Playdate

[DANGERMAN]

I finally got my Playdate last week and have played it enough to form an opinion on it. Initially I was a little disappointed with it. It was late, I had issues with customer service, my unit is kind of scuffed, enough issues that I wasn't feeling any excitement about playing it 

 

As I'm spending more time with it I'm liking it more. It crashes less now, at first it was every time you unlocked the screen, since it crashed so badly that I had to do the setup again its worked flawlessly. The battery is great and it charges really quickly, however its not the most comfortable handheld I've ever used. Certain games require the dpad and the crank to play, it's doable but it's way too small for my hands 

 

The games are released 2 a week, I think there's 24 in total. Of the 4 games I have so far from the season pass, one is just a simple music maker, and one I've not really spent time with. Crankin's Time Travel Adventure is fun, it's about winding time to avoid obstacles to your date. And Whitewater Wipeout I'm just not very good at, but it's the surfing game from California Games. 

 

There's a bunch of games on itch.io you can download, some for free, some not. Of them Loopsy is a really good puzzle game, One Bit Arena is probably my favourite so far (it's a bit like Smash TV), and Super Corporate Tax Evader made me laugh 

 

 

 

[Maryokutai]

Probably should have used this topic instead but oh well.

 

In addition to my question about the D-Pad, have you ever tried out their development software? I was looking through their homepage a bit yesterday and that really caught my eye, seems to have an RPG Maker simplicity to it that would allow complete laymen to make something. 

[DANGERMAN]

No, but I did plan on it at one point 

 

Fittingly, I wanted to make a shmup where you could crank one way to absorb bullets, then spin the other way to release them back out as a super. Basically a risk/reward shield /bomb 

[Maryokutai]

Still sounds really cool, but I just checked and saw that they don't ship to my country, so I suppose that settles my indecisiveness for the moment. 

[DANGERMAN]

Ages ago I did a video of some Playdate games, some side loaded in, some just part of the sub 

 

 

 

[DANGERMAN]

I've been playing Gun Trails, the impressive looking shmup. I've been holding off posting about it because I've not got very far, it's really, really difficult 

 

The problem is, I'm not sure why it's difficult. I kind of suspect, if I were to emulate this, play it with, say, a PS5 controller on my monitor, that I'd do a lot better. That says to me the issue is the Playdate, it's too small and the dpad not suited. You kind of skate across the screen when you move, maybe that's down to the game and not the controls, either way it makes dodging bullets difficult. 

 

It may also be that the game is so difficult by design, I've no idea how long it is, or if it even has levels, so it might be a case that the difficulty is ramped up to avoid you tearing through it 

 

In terms of the game itself, it does look amazing tbf, and runs well so far. You have a shoot button that's just a straight line shot, no spread options or anything like that. You have a beam super attack that's charged by collecting gems enemies drop, hold it down and it depletes as it fires, decreasing your movement in the process. This is removed as an option when you face a boss for some reason. 

 

Take a hit (5 hits no continues) and a shield forms around you. This lasts quite a while and can be used to destroy enemies, and also boosts your score if you do so. Again, maybe it's hard by design to be about score rather than progress 

 

It's not bad, feels like it is a good pick up and play game, but the Playdate needing direct light is especially important to see here, so makes it less easy to do 

[Maryokutai]

Sounds cool all things, and some hardware shortcomings, considered. I watched a video a few days ago and it does look really nice in motion but also super difficult. I had barely adjusted to what I was seeing (pixelated B&W does take some time get used to again) and the guy who was playing was already dead by that point.

 

Definitely one game I will pick up whenever I have a playdate though.

[spatular]

Playdate arrived last week, only played the first 2 games so far, the surfing one i like but its really hard/random, it makes good use of the crank, its pretty fun, very small. The birder one is like a small rpg/adventure thing, with some obscure puzzles so i used a guide to finish it but didnt win the competition, theres some funny stuff in there but the mechanics arent great imo, i dont know, it was ok.

 

just got the week 2 games too, one seems to be a music making thing, not tried the other yet.

[spatular]

Played some more of the other games, that crankins adventure one where you crank to move forward and back through time (sort of) to avoid stuff, its nicely animated and at first seems like a fun idea but im only on level 16 or so and already a bit fed up with it, not really finding it that fun, apparently there are 50 levels, think ill give up on it tbh.

 

also tried one of the free ones on the store, reel steal, you control a fishing line down through a stage to hook an item to steal at the bottom and get it out, its a nice idea and quite fun but it gives you a medal for getting points/speed, but you cant retry (unless im missing something) you have to finish all (5?) levels then retry them all, or pick a different character which i think adds slight changes to the stages to make them harder? This seems like a missed opportunity, retrying to get the medals as you get better at the levels seems like it would be fun.

[Maryokutai]

Did you guys give Hyper Meteor a shot? I'm cheating a bit because I've been playing the Switch port these last few days but I think it's pretty great.

 

The concept is relatively simple, you control an arrow and have to ram into enemies to destroy them. Enemies are dual-coloured, the white areas are the weak spot, the black areas damage you and make you lose a life. It's one of those genius ideas born from the limitations of the hardware it's been primarily developed for. The arrow/ship has a bit of forward momentum when you stop accelerating, which took a bit of time to get used to, but other than that this is a great pick up and have fun kind of game. Apparently on Playdate you accelerate with a button or the D-Pad and control with the crank, which sounds a bit weird but I can see it work rather well.

 

It's part of that free Season 1 thing, so I think on Playdate you can just download it whenever? Would definitely recommend, like Vertex Pop's other games it perfectly fills that void left behind when Geometry Wars disappeared or when Housemarque stopped doing small games.

[Maryokutai]

So after two years of waiting I had enough and ordered this about ten days ago. Had to go through a bunch of hoops and subscribe to a specific import service from our postal service, so that the device could be sent over to Germany and then shipped to Luxembourg. A bit more expensive and I'm probably looking at a certain delay for delivery as well.

 

Today I receive a newsletter from Panic that they now ship to every EU country.

 

 

Edit: if anyone else is interested in this, they also mention that they have stock now, so no more waiting times either.

[DANGERMAN]

Ha ha, I saw that it's now in stock as standard. I've not used mine much recently. Honestly, mostly because of the lack of a backlight 

[Maryokutai]

I wonder how I'll feel about the backlight. But turns out I'm going to have to wait a while for this to arrive, as something about the address I got it delivered to didn't work out, so my Playdate is on its way back to the US now. This thing will have the carbon footprint of Taylor Swift when it eventually arrives, Jesus Christ.

 

There was a little update with upcoming games the other day btw.:

 

 

 

I think the 2D brawler looks really nice. They also show some space exploration game towards the end with seems to push beyond what the system was ever intended to do.