Lucas Pope's section of the update video [0] has me incredibly excited. He's one of my favorite game developers, and seeing him work more with 1-bit 3D games after Obra Dinn has piqued my interest. Also, a blog on dithering I came across after playing Obra Dinn was one of the more interesting tech blogs I've read [1]. Also see Lucas Pope's post on how he did dithering in-game [2].
On the one hand, it's amazing, it's ~$220 for games.
On the other hand, is this games?
It's so tough out there. Lucas Pope obviously works really hard. Just imagine you're an otherwise successful indie game developer, you put out two amazing games, and it still isn't viable to make a third, in 2021.
That doesn't happen with movies. You make two budget positive or critically acclaimed movies, you get to make a third. You don't have to go and make something else.
I am always impressed with the design of Teenage Engineering’s products but they have an air “pure consumerism”. I think this is that taken to its extreme. A toy that has a crank, retro screen, design-driven accessories, and the games are there but not promoted.
Compare that to the gameboy which put its games front and center with the selling point of being handheld. Admittedly, I would get the Playdate to put on my desk and admire as plastic art, but no more room.
At some point, the medium does become important. Every computer no matter how small can do everything now, and limiting games to a specific platform is for the most part arbitrary at this point.
So if you add limitations, or extra buttons! you end up with the rare occurrence of something new! A crank is actually a really cool addition just in terms of experimenting with gameplay.
My initial gut reaction to this product is that I must have it, but I know myself well enough that this would also just sit on a shelf somewhere looking cool but I would never touch it. The games look nice but I'm not a huge fan of it being black and white (just my personal taste). Plus I want to know that there will be a strong community making games, one that won't fizzle out too quick. it's great that Panic is releasing games for them but how long will that last? If they released a color version that ran Pico-8 there would be no question, I'd pre-order it immediately.
That being said, watching the video[1] on the site is making this look really enticing.
> Teenage Engineering’s products but they have an air “pure consumerism”.
I got bad news for you buddy, video games don't have a functional purpose any greater than beautiful design. You're sort of barking up the wrong tree if you wanna take a dump on something. But I think this was said in good faith, and you should just consider that Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operators have a totally different, literally unpolished aesthetic and also sell very well.
I think you're having this reaction because of the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia. [Nintendo's marketing for the Game Boy focused on the form and function of the device as much as its games](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-ej_8XBwmI). Believe it or not at some point the Game Boy's looks were considered fashionable!
It's not clear what you're saying here. What is "pure consumerism"? Are you suggesting that aesthetics is bad? It's a stylish object. People enjoy stylish objects.
> the games are there but not promoted.
that's probably because the developers are still working on the games and aren't ready to fully show them off yet.
Well, it sounds like to me, that TE just did the hardware design, and PANIC is really the one making the decisions for the software/games side.
That being said, Teenage Engineering is one of those brands that has massively disappointed me over time. When the OP-1 came out it was a truly innovative, beautiful, and robust synthesizer... Despite that, everything they make now just seems over-hyped, over-priced, and homogeneous.
I mean their most recent "innovations" are, no-joke: a $600 portable AM/FM + BT radio, whose only real feature is a massive buffer so you can rewind or fast forward in real-time, and a robot that dances to music.
They're great at predictable, minimal design, there is no doubt there, but that's about it.
I don't get why everyone here is comparing this to gameboy emulators.
There's a million ways to emulate gameboy at this point. There are emulators that run on pretty much every single platform. You can get a $40 handheld on Amazon that can do it.
To me the selling point of this system is that you can play _new_ games that are in a cool retro 1-bit art style.
If you want to write a 1 bit retro game at this point, hardware is not what's holding you back. There are thousands of hobbyist 6502 kits you can buy, not to mention retro computers that people keep in like-new condition and put on eBay. (There are lots of people still writing new C64 and Apple II games.) Or you could use an Arduino and LCD. Or, you can just only use one color in a <canvas> tag.
I think what people want is a platform where a captive audience has to play your game, because there aren't any good games for the platform. If you target modern computers, you're competing with games like League of Legends or Overwatch, which have large teams behind them. If you target this shitbox, your competition is some game where you spin a crank so you aren't late to an e-date. Your chance of "winning" is high.
It remains to be seen whether some exclusive game is so good that it sells the console. I only buy Nintendo products so I can play their exclusive games. I would much prefer to run them on my PC, but they demand an extra $500 tax. Good business model! Maybe it can be yours too.
Serious question. Yeah it looks cool but in a joke sense. It doesn't really look like it is going to do anything well. The accessories look even more like a joke. Obviously im not the target customer, but im trying to figure out who is?
