Panic Playdate Owners' Club - The Bear and Badger

Blue Swirl

Talking of reviews, Metal Jesus gives it a solid I guess?/10.

acemuzzy

I think I ordered one way back when. No idea when it'll arrive tho...

EvilRedEye

acemuzzy wrote:

I'm also Group 2

Escape

I've always felt the same as MJ there — it needs a backlight. You can maybe argue B&W from the homedev angle, where not worrying about colourisation might speed up your creations.

It's a cute console with enough power for some fun ideas, but a hipster screen.

EvilRedEye

I have mixed feelings. I'm sure it will be incredibly inconvenient at times but on the other hand I find the Switch is often unusable on the bus a lot of the time due to direct sunlight. Also I've seen people saying "Couldn't you just put a normal screen in and have the 1-bit graphics as an art style?" but that would have just been an absurdity that would have immediately fallen apart. At the end of the day they're getting more orders then they can fulfil so if people would prefer something more conventional and cheaper like a Chinese emulation handheld then they should just do that and leave us hipsters with this weird thing.

mistercrayon

Yeah I’m the same. Some of the “let’s hope these edges are ironed off in v2” are missing the mark a bit. It was meant to be some niche alarm clock that got too many people excited but also not enough people excited.

Panic saw those reflective screens and were genuinely excited to use them (look at early discussions where they are proud of the screen they are using). There’s a million emu handhelds which do all the things people want and when something different comes about they just want it to be more the same as what they have. Snooze o Rama.

Bob

It’s way too expensive- Fuck me I still have my og game boy boxed

Scout

I really like the look of this but can't quite bring myself to pull the trigger on one for fear it'll end up in the drawer. How do the seasons work? Is it a subscription service with a monthly fee or do you just buy seasons individually?

mistercrayon

When you buy the thing you get the first 24 games that unlock over 12 week. They’re calling it a season but theres no plan yet to officially do anything more than that. Additionally people can separately sell games on itchio or whatever they want and you can load those onto the device.

Scout

That sounds pretty good.

Brooks

This looks fucking naff.

b0r1s

Brooks wrote:

This looks fucking naff.

Don’t think I’ve read truer words.

Bob

I don’t know. I think it looks cool and small
Enough that you actually could carry it about. The unlit back screen puts me off a bit. Eurogamer wax lyrical about it but it’ll end up
Being a pain in the neck

b0r1s

I’ve said it before but buy it. Don’t open it and stick it on eBay in ten years.

EvilRedEye

It's gonna be great!! I'm gonna be play it and be like "This huge amount of fun is worth exactly the $263.64 I paid for it!!" Just you wait and see!!

mistercrayon

You should do the Cost divided by Times Enjoyed

Eg Mario Game and Watch = £50/0.1 = £500 per enjoyment time
Play date. =£200/12 = £17 per enjoyment.

Escape

b0r1s wrote:

I’ve said it before but buy it. Don’t open it and stick it on eBay in ten years.

Ooh... I think the danger with this sort of tech is that you mightn't get two bites.

Then again, what are N-Gages selling for now?

SpaceGazelle

b0r1s wrote:

I’ve said it before but buy it. Don’t open it and stick it on eBay in ten years.

Boo to this cynicism. This thing looks alright and I wish it well.

ShabbyMcCrabby

Does seem weird to be negative over people trying to make something new. Nobody needs to buy it if they don't want to, they won't be missing out on anything apart from some fun little games.
It's also weird how our current society is so focused on pointing out minor faults in things instead of praising the fact that the thing exists in the first place.

EvilRedEye

Interestingly I've seen a few counter-impressions saying the screen is actually perfectly visible in fairly low light as long as there is some light. Will be interesting to see it in person.

ShabbyMcCrabby

It works the same or similar to e-ink right? Like the page of a book?

EvilRedEye

I think it's meant to be a bit more reflective than a Kindle? But similar, yeah.

mistercrayon

It’s an lcd screen like a wrist watch but way better reflectiveness.

Blue Swirl

I don't buy the argument "it's kitsch and that's why the screen isn't back lit". It's still a very expensive device, and it's 2022. A back light should be a given. AFAIK the modern Game & Watch machines have back lit screens, and they're probably going to be played once and then put on the shelf as a display piece.

EvilRedEye

It's impossible to backlight that type of screen. Trying to side- or front-light it also has its issues. It's not a cheap screen, it's expensive with niche priorities.

Blue Swirl

Sounds like they chose the wrong sort of screen, then. IMHO, YMMV. I hope people have fun with the PlayDate, but let's not make excuses for their bad decisions. Time will tell if it's a big issue or not, but it sounds like something that could have been easily side-stepped much earlier on in the design process.

b0r1s

SpaceGazelle wrote:

b0r1s wrote:

I’ve said it before but buy it. Don’t open it and stick it on eBay in ten years.

Boo to this cynicism. This thing looks alright and I wish it well.

I know and tbh it’s the sort of thing I’d have gone for in the past. After all I had… Oric 1, Atari 800XL, Atari ST, SEGA Saturn, Dreamcast… always on the underdogs side.

mistercrayon

Imo if they wanted to keep the aesthetic but light up the screen they should have used an indiglo/electro luminescence type effect.

The modern G+W products are a bad comparison because I don’t think they’re as well considered products. They’re just kind of lazy.

Panic actively chose this kind of screen because it had a unique feel to it. It can’t be a “wrong” choice because they made the choice they wanted. It’s impossible for me to imagine that they could not have foreseen problems so the fact they chose not to address it is something they decided to do. It’s like when you go out and wear something extra sexy but uncomfortable. It’s not wrong to wear something uncomfortable if your choice is to be principally sexy.

Paul the sparky

What are you wearing, Crayon?

Minnesänger

Blue Swirl wrote:

I don't buy the argument "it's kitsch and that's why the screen isn't back lit". It's still a very expensive device, and it's 2022.

It’s not expensive though. It’s an experimental piece of hardware in an industry where everyone had raced to the bottom on margins. People have become price obsessed to the detriment of invention - it’s a lovely, well kitted out piece of tech with a great screen, nice selection of hardware features, open software and development platform, sideloading, usb-C charging and the like. It also comes with a whole host of exclusive games you won’t find anywhere else.

The “expensive” angle comes from those that like middle of the road products designed with major economies of scale in mind. Don’t like playdate? That’s fine. But saying this is expensive is bull. Invention on a small scale costs money and people have become too accustomed to hyper-capitalist low price shite tech with an apple or Samsung logo slapped on it. This is fucking cool.

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