The Playdate is pretty bizarre. A pocketable gaming handheld, the device is a bright yellow square, about the size of a deck of cards. It sports a sharp monochrome screen (black and white), two buttons, and D-pad on its face, and then—inexplicably—a crank on its side. Its general vibe is simultaneously familiar (the two face buttons, monochrome screen) and uncanny (audio output is almost too good, and again that crank). Its quirkiness will either be central to its appeal, or immediately off-putting, depending on your own preferences.

For me—a middle-aged retro gaming enthusiast with intensely nostalgic childhood memories tied to the Game Boy—ordering a Playdate was a no-brainer. As soon as I saw the canary yellow square, I knew I had to have one, crank or no crank. But one has to wonder how far that appeal extends through the broader public. Do people of a similar generation share my admiration for Game Boy? How many kids today would have any interest in a black-and-white-screen handheld? Does the crank make this thing too ridiculous to ever take seriously?

Playdate comes to us from Panic, a company known for making Mac apps and publishing indie games like Firewatch and Untitled Goose Game, in cooperation with Teenage Engineering, the company who makes the Pocket Operator and other trendy audio equipment. If you’re a Portland hipster then chances are good you know of both of these companies. But even for those familiar with Panic, this small company creating a new handheld video game console would still seem an unlikely proposition. Like c’mon, who releases an original video game handheld in the 2020’s?

To make things even more interesting, Panic came up with a unique game distribution model for their new platform. Ordering a Playdate got you not only the device itself, but also an entire “season” of games, which unlocked gradually over time. When you first powered on and connected your Playdate to wifi, two games would become playable right away. Then, a week later, another two games would unlock. Season One was initially 22 unique games, which would be revealed to the player over the course of 11 weeks. However, two more were added later, bringing the total up to 24 games.

The inclusion of 24 games—essentially acting as a pack-in with the system—went a long way in justifying the purchase of a Playdate. But it was also an extremely novel experiment in influencing how players engaged with the system. Unfortunately it would turn out to be a largely failed experiment, but still novel nonetheless. The Season model of timed game releases had two potential benefits.

First, it encouraged players to engage with just one or two games for a certain amount of time. This is something like how, in the olden days of handheld gaming, kids usually only had a couple of Game Boy games to play. New titles were often acquired only on birthdays or as Christmas presents. And under such restrictions, we really played the hell out of the games we could access. Limiting the number of games available also helps avoid overwhelming the player with options, which is likely to result in some games being overlooked, or forgotten altogether.

Second, much like new episodes of a TV show released weekly, the Season model had the potential to get everyone talking about a game at the same time, and generate buzz for specific Playdate titles. If you were really impressed by Flipper Lifter, for example, and went online to tweet about it, perhaps you’d find other players discussing the game. In theory, the Season model presented its games in such a way to generate larger meta-conversations online. This would not only be good for Playdate, but also boost the visibility of its game developers.

Unfortunately, mitigating circumstances prevented Playdate’s season delivery model from reaching its full potential. Delays in Playdate shipments meant everyone got their devices much later than expected. Upon initial release, it seemed like you had to have been one of the very first people to preorder a device to have a chance at getting a Playdate, and even then only the luckiest few got them right away. Preordered units were shipped out in groups starting in April 2022, and it sounds like all orders were not fulfilled until the end of 2023. This meant that players received their devices at wildly different times.

Speaking of delays, Panic has advertised a Playdate Stereo Dock as “coming soon” for years now, however the accessory has yet to materialize. Their other accessory, a screen cover, came out at the same time as the Playdate and remains available, but the Stereo Dock has not. It has no price or release date and, despite appearing in promotional images on the Playdate website, it doesn’t seem to exist.

With everyone receiving their Playdates at various times, almost nobody was starting their season of games at the same time. This meant that even if you and a friend each got a Playdate, your games would not be unlocking on the same schedule, and you likely wouldn’t be engaging with the same games at the same time. The lack of synchronous experience killed much of the momentum for generating buzz online, and a large part of the Season model’s appeal was lost.