The idea is that it is a non-smartphone device intended to occupy someone and delight someone in small doses. It also intended to drive a community of creativity with it being an open dev platform.
It's just meant to be something fun you can pull out and play for a little while. Just like Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operators were designed to be. I think we might have passed the point of realizing how wonderful it is to make something fun and whimsical with minimal profit ambitions.
Another bit is that the people who built it are legendary software developers who created Audion in the early 2000s (who then turned down an acquisition from Apple to become iTunes so Apple had to buy their worse competitor), Transmit (FTP), Coda, Nova, Prompt, and who published Firewatch and Untitled Goose Game. The idea is that it's a gimmick done hardcore and right.
Seems like a huge amount of interest. Personally I love the idea of whimsical creative ideas come to life.
It's art. It's for people who appreciate video games as art.
Or maybe it's just a goofy little toy for grownups who remember growing up with a Gameboy by their side, and want a whimsical grown-up version that they can keep in their pocket. With a fidget spinner on the side that also acts as an input for some games.
1) Myself, I grew up on a game boy color and I have a nostalgia for playing games where the developers were so bound by compute resources on the device they were developing for. It allowed smaller teams to be very competitive in game design but also enabled a different sort of creativity than what is commonly seen today in game design where resources are virtually unlimited. I've also been wanting to toy with game development for a while now. This seems like a neat and quirky way to jump in.
2) My kid, I think we've gotten far too good at making video games addictive for kids. I want my child to have video games the way I did, with simple graphics, stories and gameplay that come to an end, unlike games like fortnite that you can keep playing for eternity. Added benefit if he gets to experience trying to play games without a backlight using the streetlights to see as you drive down the road.
People who like retro-style indie games, people looking for something new aside from PC/console games, people who want to make games for a handheld, people looking for novelty. People trying to find joy. It's easy to figure out who this is for.
It's for people not really interested in games to buy and then proclaim breathlessly on social media that it's just so amazing and lifechanging, before it goes permanently to a shelf visible in all their Zoom calls to never be played with again.
I've gone through the page a bunch of times now, read through the hn comments here and the arstechnica article linked in the top comment. But I'm still having a hard time appreciating this as art or even something non-gimicky and even slightly scammy.
For $179 + shipping you're buying a small underpowered device with a black and white screen, a handcrank analog controller and 24 games. For an extra $29 you can buy a snazzy case and coming soon a stereo mount that's going to be impractical to use while playing so I'm guessing will be for playing music.
The system's closed and going to be reliant on either their SDK or soon to be coming editor. From the sounds of it, there will be ongoing subscription payments for new games.
They're releasing the system without the SDK or editor. On their developer page they have a bunch of vague 'coming soon' promises with no actual timelines or anything. They have no actual plans for any kind of centralized distribution for games.
Overall, it seems like there's a lot of work or even planning that should have been done before starting pre-orders. At this point you're purchasing less than half the advertised features with no real plans as to when they'll be forthcoming.
Just because a well known name is behind a project doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a good product or a great idea. Plenty of great people have made lackluster things. Especially in the video game world. A lot of this seems to be more hype because of the people behind the project than the project itself.
This is highly offensive to me. Making hardware is hard, everyone here should know that. Here we have a company, with a great reputation, taking a big risk to offer us something different, and people's first reaction is to assume bad intentions?
> Just because a well known name is behind a project doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a good product or a great idea
Therefore it's a scam? That is quite some logic there.
> For $179 + shipping you're buying a small underpowered device with a black and white screen
They never positioned it as a competitor to a modern portable like the Nintendo Switch so who cares? Do any of those games on the home page look like they need a modern chip?
> They have no actual plans for any kind of centralized distribution for games.
What are you basing that off of? Because they didn't detail the specifics of how the games are going to be distributed?
> Just because a well known name is behind a project doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a good product or a great idea.
Indeed, which is why you can wait to buy it until it's out and has been reviewed by others.
>Plenty of great people have made lackluster things
What's something lackluster that Panic has made? They certainly have had misses, but it wasn't because of the quality of the product or attention to detail. They've got a better track record than just about any dev shop.
Here's the original pitch, to give you a sense of what their motives were for making it:
It sounds like your biggest complaint is that there's no clear roadmap for the SDK/devkit that people could use to get into game development, and no clear plans for an app store or some other way for devs to then publish their games. This makes you wonder how they're going to build up their game dev ecosystem.
What I gather from the website is that they're coming at it differently: inviting a hand-picked group of game devs (both experienced and new) and heavily curating their products into weekly releases. Rather than showing players a giant app store that is mostly filled with crap, you get 2-6 high quality games per month that silently show up on your system.
