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Playdate’s handheld changed how Duke University teaches game design
- tshaddox 5mo agoI've been interested in these cute little things since they were first announced, but I still haven't pulled the trigger on the 229 USD price tag. Apparently with the education discount they're 195 USD, which still feels steep. But hey, given that the dev tooling is all free (including simulators), it would be fine to play around with game development even without buying the hardware.
- larrry 5mo agoI played with mine for a couple months, put it down for a year, and played it for a couple more months recently. There are some good games and the device just oozes fun, I haven’t regretted it
- throwway120385 5mo agoThe Playdate looks like what you'd make if someone only described the games kids made and shared on the TI-83 graphing calculator and then asked you to build a device.
- bigiain 5mo agoYou say that like it's a bad thing... It fits, in my head, very much in that same toy niche as Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operator series of music making devices: https://teenage.engineering/products/po https://teenage.engineering/products/po
- flobosg 5mo agoTeenage Engineering designed the Playdate, in case you didn’t know: https://teenage.engineering/designs/playdate https://teenage.engineering/designs/playdate
- adampunk 5mo agoIt’s for Gen-X dads to buy and pay themselves on the back about “productive constraints” while they play games that suck.
- tclancy 5mo agoHey man, I was just trying to invent an excuse to buy one and you had to do that. Well … played.
- Brendinooo 5mo agoHe's wrong. There are some great games that I've played on it. And I'm a Millennial dad. AND I think Panic is a cool company that's worth supporting, AND I think that, if you have the money sitting around, it's probably good to support weird niche hardware projects by indies.
- chip_franzen 5mo agoVery cute, but $229 is a WILD price point.
- hyperbolablabla 5mo agoIt's very low volume, sadly this was unavoidable I think, given the extremely custom nature of the input
- AFF87 5mo agoI was thinking the same. Read the article, thought about getting one and then thought again
- Loughla 5mo agoIt's actually worth it if you have any kind of a commute. There are a lot of very fun games for it. And it's nice having a thing that isn't connected to the Internet to avoid the temptation of doom scrolling. I bought mine pre release so it was like $50 cheaper even with the cover I think, but I would still pay the increased price for it. I thought it would collect dust, but it really is a great way to pass the time on the train. It scratches the original Gameboy itch for me without the needless stares from actually carrying a Gameboy. I just wish they would release the docking station for it. I charge it next to my bed, so it could serve two purposes.
- hyperbolablabla 5mo agoHaving 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)
- albertodenia 5mo agoI'm genuinely curious: do you mean successful as "played a lot" or as "commercially successful"? Do you think Playdate is a viable market for indie devs? Btw it'd also be great to check your games, if you'd like to share some links!
- Cthulhu_ 5mo agoThe challenge with Playdate games is that it's a relatively niche market; the number of consoles sold is... probably more than 100K at this point but less than a million (https://x.com/playdate/status/1757478578491732486 https://x.com/playdate/status/1757478578491732486), of which only a percentage will buy games in addition to the "free" ones. I suspect any developer whose game gets picked for the "free" games will get a compensation, but I have no idea how much that would be. This link https://x.com/playdate/status/1757478578491732486 https://x.com/playdate/status/1757478578491732486 suggests that two years ago, all Catalog developers (so not the free games) earned about 500K total / shared amongst each other. TL;DR: by all means make games for the Playdate but not if you want to make it your livelihood. Personal grumpy take, not based in up to date facts.
- oidar 5mo agoI love the aesthetic of the playdate, the educational outreach, and how easy the whole platform is. It’s just so well designed all around. But the only way I am able to play it is by casting the screen to my computer, the screen is so tiny. Otherwise, I love it.
- smallerize 5mo agoHow do you do the screen casting?
- Jtsummers 5mo agohttps://help.play.date/games/mirror/ https://help.play.date/games/mirror/ - probably this.
- Brendinooo 5mo agoI am using mine WAY more now that I know this app exists.
- nosrepa 5mo agoNot to mention that they just announced season three of games!