The Playdate’s season, instead of being like watching new episodes of a TV show released weekly, felt more like watching a DVD of the show long after it had been released, but arbitrarily limiting yourself to only watching one episode per week. (And now this metaphor isn’t really useful to us anymore, sorry.) Eventually Panic just gave people the option to abandon the season release schedule altogether and unlock all games immediately anyway. In my case though, I did follow the Season model and experienced my games in pairs made available on a weekly schedule, as God intended.

In March 2023, about a year after handheld first started shipping, Panic rolled out Catalog, an app store users can access on Playdate. With the inclusion of Catalog, players can now purchase and download new games directly from their device. While Catalog is surely a vital service for the long term feasibility of the platform, having access to it makes Playdate’s Season One experiment even more irrelevant. To the point that it seems almost impossible they would make a Season Two.

OK, so Season One turned out not to be a paradigm shift in digital distribution, but how is the Playdate overall? Honestly, it’s pretty great. The shell design is quite good. With a slim profile, it is extremely pocketable. However, the design could be more ergonomic. It’s just a little too much of a flat square to be comfortable for long play sessions.

The 2.7-inch screen is monochrome and just 1 bit—meaning pixels are either ON or OFF—so this purely black and white, shades of gray are not possible. But it looks surprisingly sharp, almost like old LCD games in terms of crispness. The 400×240 pixel grid makes an ideal canvas for 1-bit Game Boy-esque pixel art. The audio is incredibly good, with impressive sound quality coming out of the device’s little speaker. If I had to guess, this audio quality is probably part of Teenage Engineering’s contribution to the design, since that’s kind of what they’re known for.

The crank—while it might still be a dumb gimmick—is actually quite versatile, and Playdate devs have come up with some surprisingly cool uses for it. It seems that when there’s a need for some analog input, it tends to come in handy. Some games are played entirely with crank controls, and others hardly use it at all. The first two games of Season One, Whitewater Wipeout and Casual Birder, feature two contrasting examples of crank utilization. Whitewater Wipeout uses the crank as the main control input, while Casual Birder only uses it for adjusting the focus of the player’s camera.

While its games generally play well, I do have to wonder if the Playdate is a tad light on RAM or processing power. You can install a Playdate Simulator on a computer and play your games that way, but if you do, you might notice the performance of the Simulator is often better than the Playdate itself. In terms of data storage, the Playdate has 4GB of flash memory. Since the total size of Season One titles is 1.1GB, you will definitely have plenty of room to install more games.

It must also be said that the Playdate’s menus and general UX design are exceptionally good. Not only is it simple and easy to intuit your way around the interface, but almost every visual cue is adorably charming. From the anthropomorphic touch of how pressing the Lock Button twice awakens the Playdate with two sleepy cartoon eyes groggily opening on screen, to the way newly unlocked games appear as boxed presents needing to be dramatically unwrapped, every aspect of the device’s interface is steeped in playful whimsy.

The Playdate manages to exude the sleek simplicity of an Apple product, though one injected with color and an abundance of personality. Plus with Panic being a Mac app developer, the visual similarity feels almost predestined. And yet, as a video game platform, Playdate is the complete opposite of an Apple product. Instead of making a closed system, one in which all games need to be purchased and downloaded through a marketplace they control—as Apple would do—Panic decided to make the Playdate an open system. They made it so open, in fact, that Catalog (the official Playdate app store) didn’t launch until almost a year after the device’s release.

As such, players are freely able to sideload games onto the Playdate, regardless of where they were acquired. This means you can buy games on itch.io (or some other digital marketplace) or download games directly from a developer’s website, and then sideload them onto your device to play just like any other title. No need to jailbreak the handheld, no hacking required; Panic even explains exactly how to do this. And since the Playdate has plenty of storage capacity to use, you might as well install more games. It’s so cool, such a refreshing take on digital distribution, it instantly fosters goodwill with your playerbase. I honestly cannot believe more tech companies aren’t doing stuff like this all the time.

Alright, now as we usually do with device reviews, let’s discuss the Playdate in terms of its Price, Ease of Setup, and overall Quality of Experience.

Price

To order my Playdate I paid $179, plus tax & shipping, with the total cost coming to $213.69. The price has since increased to $199, so new buyers are likely looking at spending around $230 or so. You of course get 24 games included with your device. So depending on how you estimate the value of those titles, this price could be considered a bargain or a ripoff.

