Playdate Portable Gaming Console Cranks Up The Fun In New Gameplay Videos
"Hello. We’ve been working non-stop to finish up Playdate, but in the meantime, we wanted to give you a small update on our Playdate Developer Preview," Panic said. "It's a lot of fun news."
According to Panic, actual PlayDate units are now in the hands of 250 people around the world, presumably developers and testers. It is not clear if the units that are out in the wild are prototype versions or finalized hardware, but either way, Panic took the opportunity to highlight some of what its partners have been working on.
Over 250 people around the world now have actual Playdates in-hand. They’re putting our tools and tech to the test, building the world’s first third-party Playdate games.
— Playdate (@playdate) August 12, 2020
Want a peek?
Rebecca (@veubeke) is working on this gorgeous dungeon crawler. pic.twitter.com/orKYzel051
Hell, even Doom was demonstrated on the PlayDate, because why not? Getting Doom up and running has become sort of a right of passage (it has even been shown running on fancy scientific calculators in the past). Have a look...
And finally, it didn’t take long for DOOM to show up, as per tradition! This amazing effort from Nic (@NicMagnier) delighted us all — and yes, it features Crank to Chaingun™ pic.twitter.com/Rv51WDUwil
— Playdate (@playdate) August 12, 2020
Here is a look at a few other game clips on the PlayDate...
RNG Party (@RNGparty) is using Playdate’s accelerometer in a fun and inventive way! (Sometimes we forget it even has one.) pic.twitter.com/vRMV6N1c5l
— Playdate (@playdate) August 12, 2020
Donald (@dovuro) is building a really fun-looking puzzler. As always, some games use the crank, others don’t. pic.twitter.com/gF1vg4pm1X
— Playdate (@playdate) August 12, 2020
Matt (@gingerbeardman) discovered something that a crank controller is REALLY good for… drifting! pic.twitter.com/ShZDOwk3Xz
— Playdate (@playdate) August 12, 2020
"It’s so early! There’s too much to tweet! And not all of these projects will ship! But it has been amazing to see these devs, experienced or otherwise, get up and running quickly. Remember: every Playdate is a dev kit. You can make your own games when you get yours. If you want," Panic says.
PlayDate will cost $149 when it arrives, and will ship with 12 included games as part of Season One for no additional charge. While we don't know exactly when it will debut, the product page still indicates it will ship in 2020, albeit with "very limited" stock.