- JKCalhoun 5mo agoI'm not familiar with their marketing/ecosystem. Do they gather together the best games and have a whole "season" you purchase? And repeat this every year?
- omoikane 5mo agoThey 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). Season one is included with the device itself, so if you even if you didn't buy or sideload any other games, you still get new games for 3 months. Season two was $39 for 12 games. You can choose not to look up which games are included in the season and just be surprised by new games every week, and that kept the console feeling fresh. But the really brilliant part is that you got to experience the new games together with other people who got the season at the same time as you, similar to people watching the same weekly broadcast of some TV show. I find this community aspect of the experience most interesting.
- fn-mote 5mo agoRe: price point HN readers who can write a console game before bedtime are not the target audience. A handheld device that Just Works and creates an authentic experience is worth a lot. For a college class, a $200 textbook isn’t out of line (the ones people still buy…), which makes this a very reasonable investment in one’s education. Are there other, cheaper routes? Of course. For an introduction? Fewer, and nobody wants to be told to use learn the principles using Scratch - even if that can actually work. Making something real is inspiring, and this feels real.
- jubilanti 5mo agoA $200 textbook should absolutely be out of line
- gnopgnip 5mo agoFor an advanced course that is how the economics works out. They are expensive to produce and have limited demand, and typically only for a few years until they are replaced.
- barrkel 5mo agoYes, but this is intentional, and that's what's out of line. The main content stays the same but exercises and case studies are rotated out to force an upgrade. The business strategy class I took in college in Ireland used the same book for two or three years, even though the book was reshuffled every year, just to enable some spreading of the financial burden on students.
- aesthesia 5mo agoAt least in some fields, advanced courses are the most likely to have lower cost textbooks. Real analysis textbooks are usually cheaper than calculus textbooks. It's the introductory courses that tend to have $200 behemoths attached to online homework platforms optimized for ease of grading rather than student learning.
- Wololooo 5mo ago
- omoikane 5mo agoPlaydate development has been a great experience. The limited colors and RAM helps me reduce my project scope such that I would actually finish them, and the limited CPU makes optimization exercises more rewarding. And it's not just all constraints either -- the sound/synth system is quite nice, and the crank is fun input method that takes some hands-on experience to fully appreciate. The only downside is that there are still relatively few people with Playdates, and that puts an upperbound on how many people get to play your games.
- Doxin 5mo agoyou can run playdate games on the desktop using the emulator included in the free SDK. It won't be as fun as running it on an actual device, but nothing stopping people from actually messing with making playdate games without a playdate.
- nosrepa 5mo agoI'd imagine they know as they developed games for it. Their point was the audience size due to it being niche, not that it's hard to test.
- Doxin 5mo agoah I guess I sort of elided actually... saying the point I was trying to make. If it's just about showing games off to your friends (which with a course like this is pretty likely) you can point them to the emulator. yeah if you're aiming to make a proper professional game with aims of making profit... the playdate probably isn't the way to go. But then I recon that's part of what makes it an awesome platform. It hasn't been captured by capitalism yet.
- Waterluvian 5mo agoMy 9 year old is doing a game dev course in town where they use the BBC Micro Bit, a retro arcade peripheral (buttons, screen, sound, handheld), and some Microsoft game dev IDE. It’s incredibly compelling and feels a lot like this. But less than 1/3 the price and much more extensible and well-featured (the screen is colour!). I’m not sure I really see the value of the Playdate.
- christophilus 5mo agoThat sounds rad. I’d love to get my kids into this. Got any links to your particular setup?
- nickloewen 5mo agoThe game dev environment they’re talking about is MakeCode Arcade. I’m also a big fan of it. There are a number of little handheld gadgets that you can use with MakeCode—scroll down on the homepage and there’s a section that shows them all: https://arcade.makecode.com/ https://arcade.makecode.com/
- Waterluvian 5mo agoYeah that’s it! I recognize the Micro Bit Arcade Shield and the Retro Arcade as what he’s been using when he shows me demos. I LOVE that he gets to code in Scratch but can jump into Python or JavaScript at any time without the IDE changing. It’s a clear stepping stone.
