First announced in 2019, Panic’s Playdate is a different kind of gaming device than what we’ve seen for quite some time. It has a built-in 400x240 one-bit display, a dangerously powerful 180 MHz processor, and a whole four gigabytes of storage. Even so, it has me more excited than any gaming hardware in recent memory, including the most recent generation of consoles.
The Playdate is equal parts retro throwback and weird art project. Its face buttons are the standard directional pad, B and A buttons, but it also features accelerometers and a crank, which flips out and can be used as a control method for some titles. Its screen is reflective, though it doesn’t have a backlight. It is very much intended for a certain audience, and at $179 USD, it is firmly positioned as a premium product.
One of the most unique aspects of the system is how you acquire games. Panic has said that the Playdate will operate on a season schedule; the first season consists of 24 titles. Every week for 12 weeks, players will receive two new games to play, which are downloaded directly to the system.
Some of the biggest names in indie gaming are creating games for the Playdate, including Keita Takahashi (Katamari Damacy), Nels Anderson (Firewatch), and Bennett Foddy (Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy). It’s also been announced that Xalavier Nelson, Jr. (An Airport For Aliens Currently Run By Dogs) and Lucas Pope (Return of the Obra Dinn) are working on games for future seasons.
This may all seem cool, strange, or some mixture of the two, depending on your affinity for handheld gaming. I have really fond memories of growing up with the Game Boy and its successors, in the backseat for long car trips or on vacations away from home. Despite the convenience and utility, I never really bought in to mobile phone games, and considering how de-emphasized handhelds have become in recent years (the Nintendo Switch aside, if you consider it as such), there’s certainly a place in the market for the Playdate.
Divorced from my nostalgia, Panic is doing three things with the Playdate that I find very interesting.
Showcasing Short Games
It’s hard not to argue that gaming has evolved away from smaller, more focused experiences. The average title is now packed with dozens of hours of content, and even single-player games have come to feature live service elements, encouraging the highest possible engagement and retention.
Despite that, there is still a place for shorter games - one of my favourite games last year, Wide Ocean, Big Jacket, was only 90 minutes long - and it’s nice to see support for games that aren’t meant to be all-encompassing.
A game doesn’t need to be some massive behemoth. A game can just be a fun thing that you play for an hour or two.
Creating Surprise Through Distribution
Another facet of the modern games industry that’s difficult to see as anything but a negative is the protracted hype cycle. Many games are announced years in advance, which creates awareness but leads to unrealistic expectations. While Panic has announced the games that players will receive during the Playdate’s first season, the order of release hasn’t been revealed, and it doesn’t seem like it will be.
The handheld’s ethos is making people excited about “mystery surprise games”, which is not only a refreshing stance to take, but has proven to be quite an effective marketing strategy - Apex Legends released with no prior announcement and has become one of the biggest and most successful titles of the last few years.
While there will be some games players don’t like as much as others - a fact that Panic has been upfront about in their marketing materials - this only reinforces that the Playdate will be home to an extremely varied suite of software.
Access to Development Tools
The Playdate may end up well-supported by Panic, with seasons and seasons of games released, but they are also fostering community engagement by making the system’s software development kit free to download.
The Playdate SDK supports both Lua and C. Alternatively, there is a no-code development program, Pulp, which allows people to make games through the use of a graphical interface.
As befitting the system’s aforementioned art project aesthetic, user-created titles can be shared with others and side-loaded onto the system. Depending on the support of the community, there could ultimately be hundreds or thousands of games available for the Playdate. As someone with no game design background, I’m very eager to see what the development kit is like so I can start making my own weird games.
There are still some questions surrounding the Playdate, like what exactly the rollout of games will be like for people who receive their handhelds at different times, and the price point for future seasons of games. However, with over 20,000 units sold in the first twenty minutes of pre-orders, many are already on board with Panic’s vision of gaming.
Are you getting a Playdate? Let me know! You can always find me on Twitch.