30 September 2023

First Impressions - Playdate, a retro-handheld by Panic

Picture of a yellow rectangular box with a picture of a Playdate handheld and a smaller purple square box showing a Playdate cover, both resting on a table with a world map on it, and inclined on a black keyboard at the top of the picture.
The Playdate packaging is cute.

Back in March 2023, I impulsively ordered a Playdate handheld. I’d been intrigued when they first came out, but resisted. However, I’d seen a few reviews, and as I’ve been travelling more, it seemed like a cute option to do some casual gaming when I was away. Plus, Panic had announced there was a price increase coming so it seemed like a good time to lock in a device at the launch price. 


Same set up as the first picture, but showing the back of the boxes
The back of the boxes

The Playdate is Panic’s first foray into hardware; usually they produce software, mainly for macOS (but they have also published for Windows and XBox with games like Firewatch and Untitled Goose Game). The little yellow handheld they’ve produced is pretty open; they encourage side loading of games and there’s an active Itch.io community. Most of the games are pretty cheap; an expensive one would be around the $12 range, but many are Pay-what-you-want or in the $2 to $4 range.


The Playdate box opened, showing the little yellow handheld in foam at a jaunty angle, alongside a similarly jauntil placed black cardboard sleeved yellow USB cable with the words “Have Fun” written on the sleeve
Unboxed…

The device is really cute looking and very small. It has a highly reflective black and white LCD screen, a D-Pad and two buttons (A and B) for gaming, plus a button at the top right to access menus, and another button on the top right to power on and off. And then there’s the crank, an analogue controller which is used in some games and also in some system functions like buying and opening games. It charges and connects over USB-C and a 3.5mm headphone stereo jack at the bottom. The device’s speakers are mono and sound decent enough. There’s also a microphone, but I’ve not seen anything use that yet. The Playdate connects to WiFi and you can download games and updates from Panic.

Playdate held in my hand, showing the clock in sleep mode. The clock is set to “words” mode, rather than digital or analogue. It says “It’s five to five on Monday September 25”
Tiny handheld, interesting clock options 

There are three routes to getting games; the device comes some (‘Season One’) arriving with two, and then having more two more games drop for free each week. In total there are 24 games, with a wide variety of options. The second route is to install the Catalog app, and you can buy from a curated collection of games hosted by Panic. Finally, you can buy games from other sources like Itch.io or even code them yourself and sideload them over WiFi or over USB. 


Playdate handheld, purple cover open, showing the Catalog app loading games. It’s connected to USB to charge with an iPhone 11 to the right of it to provide scale.
Playdate charging while downloading games on the Catalog app, with iPhone 11 for scale.

I’m very much a casual gamer (mostly). Playing through the whole of Firewatch in two evenings is probably the most extended play that I’ve done recently, although I do have a World of Tanks Blitz habit. Most of the games I’ve downloaded are very much bite-size games; they’re your classic arcade games. It actually reminds me of the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum days; I do hope someone comes up with a decent take on 3D Monster Maze soon! I’ve sideloaded a lot of the classics like Frogger, Invaders and Pac Man. There are some great puzzle games; these range from more Sudoku / Minesweeper like games, through to arcade puzzlers where you push and pull things to solve a level. There are adventure games, although I haven’t really explored these properly yet. 

Most games are the kind of entertainment you can play for a bite-sized bit of fun, but it’s also easy to lose an hour.

The screen can be challenging in artificial light; there’s no backlight so you have to angle it right to get the best view. I’ve not really found that an issue, but I have seen people moan about it on the internet.

My favourite games at the moment are SlitherlinkPD (a minesweeper/sudoku style puzzler using the crank to wind back time), Gravity Express (Lunar landings, using the crank to orientate the ship), Grand Tour Legends (crank-driven cycling), Gatecrasher (pilot a ship through a series of gates, kind of Tempest style, using the crank) and Four Corners (kind of Tetris like block clearing game).

I’ve no regrets picking this up, even the wait built some anticipation. (Panic batch manufacture Playdate, so you effectively pre-order; mine took six months to arrive).

The yellow Playdate handheld, sandwiched in its purple cover, held in a hand with a decorative window behind
The Playdate in its cover - reminds me of an ice-cream sandwich.

I’ll leave you with a cute picture of the Playdate in its cover above. I look at it and it makes me smile. Teeny. Cute. Fun.

30 September 2023
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