It's a different approach for sure, and to me it's well worth the price to see if they can pull it off.
It's a bundle of 24 high quality games, by talented, diverse and motivated game developers for ~$8 each. And it comes with a free console. Art is worth paying for.
I appreciate the ~decent <noscript/> textContent. Telling exactly what purpose(s) JavaScript serves helps make an informed decision on whether to open a graphical web browser or continue with w3m. (In this case, it was obvious I could read on about Playdate just fine.)
I've grown sick of create-react-app default <noscript/> textContent.
> Hello! Javascript is required for purchasing, signing up for the newsletter, viewing videos, and other content on this page. Please enable Javascript.
The design and esthetics of this thing are on point. However, I agree with other comments that the games don't really speak to me, and I've found myself more interested in the pictures of the actual devices than any of the games. Regardless I hope this succeeds. Electronics need more original industrial design!
I feel the opposite -this speaks to me more than any other device I’ve seen, but I was obsessed with calculator games in high school, spending many hours on ticalc.org and IRC.
180 dollars (plus shipping) is more than it'd cost for a modified gameboy plus a flashcart, and is near the price of an Analogue. The Analogue can play any gameboy (and advance) game every made, and is also a musical instrument.
Despite having little interest in buying one myself, a suite of specially-developed surprise games seems like an interesting idea kinda like the Humble Indie Bundles... plus the upcoming web-based SDK to make your own!
Also cool to see the fantastic poolside.fm in a screenshot although the pen-holder dock feels a little kitsch. It's promising, however, that the design partners are Teenage Engineering - known for their Pocket Operators and the truly amazing OP-1 all in one synth[0] for which I strongly vouch.
If you want to comment about how it's too expensive or doesn't play 30 year old gameboy games, don't bother? This is a new device that delivers new experiences and will likely sell out of its first shipment very quickly.
You're missing the point a bit. The focus for this device is on the community: a set of easy to use dev tools, extremely limited input and output in order to keep games focused, a distribution method, and a community built around that all with the same hard- and software, focusing on game dev and each week's new release. I'm pretty excited for it. Yeah it'll be a novelty that will wear off in a few months or maybe a couple years if they're lucky. That's exactly what I'm signing up for.
You want the Analog Pocket: https://www.analogue.co/pocket, but its preorders instantly sold out, and its first shipment has been delayed until end of year.
Or one of the cheaper Chinese devices like the Retroid Pocket or RG531p
Yeah. They do have an SDK coming out soon looks like so I would be shocked if someone DIDN'T put a GB emulator on the thing.
There is also lots and lots of cheap emulator devices these days with more buttons and color screens like the Retroid Pocket 2 and Anbernic RG350 that also cost a fraction of the price.
The included games seem really creative and interesting, but you're right that it'll be a fun novelty for most people, then get less interesting after a few hours or so.
I think the people who will get a lot out of it are people who get involved in the homebrew community - I spent hundreds of hours on ZZT as a kid, despite the limited ascii graphics. It's not trivial to make your own gameboy game then load it onto an actual gameboy. It seems like they've put a lot of effort into the SDK, game maker, and ease of sideloading new games.
The ‘subscription’ model fit games could create an interest in competitive community if there were a local/regional/global scoreboard for each new game as they are released.
Important to keep it whimsical though. The competitive gaming scene is… intense.
Oh nice, Lua support! Should make porting one of my games (that I already mostly ported to Pico-8) to this little guy. Maybe I'll finally finish the Pico-8 port while I'm at it.
This is the original Flash version from back in the day. I'm also working on a 3D sequel with Twitch support in my limited spare time: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/183428
I don't know why, but I have a good feeling that this device will be fairly successful. Maybe it's just good marketing on their part.
I don't really have a good idea of how to make good use of the crank, except maybe add something that allows you to go back and forward in time (at least undo support). Maybe I'll even alter the mechanics to take advantage of it, like that 5D chess game.
My pocket operators disagree - Love them to death, but I just know I'll break them some time soon (and I know I can get a case, but the device itself is NOT build that strongly).
They seem very efficient at marketing; the product seems very recognisable, polarising and there have been many previous discussions [1] here already.
That being said, there's something that I don't like in this kind of marketing. To me it looks very unsubstantial and repetitive.
I guess one factor here is the price; for $179 it seems a luxury item and perhaps it's easier to believe that its flaws and unknowns are quirks or features; and that they're not worth mentioning.
> This "stereo dock" doesn't have a price yet, but it will ship with a preinstalled online radio option, dubbed Poolsuite FM, that Panic says will include "expertly curated Soundcloud playlists that will transport you to a magical, sun-kissed musical zone between the past and the present."
