Playdate

I think the makers of the Playdate have always been pretty clear about what the console is about. [...] Which means there are some odd and interesting games on Playdate that probably wouldn't have existed otherwise. That's why I got one anyhow. ...Also it was $170 and came with 20 games when I got it (granted, the price has gone up since). [...] I get that could be a good amount of money to some people, but compared to other video games, I don't think it is.

I reversed Super Hexagon these last few weeks and ported it to the Playdate (the yellow console from Panic with a crank): The multiplier comes from being able to design arbitrary fast feedback loops - Claude wrote Python scripts to do decompilation matching for itself, and then use Frida traces from the original as a verification harness.

Very long-time lurker here; I made an account specifically to say what I am about to say: I am so sick of gameboy-style devices only ever having two buttons without a start, select or literally anything else. Playdate did the same thing and it makes games really super infuriating because nobody wants to perform a hadouken just to open a gosh-darn pause menu. I'm exaggerating of course but good lord please just give me a dedicated pause button.

Playdate (the came console) is amazing for this! I was really bored once and built a Claude Code remote control for Playdate. [...] \ - hold A to speak - move the crank slowly to navigate - crank super fast to send the prompt Eventually this became a universal remote control for the computers in my home (YAML file with bindings from Playdate UI → A11y events). [...]

[...] The Playdate has bespoke games designed for it, and many people say it's worth the price. [...] I use it to have fun, and (for me at least) a huge part of that is UI and ease-of-use.

I had some good fun writing non-gaming apps for the playdate console including a browser [1] and Kagi news mirror [2] and feel the device has great potential as an alternative to android/iOS duopoly [1]: [2]:

[...] I once put the Janet programming language on the Playdate game console as POC. [...]

My Playdate survival game, Plight of the Wizard[0], which uses the crank for aiming spells. I've had a ton of fun doing performance improvements, and now I'm implementing an upgrade system. [0]:

I have a lot of respect and admiration for Panic, they make good quality software, made the Playdate (which hopefully has turned a profit, “spiritually” it seems like a huge win), and publish really cool games. It would make me happy to see more software companies follow that lead I am working on a game myself, maybe I should reach out to see if it’s something Panic might be interested in publishing…

They got a bunch of well known developers to build a collection of games, and deliver them to Playdate devices via wifi at a pace of 2 games per week (unless you choose to skip ahead). [...]

I just got The Moon Is Our Friend and I think it's a perfect Playdate game, at least for the kind of games I like to play on it (I don't care much for the more RPG/story-driven stuff). [...] I love the form factor of the device and I'm fine with a black and white concept, but the combination of screen size and the lack of a backlight does take some enjoyment out of it all that Mirror gave back.

Having made multiple (dare I say) fairly successful games on the Playdate, I can attest to how fantastic the developer experience has been and how easy it was for my non dev collaborators to get going. Pulp was a great in road for them to get started with game dev, and it's been a blast (despite how limiting Pulpscript is for a professional dev)

I've been enjoying seeing how far people have been pushing the Playdate's hardware.

I got a tariff refund for my Playdate and that was a lovely surprise

[...] I GOT MY PLAYDATE! [...]

I really wanted to like the Playdate but it's such an unbelievably overpriced and underspecced toy. But the crank, which really looked like a gimmick, is oddly quite nice to have and I wish my kids' Retro Arcade had one.

The challenge with Playdate games is that it's a relatively niche market; the number of consoles sold is... [...] TL;DR: by all means make games for the Playdate but not if you want to make it your livelihood. [...]

The Playdate is... [...] the gameboy or DS, so it's not particularly ergonomic. [...] It does not feel like good value for money. [...] I do hope they build a follow-up some day though - make it twice as big (at least), add a backlight, make turning it off more obvious, and give more clarity about the availability and cost of games.

My playdate has been collecting dust since I got it and the initial few games I tried didn't stick. Any suggestions on good games for it?

[...] There's also the Playdate console. [...] The console isn't cheap though, and it's easy to break (I dropped it on accident from about 2 feet up and its liquid crystal display cracked and leaked and had to be replaced, at almost the full cost of the console again), so they'd have to be careful with it. [...]

One more thing, I tried to get a tiled "dungeon" floor for a PlayDate program proof of concept and I was not prepared for true 1 bit graphics. I'll further modify the (nice) sprite sheets I bought, but my first attempt at doing it was so dark - Oil Slick, the game, accidentally, natch

WM psychosis time: My current "WM workflow"/window management keyboard shortcuts is: neovim → tmux → Ghostty → Rectangle → OS so moving to the left window/pane is (depending on the "nesting level"): ctrl+h, ctrl+a + {number}, cmd + [, option-ctrl-left, ?? [...] Unfortunately, at this stage, my overthinking/poor ux induced psychosis reached the point where I control Claude using voice and a Playdate console with a crank and I'm day dreaming about just looking at the pane I need and making a click sound with my mouth to select it (like Neddy in Adventure time).