Did you pre-order a Playdate?

Absolutely not!

Ended up picking one up in the 2022 batch, as I'm very interested to see what folks build for the device.

As with most of the non-US folks, I had the frustrating experience of seeing the 502 nginx error as the preorders went live (meaning I was there as early as I could have possibly been), had a Playdate and case in my cart within 60 seconds of the shop going live (for the 2021 batch), then spent the next half hour watching as orders outside the US were told they couldn't be delivered, so couldn't be checked out. The 2021 batch sold out.

Playdate/Panic have explained that their partner for international shipping had issues with the traffic on their end, which I get, and are looking at their "options". Not expecting them to be able to do anything - it is what it is. I'm super disappointed that I'll be missing out on the initial "discourse" as everyone discovers their weekly games together, but this is still something I want to check out.

I think the SDK coming in multiple formats both full and more user-friendly versions sold me on it. The games will be fun sure but it seems like the perfect little thing to practice some Lua and Coding on. Restricted capabilities will make that even more interesting.

Excited to get mine in 2022. Hopefully early 2022!

From my understanding the custom body is made by a company that makes unique limited run synth devices and that the price is comparable to what the company puts out. So you are also kind of playing for a piece of art house hardware.

I have no plans to buy it but I think it looks pretty neat. If I were wealthy it would be sitting in a glass case next to $300 emulators and a Vectrex.

I did. The website says 2021. That thing seems neat!

It seems entirely pointless. Like spending 200 bucks for a fidget spinner

I do not understand the appeal.

No. The landfills are full enough.

Yeah I got one and was very lucky to be in the first 20k batch, it's supposed to ship before the end of this year.

I'm interested in the games obviously but I mostly really want to fiddle with it as a hobby game dev, see what kind of stupid mechanics I can come with for the crank. I'm not sure if they talked about how people will be able to share their own game, I'm not even sure if they want to implement a way at all really, but I'll be happy to just fiddle with it.

No. It seems neat, but I don't think it's for me.

@ryudo: What a weird thing to say.

Nope. It cost nearly $300 with taxes and shipping to Europe for the Playdate and the cover. That's way out of the price range I'm willing to pay for what "might" be a "neat" gadget that I use once a month every so often.

I don't get it. Feels like games press decided to jump on this thing for some reason because they like making "crank it" jokes.

Did their friends make this or something?

I was interested in this until I saw the price. That puts it firmly in the wait and see category. Honestly, I fully expect the novelty to wear off quickly for a lot of people so I look forward to picking one up second hand in a year.

I‘m in a wait and see mode. It is pricey, but It’s all bespoke hardware, and (at least right now) it doesn’t look like you’re going to be bombarded with constant advertising to join the live service ecosystem.

People need to remember the price includes 24 games - so it’s not directly comparable to just hardware devices.

I think the main appeal are for people who want to play something different than the latest FPS, or who can only game in short chunks. (If I have more than 30 minutes to dedicate to any play session right now, it’s a minor miracle.)

I picked one up in the first 20K batch, I had been looking forward to this since it was originally announced. I like unique and fun takes on thing and everything about this seems positive in a way I can get behind.

Yep, managed to get a Late 2021 model, despite international shipping breaking for many other people.

I've always liked the idea of a indie hardware platform to develop on because a hardware platform has constraints that the PC platform does not really have. I also really like how Panic is an independent company who have a sustainable business, have been very transparent and measured in how they talk about this device, and have been making real, material steps to get marginalised developers involved. For all these reasons, it's a platform I feel safe to want to involve myself in.

Yes, in the initial allocation. I'd probably have bought it even if it wasn't coming with any games at launch because it's such a nice bit of design, and I enjoy gameboy programming - the games at launch are a nice little bonus.

Honestly the price is reasonable. They can't take a loss on the hardware, it's a tiny production run, it's completely custom, and they're paying for games and a dev kit. Art costs money.

It's really funny how upset people get about this thing

I’m proud of myself for resisting. I’ve spent so much money on gaming hardware in the past 10 months that I need to slow down.

I've just seen the SDK and will play around with that. If it's easy enough to get something up and running, I'd love to throw some prototypes together and crank it some.

My Playdate arrived recently. Right on time for the Late 2021 shipping date. I've messed around with it a bit and started to look into development a bit Today.

My conclusion. It sucks. I didn't expect much and even then it's a huge disappointment.

Hate to say it, but as someone who had been excited since the day they announced, the whole experience left me cold. Few games utilized the crank to any significant degree (some ignored it entirely!), and there were general quality control issues across the board. I assumed I was paying for 24 high quality, curated games but barely a handful were notable for anything besides being on a Playdate.

I feel like this thing came and went. Wasn't the plan to ship a package of games on a semi-regular basis? Have new games launched yet or is it still the initial 24 that folks are still playing?

@big_denim: there was no plan to ship more games at the time of announcment but I believe they are working on a season 2 after how popular it was. It's not a main stream device so of course there's not a lot of talk about it, but there's tons of indie devs who have put out games for it since launch. It's neat I liked my time with mine a lot and pull it out ever so often to check out new stuff