It is. Poolside renamed itself to Poolsuite sometime in the past few weeks. They said something about a trademark infringement claim. (Whether that's real or just part of their cultivated image/backstory, I don't know.)
In their video earlier they said they plan to ensure everyone who wants one can get one. Later orders might take a while but they’re not going to stop taking orders like Analogue does.
I got one of those. Unfortunately the controls felt bad and the novelty of my Pico-8 game on there wore out quickly because of the junk feel of the buttons. This I can see being in to for longer.
The crank reminds me of one of a handheld electronic fishing game I used to have as a kid. I didn't see a fishing game listed but that would be pretty fun.
This things been a long time coming. I think the first announced timeline was shipping in early 2020 at $150, and taking orders in 2019. I guess covid messed some of their timeline up, but I'm still excited about it.
I'll definitely be getting one, I think a big aspect of what makes it different is the programmability aspect. They're trying to make developing games for it super accessible, and I think it'll be a lot of fun for programmers who don't have the time to make full-on traditional games, or don't want to make decisions about the framework, language, etc. The constraints are what makes it fun. If the SDK is good, it'll be huge.
I think they are starting on the right foot. Ouya seemed to sell the idea that it might compare with hardcore consoles where it was nothing close. This seems to sell an idea where the hardware and games are one and sell itself as something silly and whimsical.
I wish them the best. Games is a cutthroat industry, and game consoles are absolutely unforgiving... The number of failure-points that can bring down the entire project (hardware disruption, lack of developer interest in building for an unproven closed system, lack of consumer interest in buying an unproven closed system) is high. Massive chicken-egg problems in closing the loop on a long-term successful console bet.
Just makes me think of when Gruber said "The story is about Playdate, the most amazing and exciting product announcement, for me, since the original iPhone." I can't help but roll my eyes at this thing.
I am very much a fan of Apple products and enjoy a lot of the commentary from these apple pundits but it does feel a lot like this in-club that once you are a part of it anything you do will be praised by that group.
I feel strongly that that is the case here. From anyone outside of the bubble I feel like ultimately it’s a quirky toy for rich techies that will probably be used a couple times before the novelty wears off and you go back to playing games on almost anything else.
As for the battery life, I would have expected this to run for days, literally, but they say only 8h active. It can only power its real-time clock for 14 days. What did they do wrong? Does it scans for networks every 5 minutes?
Besides that, could be a good 5-15 minutes killer while avoiding the smartphone vortex
The dock really makes me feel like Teenage Engineering has really gone a little deep into Panic on this. Playdate already has an overpriced accessory before anyone even has a Playdate? It's also not sounding like a very interesting one.
The (exquisite, I must add) landing page is broken on iOS - the webGL model of the hardware eats all the scroll gestures, so I couldn’t scroll down the page until one of the header links took me to the bottom, where I could scroll back up.
Taking a moment to appreciate the landing page. I had no idea about this device before, but at the end of the landing page, I know what it is, who it is made for, the idea behind it, the cost, accessories, when they start shipping, etc. They even did it with nice aesthetics and a quirky look.
I'm a huge teenage engineering fanboy but whatever you do, don't break their stuff, once it's broken, it's broken. Curious if the same is true for playdate, if it's like the rest of the TE gear, If you mess up the crank, expect to buy a whole new unit.
Does this thing have long-term legs or will it wind up sitting on shelves in six months? And what about developers - if the current plan is to give away the games, what financial incentive is there to develop for it, except as a resume piece?
I wonder how well this will fare after initial novelty wears off. And will it sell nearly enough units for there to be games for it in future... I do remember products like OUYA and how well they did...
I think comparisons to the ouya are pretty on the nose. Before the ouya came out gaming hipsters were all hyped about it. then it came out and it was a flop.
I don't think this will be a "flop" because they are pricing it so high and this isn't panic's main business but I do think it will be quickly forgotten about.
their original dev signup applications described the SDK as supporting C and Lua. Pulp appears to be targetting the non-programmer gamedev scene, like Bitsy and GB Studio do currently. It looks a lot like Bitsy. They seem pretty separate.
> The SDK will be available on macOS, Windows, and Linux. There are two ways to write games: using Lua, for ease of development; or using C, for games that need extra performance. You can also use both languages in the same project. Typical SDK abilities are included: graphics, sound, inputs, text, collisions, etc. We continue to add features every day!
That would be interesting. Can someone who took a Physics class calculate how much energy you could get by cranking (and maybe how many cranks you'd need) to charge this bad boy up?
