16 / wfmag.cc
Early AccessAttract Mode
Playdate
The Switch is exciting, but it didn’t have a crank.
Playdate, an upcoming mini-handheld, has a
crank. And buttons, and a screen, and all those
sorts of things, naturally.
Manufactured by Panic, the studio behind a
decade’s worth of iOS and Mac software, as well
as publishers of Firewatch and Untitled Goose
Game, Playdate is set to arrive in early 2020 at
a price of $149. For that, you’ll get the device,
measuring a teeny 74 mm × 76 mm × 9 mm, and
all of the games from Playdate’s first ‘season’.
What’s a season? It’s 12 weeks of (secret)
games automatically delivered to the device,
automatically installed and ready to play on
the 68 mm monochrome screen, displayed in
a lovely 400×240 resolution. As well as games
from the likes of QWOP’s Bennett Foddy,
SpellTower’s Zach Gage, and Katamari Damacy
creator Keita Takahashi, users will be able to
create their own.“The device will be very open,” Greg Maletic,
director of special projects at Panic, tells us.
“Most platforms nowadays have tight restrictions,
so it was important to us that Playdate be open
enough to allow experimentation.”
Creators can still get on board with the
Playdate project, with potential plans for a
Mac-based SDK to be released. If a game’s been
written using Lua or C, it can be written for
Playdate, and Maletic says there’s potential for
this to be expanded if there’s demand, and it’s
technically feasible.
But there is a big question: why? “Very little
in the video game industry feels like a surprise
anymore,” Maletic says. “Even most new console
announcements represent just spec bumps
from the previous generation. We’re hoping
Playdate can inject a little unpredictability and
fun into the video game experience.”
You can find out more at wfmag.cc/playdate.