Playdate is a magical indie game machine – By Jessica Conditt (Engadget) / April 18, 2022
I haven’t been this excited by a handheld since the Vita.
Playdate shouldn’t be able to do the things it does. It’s tiny enough to fit in the too-tight front pockets of my skinny jeans, it’s lighter than a deck of cards and it has a 1-bit black-and-white screen. It feels like a relic of the ’90s, at least until you power it on – Playdate supports smooth, densely pixelated animations, it connects to Wi-Fi and it has a library of exclusive games from top-tier indie developers, all available for free. The small crank attached to its side is the icing on the yellow cake, adding a layer of sweet innovation to every experience on the system.
Playdate is my favorite handheld device since the Vita. It’s a love letter to indie games and creativity, and I think it’s exactly what the industry needs right now
Playdate is the brainchild of Panic, the Mac developer and publisher behind Firewatch and Untitled Goose Game, with hardware crafted by Teenage Engineering. Its specs are appropriately adorable, with 16MB of RAM and 4GB of flash storage, an accelerometer for motion-based input, a 400 x 240 1-bit display, a built-in mono speaker, condenser mic and stereo headphone jack, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities. The Bluetooth function wasn’t available to test for review, but connecting to Wi-Fi was a painless, and even cute, process.
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