Speaking of charging, does anyone know if usb-c charging is properly implemented? I've bought a number of new devices with usb-c and am disappointed they require the old usb-a to usb-c cable to charge. Has anyone tested with a Macbook charger, or a "smart" usb-c to usb-c cable?
Playdate seems to me like a masterclass in marketing. The device is nothing extraordinary (imo), but it's presented and marketed in a way that makes it interesting.
I think the hardware is notably whimsical (crank, very nice 1-bit display combined with ‘fast’ processor). I agree that there’s a lot hanging on marketing/hype, but part of it is just how people like Panic overall.
> but it's presented and marketed in a way that makes it interesting.
And I’m not even sure about that. At least the info on the link seems very scarce and the featured video was mostly a bunch of people talking and very little gameplay. I guess I’m not the target audience as this didn’t seem exciting to me at all. Couldn’t finish watching the video.
It's having exclusive games made for it by some pretty famous game developers. It has a unique input device. It looks and behaves like a modern gameboy. It will openly let you tinker and dev with it yourself. It's like a dream gameboy.
This is it: the peak Hacker News comment. A gizmo with a handcrank and a black and white screen is nothing out of the ordinary in 2021. I bet you could even make it yourself in a weekend if you just use a Raspberry Pi and an e-ink screen!
The styling of this thing is beautiful. That said, is it too much to ask that they come up with their own original name for a device that is patently a solo experience instead of hijacking a term for humans interacting with each other in physical space?
Humor me, why would this be interesting in any way shape or form? I can see this only being interested to people with fetishes for old LCD-based semi-disposable toys.
It looks amazing, but... why? I can't see myself spending more than 10 bucks on something like this. There are plenty of "vintage styled" games on Steam, getting a Raspberry Pi and putting it into a nice cover would be probably cheaper.
First, it's coming from Panic. They have enough fans that they can probably sell out the first run just on their reputation.
Secondly, the industrial design looks great or at least novel. For $180 you get a neat looking toy and are supporting the development of new stuff. $180 feels like a sustainable price.
It is a lot of money, but for many people on HN $180 is an easy impulse buy.
hoppyhoppy2|4 years ago
as well as an article from a couple years ago about the device: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/05/why-the-quirky-playda...
nsilvestri|4 years ago
[0] https://youtu.be/DeWGukDrc1U?t=455
[1] https://surma.dev/things/ditherpunk/
[2] https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg136374...
an_opabinia|4 years ago
On the other hand, is this games?
It's so tough out there. Lucas Pope obviously works really hard. Just imagine you're an otherwise successful indie game developer, you put out two amazing games, and it still isn't viable to make a third, in 2021.
That doesn't happen with movies. You make two budget positive or critically acclaimed movies, you get to make a third. You don't have to go and make something else.
fumar|4 years ago
Compare that to the gameboy which put its games front and center with the selling point of being handheld. Admittedly, I would get the Playdate to put on my desk and admire as plastic art, but no more room.
caslon|4 years ago
So if you add limitations, or extra buttons! you end up with the rare occurrence of something new! A crank is actually a really cool addition just in terms of experimenting with gameplay.
flanbiscuit|4 years ago
That being said, watching the video[1] on the site is making this look really enticing.
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeWGukDrc1U
an_opabinia|4 years ago
I got bad news for you buddy, video games don't have a functional purpose any greater than beautiful design. You're sort of barking up the wrong tree if you wanna take a dump on something. But I think this was said in good faith, and you should just consider that Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operators have a totally different, literally unpolished aesthetic and also sell very well.
philistine|4 years ago
zemo|4 years ago
It's not clear what you're saying here. What is "pure consumerism"? Are you suggesting that aesthetics is bad? It's a stylish object. People enjoy stylish objects.
> the games are there but not promoted.
that's probably because the developers are still working on the games and aren't ready to fully show them off yet.
beckler|4 years ago
That being said, Teenage Engineering is one of those brands that has massively disappointed me over time. When the OP-1 came out it was a truly innovative, beautiful, and robust synthesizer... Despite that, everything they make now just seems over-hyped, over-priced, and homogeneous.
I mean their most recent "innovations" are, no-joke: a $600 portable AM/FM + BT radio, whose only real feature is a massive buffer so you can rewind or fast forward in real-time, and a robot that dances to music.
They're great at predictable, minimal design, there is no doubt there, but that's about it.
arduinomancer|4 years ago
There's a million ways to emulate gameboy at this point. There are emulators that run on pretty much every single platform. You can get a $40 handheld on Amazon that can do it.
To me the selling point of this system is that you can play _new_ games that are in a cool retro 1-bit art style.
