.
I know this was the intent all along, but the form factor and always-on functionality perfectly lends itself to being a system you can whip out whenever you have a few spare minutes, and put it away with minimal loss. To my surprise, I actually bring this thing with me when I go out — first time in fifteen-ish years I've actually used a handheld this way. It's a niche product to be sure, but it's also a niche that hasn't been served in a long while. So I'm actually playing it quite a bit!
I've remained mercilessly unspoiled on the library, so every week is a surprise. Here's what I think of the games so far:
I haven't checked out any unofficial games yet; I think I'll leave that until the season is over (for me).
It is quite a nice piece of hardware. It's smaller and lighter than I assumed, but it's the perfect size to slip into a pants pocket and carry with you. The buttons are nice and clicky, and the crank has just the right amount of resistance to it — enough to be satisfying to turn but not enough to become onerous. The screen is indeed very crisp and legible. Like Sprite said, it's just a delightful thing to hold and use.
I know this was the intent all along, but the form factor and always-on functionality perfectly lends itself to being a system you can whip out whenever you have a few spare minutes, and put it away with minimal loss. To my surprise, I actually bring this thing with me when I go out — first time in fifteen-ish years I've actually used a handheld this way. It's a niche product to be sure, but it's also a niche that hasn't been served in a long while. So I'm actually playing it quite a bit!
I've remained mercilessly unspoiled on the library, so every week is a surprise. Here's what I think of the games so far:
Week 1
Casual Birder – Now this was a surprise. The Playdate always seemed like it would be house very simple games and weird experiments, but this is a full-blown adventure. Well, it's pretty barebones by regular standards, but this feels quite expansive for a Playdate game: it's got a world that's a dozen screens big, lots of dialogue, puzzles that aren't immediately apparent, and optional content, too. Took me a good two or three hours to finish this one and had a great time (the humour isn't really my style, though). Panic really put their best foot forward by leading with this.
Whitewater Wipeout — Gotta admit, this one threw me for a loop: between the unique control scheme, absolutely no instruction and the overall unforgiving nature of the game, I was absolutely baffled trying to work out how to play it. But I stuck with it and eventually got the hang of it, and now I think it is actually really good. The crank really adds a level of precision to navigating, and makes doing those tricks really fun! It also demonstrates of the value of the staggered-release model, in a way: I doubt I would have kept trying to work it out if I had several other games to move on to, but when it was one of two, I was willing to put the time into it. I've periodically gone back to it in the weeks since, and I'm still getting better at it. My high score is 31,000 — I don't know if that's particularly impressive or not, but I'm happy.
Week 2
Crankin's Time Travel Adventure — This is the game that essentially sold me on a Playdate to begin with (what can I say, I'm a big fan of Keita Takahashi), so I was quite pleased to get it so early in the season. It's really simple, mechanically: get Crankin from point A to point B by winding the crank, taking advantage of how going counterclockwise will reverse his animations to escape harm. So boil it down to its essentials and it's just a memorization game. But I had a blast. The design is simple enough, and the stages short enough, that it has a real "just one more level" pull — far too often I'd play a couple levels, put it down, then find myself reaching for the Playdate only a few minutes later. It gets surprisingly difficult at times — some of the later stages get really long, or have really really tight windows of execution — but I did finish it, and with hearts on all the stages, too. Great example of the uniqueness of the console, and the standout game to me (so far).
Boogie Loops — A music editor. I messed around with this for a bit, and it's cute, but I found the interface a little confusing and I'm not really the target audience anyway. Glad it exists, though.
Week 3
Lost Your Marbles — A cross between a visual novel and a marble game, which really just means that there's a framing story and a lot of dialogue surrounding the marble stages. The physics feel a bit weird but the game is pretty fun, and a lot trickier than it seems — getting those Star pods can be tough. It's also bigger than it seems: after I finished it, I immediately started over to see if I could do better, and in doing so stumbled into entirely different stages while skipping others. I wish there was some sort of indication on what lead to different paths/endings, because it'd be fun to play more but I'm not going to do blind replays where I try new combinations of success/fail on each level to find new ones. Still, enjoyable!
Pick Pack Pup — This reminds me a bit of Puzzle League/Panel de Pon, which is a mark in its favour since that's my favourite puzzle game of all time, but it's certainly no clone. It's unusual among block puzzlers in that it doesn't have chains… more about actually lining things up to get bigger matches, and matching as many different icons as you can on one board. A bit slower, perhaps a bit more thoughtful. Had a great time going through the story mode, and definitely expect to play it irregularly from here on.
Week 4
Flipper Lifter — Move an elevator up and down to take penguins to their desired floors. It's very well-suited to the system, both for the pick-up-and-play factor and how it uses the crank… but I found it awfully slow and cumbersome. Too much waiting around, elevator moves slow, the later boards have annoying gimmicks (those goddamn birds…). I don't anticipate coming back to this one, to be honest.