- Fred27 5mo agoMy boys (then 10 and 8) loved MakeCode Arcade. I promised that if they wrote an original game - rather than following the great tutorials - then I'd make them a physical setup with a Pi Zero and some classic arcade buttons. They were very motivated and learned a lot.
- qrush 5mo agoMy 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?
- stevewodil 5mo agoIn the end, my personal favorite game was selling it on ebay
- shermantanktop 5mo agoIn that game, the house always wins.
- JKCalhoun 5mo agoThe house gets their cut, to be sure.
- somebehemoth 5mo agoCheckout playdate season 2 roster of games. Each one is the kind of game I hoped would be in season 1. I did not dislike season 1 though.
- nosrepa 5mo agoDiora, Carte Blanche, Devils on The Moon, Match-O-3000, just to name a few off the top of my head.
- Brendinooo 5mo agoI 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). It's addicting, and it uses the crank in a way that makes the crank feel indispensable. https://play.date/games/the-moon-is-our-friend/ https://play.date/games/the-moon-is-our-friend/ I also discovered the Mirror app and it turns out it's a big deal for me! 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.
- sssilver 5mo agoIt’s a wonderful device and I own one but lack of screen backlight makes it practically unusable, and at its price point almost vulgarly expensive. God knows how much I wanted to use and love it but it just started gathering dust in a closet after a week because of this.
- Spinfusor 5mo agoIf it had a backlight, I would have bought one by now.
- stevewodil 5mo agoSometimes I concede on this point with certain devices, but the screen on the playdate basically requires light at a specific angle for it to be at all discernible, so I don't blame you and can't recommend it as a result
- JKCalhoun 5mo agoA kind of tintype display.
- sssilver 5mo agoDo not buy one. You will regret it. Without backlight, it's a gimmick.
- nosrepa 5mo agoUnfortunately, that type of screen cannot be backlit. There are frontlit versions, but they are thicker and would consume a bit more power.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- jmcgough 5mo agoPanic had a booth at Portland Retro Gaming Expo last year, they were super nice and the Playdates were a lot of fun to play with. Nice to see that people are continuing to enjoy the console, the production process seemed like a nightmare.
- gangstead 5mo agoEveryone is talking about the Playdate but I have a related Duke story about undergrad classes incorporating new hardware. My Digital Signal Processing course (ECE major) made a big deal about using these new things called iPods for class. Everyone got an iPod... for the semester. Even at Duke tuition prices you only got to borrow it. My recollection of the class work part was using a little piezo sensor that plugged into the microphone/headphone jack and recording your heart beat as a voice memo while doing a couple different activities. Maybe ten minutes for the semester. Then back at the computer doing a FFT to determine your heart rate. The lazy kids just got a copy of someone else's recording. This would have been 2004 or 2005. I think it was the third generation with clickwheel and monochrome screen.
- chirau 5mo agoWas that with Lisa Huettel?
- gangstead 5mo agoYes! Awesome Prof.
- boogieknite 5mo agoyour last sentence makes me think Duke has a thing for monochrome displays and spinning interfaces
- chirau 5mo agoIn my time at Duke, we used iPods in Pratt. And then in CS, we used Alice for complete beginners. This was in '06. Fun times.