That itself is a unique thing
yoz-y|4 years ago
One thing that irks me is that the Dev environment is clearly at least public beta ready. I’d like to see and try it before preordering though.
jrockway|4 years ago
I think what people want is a platform where a captive audience has to play your game, because there aren't any good games for the platform. If you target modern computers, you're competing with games like League of Legends or Overwatch, which have large teams behind them. If you target this shitbox, your competition is some game where you spin a crank so you aren't late to an e-date. Your chance of "winning" is high.
It remains to be seen whether some exclusive game is so good that it sells the console. I only buy Nintendo products so I can play their exclusive games. I would much prefer to run them on my PC, but they demand an extra $500 tax. Good business model! Maybe it can be yours too.
Wheaties466|4 years ago
Serious question. Yeah it looks cool but in a joke sense. It doesn't really look like it is going to do anything well. The accessories look even more like a joke. Obviously im not the target customer, but im trying to figure out who is?
agloeregrets|4 years ago
It's just meant to be something fun you can pull out and play for a little while. Just like Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operators were designed to be. I think we might have passed the point of realizing how wonderful it is to make something fun and whimsical with minimal profit ambitions.
Another bit is that the people who built it are legendary software developers who created Audion in the early 2000s (who then turned down an acquisition from Apple to become iTunes so Apple had to buy their worse competitor), Transmit (FTP), Coda, Nova, Prompt, and who published Firewatch and Untitled Goose Game. The idea is that it's a gimmick done hardcore and right.
Seems like a huge amount of interest. Personally I love the idea of whimsical creative ideas come to life.
egypturnash|4 years ago
Or maybe it's just a goofy little toy for grownups who remember growing up with a Gameboy by their side, and want a whimsical grown-up version that they can keep in their pocket. With a fidget spinner on the side that also acts as an input for some games.
ngngngng|4 years ago
1) Myself, I grew up on a game boy color and I have a nostalgia for playing games where the developers were so bound by compute resources on the device they were developing for. It allowed smaller teams to be very competitive in game design but also enabled a different sort of creativity than what is commonly seen today in game design where resources are virtually unlimited. I've also been wanting to toy with game development for a while now. This seems like a neat and quirky way to jump in.
2) My kid, I think we've gotten far too good at making video games addictive for kids. I want my child to have video games the way I did, with simple graphics, stories and gameplay that come to an end, unlike games like fortnite that you can keep playing for eternity. Added benefit if he gets to experience trying to play games without a backlight using the streetlights to see as you drive down the road.
pradn|4 years ago
amelius|4 years ago
I don't know, but it seems buying a standard console would get you more games and less e-waste.
zepto|4 years ago
If they are not, then it’s not for anyone.
sharken|4 years ago
In the long run I'd think that the lack of colors is a deal breaker, so I think you're right this is very much a niche type of product.
zemo|4 years ago
lreeves|4 years ago
Tiktaalik|4 years ago
grawprog|4 years ago
For $179 + shipping you're buying a small underpowered device with a black and white screen, a handcrank analog controller and 24 games. For an extra $29 you can buy a snazzy case and coming soon a stereo mount that's going to be impractical to use while playing so I'm guessing will be for playing music.
The system's closed and going to be reliant on either their SDK or soon to be coming editor. From the sounds of it, there will be ongoing subscription payments for new games.
They're releasing the system without the SDK or editor. On their developer page they have a bunch of vague 'coming soon' promises with no actual timelines or anything. They have no actual plans for any kind of centralized distribution for games.
Overall, it seems like there's a lot of work or even planning that should have been done before starting pre-orders. At this point you're purchasing less than half the advertised features with no real plans as to when they'll be forthcoming.
Just because a well known name is behind a project doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a good product or a great idea. Plenty of great people have made lackluster things. Especially in the video game world. A lot of this seems to be more hype because of the people behind the project than the project itself.
jonny_eh|4 years ago
This is highly offensive to me. Making hardware is hard, everyone here should know that. Here we have a company, with a great reputation, taking a big risk to offer us something different, and people's first reaction is to assume bad intentions?
> Just because a well known name is behind a project doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a good product or a great idea
Therefore it's a scam? That is quite some logic there.
frakkingcylons|4 years ago
They never positioned it as a competitor to a modern portable like the Nintendo Switch so who cares? Do any of those games on the home page look like they need a modern chip?
> They have no actual plans for any kind of centralized distribution for games.
What are you basing that off of? Because they didn't detail the specifics of how the games are going to be distributed?
> Just because a well known name is behind a project doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a good product or a great idea.
Indeed, which is why you can wait to buy it until it's out and has been reviewed by others.