Echoic Memory — I haven't finished this one yet, mostly because being built around sound makes it harder to quietly pop into. But I don't think I like it. It's just matching sounds against a (very generous) time limit, with no particular twist beyond that. I suppose the story does hint at something dark going on, but that doesn't really hook me. First whiff for me.
Casual Birder – Now this was a surprise. The Playdate always seemed like it would be house very simple games and weird experiments, but this is a full-blown adventure. Well, it's pretty barebones by regular standards, but this feels quite expansive for a Playdate game: it's got a world that's a dozen screens big, lots of dialogue, puzzles that aren't immediately apparent, and optional content, too. Took me a good two or three hours to finish this one and had a great time (the humour isn't really my style, though). Panic really put their best foot forward by leading with this.
Whitewater Wipeout — Gotta admit, this one threw me for a loop: between the unique control scheme, absolutely no instruction and the overall unforgiving nature of the game, I was absolutely baffled trying to work out how to play it. But I stuck with it and eventually got the hang of it, and now I think it is actually really good. The crank really adds a level of precision to navigating, and makes doing those tricks really fun! It also demonstrates of the value of the staggered-release model, in a way: I doubt I would have kept trying to work it out if I had several other games to move on to, but when it was one of two, I was willing to put the time into it. I've periodically gone back to it in the weeks since, and I'm still getting better at it. My high score is 31,000 — I don't know if that's particularly impressive or not, but I'm happy.
Week 2
Crankin's Time Travel Adventure — This is the game that essentially sold me on a Playdate to begin with (what can I say, I'm a big fan of Keita Takahashi), so I was quite pleased to get it so early in the season. It's really simple, mechanically: get Crankin from point A to point B by winding the crank, taking advantage of how going counterclockwise will reverse his animations to escape harm. So boil it down to its essentials and it's just a memorization game. But I had a blast. The design is simple enough, and the stages short enough, that it has a real "just one more level" pull — far too often I'd play a couple levels, put it down, then find myself reaching for the Playdate only a few minutes later. It gets surprisingly difficult at times — some of the later stages get really long, or have really really tight windows of execution — but I did finish it, and with hearts on all the stages, too. Great example of the uniqueness of the console, and the standout game to me (so far).
Boogie Loops — A music editor. I messed around with this for a bit, and it's cute, but I found the interface a little confusing and I'm not really the target audience anyway. Glad it exists, though.
Week 3
Lost Your Marbles — A cross between a visual novel and a marble game, which really just means that there's a framing story and a lot of dialogue surrounding the marble stages. The physics feel a bit weird but the game is pretty fun, and a lot trickier than it seems — getting those Star pods can be tough. It's also bigger than it seems: after I finished it, I immediately started over to see if I could do better, and in doing so stumbled into entirely different stages while skipping others. I wish there was some sort of indication on what lead to different paths/endings, because it'd be fun to play more but I'm not going to do blind replays where I try new combinations of success/fail on each level to find new ones. Still, enjoyable!
Pick Pack Pup — This reminds me a bit of Puzzle League/Panel de Pon, which is a mark in its favour since that's my favourite puzzle game of all time, but it's certainly no clone. It's unusual among block puzzlers in that it doesn't have chains… more about actually lining things up to get bigger matches, and matching as many different icons as you can on one board. A bit slower, perhaps a bit more thoughtful. Had a great time going through the story mode, and definitely expect to play it irregularly from here on.
Week 4
Flipper Lifter — Move an elevator up and down to take penguins to their desired floors. It's very well-suited to the system, both for the pick-up-and-play factor and how it uses the crank… but I found it awfully slow and cumbersome. Too much waiting around, elevator moves slow, the later boards have annoying gimmicks (those goddamn birds…). I don't anticipate coming back to this one, to be honest.
Echoic Memory — I haven't finished this one yet, mostly because being built around sound makes it harder to quietly pop into. But I don't think I like it. It's just matching sounds against a (very generous) time limit, with no particular twist beyond that. I suppose the story does hint at something dark going on, but that doesn't really hook me. First whiff for me.
I haven't checked out any unofficial games yet; I think I'll leave that until the season is over (for me).
MrBlarney
(he / him)
I committed to the bit and let my preorder in the 40,000s fulfill and received my Playdate a few days ago. I don't think I can say anything new about it that hasn't been said before, given how long after its initial release it is finally hitting my hands. But the device is very satisfying to handle, and the initial two games are a good window into the potential of the system, in the face of its deliberate limitations. (I almost can't believe there are only two active face buttons and the menu button is just a system-level button.) I want to find an excuse to cart it around with me while I'm out and about, but my phone is right there in my pocket when I go out and I'm not much of a mobile gamer besides. I am somewhat tempted to purchase something to give the device more legs, but let's not get ahead of ourselves: there's still many more weeks of games in Season One for me to build a library and my opinions around.