- Jach 5mo agoFor a Masters program it's pretty weird but I assume prospective students will be aware, and they move on to learning Unreal, so... It's always struck me as a bit silly how so many schools use some very niche tooling as part of "simplifying" or "adding constraints". I would have thought that such stuff was kept at the undergrad level. Even DigiPen (where the "famous" undergrad CS-like degree has you writing your own engine (though used to also have an elective for GBA games)) has a separate newer game design degree that had classes mandating some crappy in-house engine or in later years joining teams with students from the other degrees and using someone's custom engine. When I was there, a friend was able to get a professor's exception one semester and allowed to use a mobile-first engine that got out of the way and let him design while also making it easy to add polish, easy to playtest and develop (it used Lua) and show or give to others since everyone has a phone, etc. The crappy in-house engine stymied the efforts of everyone else, and only ran on Windows. It took a while longer before the formal curriculum had other students allowed to move beyond the in-house crap to consider things like the entire field of mobile games and mobile design, VR games and design, and eventually learning industry-standard tooling that employers will expect familiarity with. (I think the courtesy of using an industry engine was extended to the main degree program too vs. continuing with a custom one; I'm not sure what ratio Unreal/Unity/Godot/other/custom have there these days.) And while last I've heard an in-house engine is still used at the beginning (and even replaced the second semester "make a game in pure C with only the Windows text console for 'rendering'" project), it's a rewrite of a successor and apparently isn't as crappy now. For the Playdate itself, I've never seen the appeal... I have no interest in going back to that sort of screen. My Game Boy Color, besides having color, also allowed me to have a wormlight attachment plugged in to make up somewhat for not having a backlight. I don't think the Playdate has support for that. And the price...
- globalchatads 5mo agoThe constraint-first angle matters more than people give it credit for. A 1-bit screen and a handful of buttons forces students to stop hiding behind art and sound, and actually solve readability and mechanics. Honestly surprised more programs do not do this instead of dropping students into Unity on day one.
- wincy 5mo agoNintendo is the only mainstream game company that seems to understand this. A good example is Elite Beat Agents was a fantastically fun rhythm game that could have only existed on the DS and 3DS with the little stylus pen. You might think “the iPad has a stylus!” But it’s expensive (whereas my friend kept losing his DS Styluses so bought a pack of them for $10) and it doesn’t come with each iPad, so you’d have a fraction of a market, so no such game exists. Having a CONSISTENT interface for your users is super important. A lot of game devs seem to go for fun second, or maybe never. It took years but just having a game controller seems to be a given for a lot of mainstream Steam games and it helps a lot with games that aren’t really great with a mouse and keyboard (Hollow Knight Silksong sold millions of copies at release)
- pfg_ 5mo agoElite Beat Agents lives on as osu! which can be played using a mouse or drawing tablet
- wat10000 5mo agoIt's very difficult to overcome the push to teach the tools that will be used (or that out-of-touch people think will be used) professionally. We see the same issue in non-game programming where a lot of places start by teaching Java, which is an atrocious language for a beginner to start with, but it's not chosen for its suitability for learning programming principles, but because it's a big-name professional language.
- GuB-42 5mo agoIf it is constraints you are after, you can look at fantasy consoles like TIC-80 and PICO-8. They are designed to emulate the experience of 8 bit consoles: limited storage, memory, display, palette, etc... While at the same time making developing, distributing and playing games easy: high level language (LUA), built-in development environment, games are tens of kB sized "cartridge" files.
- martijn_himself 5mo agoThe Playdate seems an ideal device for busy dads and mums who would pick it up to play a few games here and there and are into programming and maybe would like to teach their kids how to program. I've had a quick play with the tools and API Panic provides and they seem very, very good. The games on it seem to be ideal for short stints of gameplay and are made by some very creative folk. This seems to be the ideal target audience for a device like this, however at around £250 including delivery here in the UK it's wildly expensive and falls well outside the 'frivolous expense once in a while' range for most parents (I'd say it would be a stretch at £150). I find that really strange, are these just economies of scale or is it a business decision Panic has made and now likely regrets?
- Cthulhu_ 5mo agoThe Playdate is... limited though; it's very small, much smaller than e.g. the gameboy or DS, so it's not particularly ergonomic. Fine for playing around with on occasion, but it's not a platform for spending long hours with. And it made the same mistake as the GBA did - no backlight. It does not feel like good value for money. But then, it's positioned as a niche / quirky device, manufactured in batches once a year or so, not a mass market device. 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.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- umvi 5mo agoPretty much all playdate games could just be enjoyed in the browser. The only thing you're missing is the physical crank and honestly it's a little gimmicky.