Brendinooo|4 years ago
What's something lackluster that Panic has made? They certainly have had misses, but it wasn't because of the quality of the product or attention to detail. They've got a better track record than just about any dev shop.
Here's the original pitch, to give you a sense of what their motives were for making it:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190523042100/https://play.date...
Meekro|4 years ago
What I gather from the website is that they're coming at it differently: inviting a hand-picked group of game devs (both experienced and new) and heavily curating their products into weekly releases. Rather than showing players a giant app store that is mostly filled with crap, you get 2-6 high quality games per month that silently show up on your system.
It's a different approach for sure, and to me it's well worth the price to see if they can pull it off.
ncr100|4 years ago
> For X you get Y.
Scam would be:
> For X you get WILDCARD.
twohearted|4 years ago
whywhywhywhy|4 years ago
How much should it be?
bitbo|4 years ago
These screens are expensive but also very nice.
fshee|4 years ago
I've grown sick of create-react-app default <noscript/> textContent.
> Hello! Javascript is required for purchasing, signing up for the newsletter, viewing videos, and other content on this page. Please enable Javascript.
> Your browser doesn't seem to support video.
shocks|4 years ago
I’d rather devs focus on accessibility for screen readers etc.
duxup|4 years ago
And honestly a good chunk of that population will still just complain anyhow / might not be persuaded. They already kinda made their call.
alexbouchard|4 years ago
prpl|4 years ago
MivLives|4 years ago
If this was around 80$ I would be all over it.
nkellenicki|4 years ago
The Playdate cost includes 20 games by (relatively) well known indie game developers.
Operyl|4 years ago
dexterdog|4 years ago
12ian34|4 years ago
Also cool to see the fantastic poolside.fm in a screenshot although the pen-holder dock feels a little kitsch. It's promising, however, that the design partners are Teenage Engineering - known for their Pocket Operators and the truly amazing OP-1 all in one synth[0] for which I strongly vouch.
[0]: https://teenage.engineering/products/op-1
jonny_eh|4 years ago
ncr100|4 years ago
And, that I expect I will have fun with it.
Fun is where it's at with a Game Console. I like the artistry but that's just a gateway ... to the fun!
jswny|4 years ago
I could see myself buying this if it could emulate NES or GameBoy games though.
coldpie|4 years ago
jonny_eh|4 years ago
Or one of the cheaper Chinese devices like the Retroid Pocket or RG531p
salamandersauce|4 years ago
There is also lots and lots of cheap emulator devices these days with more buttons and color screens like the Retroid Pocket 2 and Anbernic RG350 that also cost a fraction of the price.
Price is a bit much for me personally.
jmcgough|4 years ago
I think the people who will get a lot out of it are people who get involved in the homebrew community - I spent hundreds of hours on ZZT as a kid, despite the limited ascii graphics. It's not trivial to make your own gameboy game then load it onto an actual gameboy. It seems like they've put a lot of effort into the SDK, game maker, and ease of sideloading new games.
Impossible|4 years ago
https://blog.adafruit.com/2020/07/08/gamekid-a-game-boy-emul...
germinalphrase|4 years ago
Important to keep it whimsical though. The competitive gaming scene is… intense.
cableshaft|4 years ago
This is the original Flash version from back in the day. I'm also working on a 3D sequel with Twitch support in my limited spare time: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/183428
I don't know why, but I have a good feeling that this device will be fairly successful. Maybe it's just good marketing on their part.
I don't really have a good idea of how to make good use of the crank, except maybe add something that allows you to go back and forward in time (at least undo support). Maybe I'll even alter the mechanics to take advantage of it, like that 5D chess game.
andrewclunn|4 years ago
safe cracking, catapult aiming, fire burner air balloon adjustment, etc...
mig39|4 years ago
I'm planning on picking up some of these to try with some junior-high and high school students in the fall -- if Covid is over by then :-)
bythreads|4 years ago
canadianwriter|4 years ago
thih9|4 years ago
That being said, there's something that I don't like in this kind of marketing. To me it looks very unsubstantial and repetitive.
I guess one factor here is the price; for $179 it seems a luxury item and perhaps it's easier to believe that its flaws and unknowns are quirks or features; and that they're not worth mentioning.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27440015
blairbeckwith|4 years ago
> This "stereo dock" doesn't have a price yet, but it will ship with a preinstalled online radio option, dubbed Poolsuite FM, that Panic says will include "expertly curated Soundcloud playlists that will transport you to a magical, sun-kissed musical zone between the past and the present."
