Playdate , app and game bespoke Panic’s first shot attending hardware, finally has a erfahren price and ship evening, as well as a bunch of surprise features cooked up since its announcement using 2019 . The very small handheld gaming console will cost $179, ship later this year, in addition come with a 24-game “season” doled out over 12 days. But now it also has a lovable speaker dock and low-code game creation platform.
We first got word of Playdate more than two years back, were charmed by any clean look, funky crank control, and black and white clearly show, and have been waiting for news since that time. Panic’s impeccable design recommendations combined with Teenage Engineering’s famous hardware chops? It’s travelling to be a joy to use, even though there wasn’t much more come up with that to go on.
Now the company has revealed many of the important details we were hoping for, and many more start.
Earlier we were expecting 12 gaming to be delivered over 15 weeks, but in the intervening period it seems they’ve collected more titles than thought out, and that initial “season” relating to games has expanded within order to 24. No one knows exactly how to expect from these games except that they’re exclusive to the Playdate and many use the crank repair shop in what appear to be fun and getting ways: turning a turntable, opening a little door, completing tricks as a surfer, along with.
The team hasn’t decided how future game titles will be distributed, though these firms seem to have some ideas. A further season? One-off releases? Evidently the presence of a new game next to one-man indie hit march Lucas Pope would supply like hotcakes.
Yet the debut of a new lo-fi game development platform called Pulp suggests a future where self-publishing may also be an option. This lovely little web-based tool lets anyone put together a game using presets for things like controls and actions, and may prove to be a sort of tiny Twine in time.
A dock accessory was announced as well, something to keep your Playdate front and center on your desk. The speaker-equipped dock, also a lemony yellow, acts as a magnetic charging cradle for the console, activating a sort of stationary cara with a clock and music player (Poolsuite. fm, apparently, with original relaxing tunes). It even has two holes in which to put your pens (and Panic made a special yellow pen just for the purpose gandar well).
The $179 price may cause some to balk — after all, it’s considerably more than a Nintendo 3DS and with the dock probably approaches the price of a Switch. But this isn’t meant to be a competitor with mainstream gaming — instead, it’s a sort of anti-establishment system that embraces weirdness and provides something equally unfamiliar and undeniably fun.
The team says that there will be a week’s warning before orders can be placed, and that they don’t plan to shut orders down if inventory runs out, but simply allow people to preorder and cancel at will until they receive their unit. Shipping will begin in late 2021, and if the 20, 000 units in the initial run don’t cover it, they’ll make more and ship gandar they come in.
We hope to get one ourselves to test and review, but since part of the charm of the whole thing is the timed release and social aspect of discovery and sharing, it’s more than likely we’ll be experiencing it along with everyone else.
(This article originally stated Playdate ships next month, but it will actually ship later — preorders begin next month. )