This sounds ... suspiciously like Poolside.fm
tesseract|4 years ago
gregsadetsky|4 years ago
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/poolside-fm/id1514817810
Way to get out of a trademark infringement maybe..?
http://poolside.fm/ also redirects to https://poolsuite.net/
unknown|4 years ago
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scblzn|4 years ago
https://twitter.com/Poolsuite/status/1398007075435843592
ryanmcbride|4 years ago
deergomoo|4 years ago
WillPostForFood|4 years ago
bbarn|4 years ago
cableshaft|4 years ago
moftz|4 years ago
ryanmcbride|4 years ago
rgovostes|4 years ago
aresant|4 years ago
Both from the UX, to typography, to aesthetic (on desktop at least)
Anybody know who built this?
mttjj|4 years ago
This is a product of [Panic](https://panic.com). They know how to build a website. And write tools to [build a website](https://nova.app/).
darnfish|4 years ago
See their other sites: https://nova.app, https://panic.com/transmit/
kart23|4 years ago
I'll definitely be getting one, I think a big aspect of what makes it different is the programmability aspect. They're trying to make developing games for it super accessible, and I think it'll be a lot of fun for programmers who don't have the time to make full-on traditional games, or don't want to make decisions about the framework, language, etc. The constraints are what makes it fun. If the SDK is good, it'll be huge.
christkv|4 years ago
agloeregrets|4 years ago
shadowgovt|4 years ago
post_break|4 years ago
https://daringfireball.net/2019/05/playdate
least|4 years ago
I feel strongly that that is the case here. From anyone outside of the bubble I feel like ultimately it’s a quirky toy for rich techies that will probably be used a couple times before the novelty wears off and you go back to playing games on almost anything else.
jerome-jh|4 years ago
Besides that, could be a good 5-15 minutes killer while avoiding the smartphone vortex
ChrisArchitect|4 years ago
nathanvanfleet|4 years ago
mortenjorck|4 years ago
dang|4 years ago
Playdate October 2020 Update - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24945598 - Oct 2020 (2 comments)
Playdate – December 2019 Update - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22016483 - Jan 2020 (20 comments)
Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19986106 - May 2019 (402 comments)
Ayesh|4 years ago
Nicely done!
neom|4 years ago
drivingmenuts|4 years ago
flakiness|4 years ago
humblepie|4 years ago
bydo|4 years ago
https://play.date/dev/
bullfightonmars|4 years ago
unknown|4 years ago
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tjakab|4 years ago
unknown|4 years ago
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gscho|4 years ago
artembugara|4 years ago
Ekaros|4 years ago
jccalhoun|4 years ago
laptop-man|4 years ago
junon|4 years ago
mkr-hn|4 years ago
dmitrygr|4 years ago
zemo|4 years ago
> The SDK will be available on macOS, Windows, and Linux. There are two ways to write games: using Lua, for ease of development; or using C, for games that need extra performance. You can also use both languages in the same project. Typical SDK abilities are included: graphics, sound, inputs, text, collisions, etc. We continue to add features every day!
^ that's from https://play.date/dev/
mkw2k|4 years ago
antidaily|4 years ago
arthurcolle|4 years ago
asciident|4 years ago
zemo|4 years ago
miguelmurca|4 years ago
felipemesquita|4 years ago
gonehome|4 years ago
ta1234567890|4 years ago
And I’m not even sure about that. At least the info on the link seems very scarce and the featured video was mostly a bunch of people talking and very little gameplay. I guess I’m not the target audience as this didn’t seem exciting to me at all. Couldn’t finish watching the video.
Philip-J-Fry|4 years ago
ArkanExplorer|4 years ago
I think that consumers have grown weary of buying individual games, and would rather just pay a lump sum or subscription.
earthboundkid|4 years ago
This is it: the peak Hacker News comment. A gizmo with a handcrank and a black and white screen is nothing out of the ordinary in 2021. I bet you could even make it yourself in a weekend if you just use a Raspberry Pi and an e-ink screen!
Sohcahtoa82|4 years ago
PostThisTooFast|4 years ago
[deleted]
t0mbstone|4 years ago
The marketing is flashy, but I have zero interest in this product.
tengbretson|4 years ago
Ekaros|4 years ago
mlindner|4 years ago
aaroninsf|4 years ago
I suspect the market is there to enable modest success, for the same reason cassette labels flourished.
rockbruno|4 years ago
criddell|4 years ago
First, it's coming from Panic. They have enough fans that they can probably sell out the first run just on their reputation.
Secondly, the industrial design looks great or at least novel. For $180 you get a neat looking toy and are supporting the development of new stuff. $180 feels like a sustainable price.
It is a lot of money, but for many people on HN $180 is an easy impulse buy.
AGorilla|4 years ago
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