At some point, Panic had revealed to the public that each Playdate costs around $103 to manufacture. Looking at the $199 price tag, subtracting $103 for hardware costs, and considering the included 24 game titles, it would appear that players are getting those games for about $4 each. Sounds like a fair deal to me!

Still, for many folks spending $200+ on a new portable gaming device, one with only two face buttons and a monochrome screen, will be a tough sell. Especially given the ubiquity of relatively inexpensive Chinese-manufactured gaming handhelds on the market today—many of which have the ability to play every portable game ever made, and then some!—the Playdate’s price tag might simply look too high.

Personally, I think this device is absolutely worth it. I haven’t felt an ounce of buyer’s remorse with the Playdate, which is not something I can say for most of the retro gaming handhelds I’ve purchased in recent years. But of course, your mileage my vary.

Ease of Setup

One key strength of the Playdate is how easy it is to work with. Just connect the device to your local wifi network and it will take care of the rest. It is extremely straightforward to install your games and start playing. And again the Playdate interface is so intuitive and incredibly charming, that even just stumbling through the menus is fun.

If that wasn’t enough, you can also hook up your yellow handheld to a computer and install the Playdate SDK. This has a full “Playdate Simulator” app which can run games on your local machine. If you’re ambitious enough, the SDK can even enable you to create your own games for the platform. I mean, c’mon…that’s amazing!

Quality of Experience

In terms of hardware and UI, the Playdate is exceptionally high quality. Sure, the flat square design lends itself more to pocketability than to good ergonomics. But it seems likely that you’d probably be playing the device more often in short bursts than in extended play sessions.

The screen looks super sharp and its high-contrast makes images very clear. However it’s worth noting that, just like the Game Boys of yore, the Playdate’s screen is not backlit. This handheld cannot be played in the dark without an external light source. If you have lamp in the room or a little book light handy, you should be fine. But if you’re sitting in the backseat of the family minivan on a late evening’s drive back home, you might not be able to see anything.

The Playdate is not backlit and requires an external light source.

At this point, I suppose we should probably talk about the games themselves. The 24 games included in Playdate’s Season One really do cover a wide range of styles and genres, and—as is usually the case for a video game console (portable or otherwise)—the games you can play on it will either make or break the platform. Listed below is each Season One title with a super brief description:

Whitewater Wipeout - Crank-controlled Surfing game
Casual Birder - Pokemon-like Bird Photography RPG
Crankin's Time Travel Adventure - Crank-controlled Time Manipulation game
Boogie Loops - Rhythm/Music game
Lost Your Marbles - Pinball-style gameplay inside a Visual Novel
Pick Pack Pup - Match-3 Puzzle game
Flipper Lifter - Arcadey Elevator Action game
Echoic Memory - Music Puzzle game
Omaze - Circle Traversing Puzzle game
DemonQuest 85 - Old-school RPG with an 80’s theme
Zipper - Samurai-themed Strategy/Puzzle game
Hyper Meteor - Asteroids-style Action game
Questy Chess - Strategy RPG built around Chess Pieces
Executive Golf DX - Golf Puzzle game set in an office building
Saturday Edition - Old-school Adventure game
Star Sled - Space Action game, a bit like Asteroids crossed with Qix
Spellcorked! - Crafting RPG
Inventory Hero - Card-based RPG about inventory management
Snak - Snake game that allows the player to jump
Sasquatchers - Strategy RPG
Forrest Byrnes: Up in Smoke - Auto-scrolling 2D Platformer
Battleship Godios - Old-school Space Shooter
b360 - Block-breaking game, like Breakout crossed with Tempest
Ratcheteer - Topdown Action Adventure

Of the Season One lineup, several games are incredibly interesting concepts that you really need to check out. Whether or not you will click with these titles is hard to say, but their novel ideas are deserving of your attention. I would put Questy Chess, Omaze, Echoic Memory, Zipper, and b360 in this “Definitely Interesting” category. But if we’re talking about which games are the most fun to play, my personal favorites are Hyper Meteor, Star Sled, and Pick Pack Pup.

While it’s basically just another Match-3 game, Pick Pack Pup innovates on the classic puzzler style enough to distinguish itself. And it’s perfectly executed on Playdate. Honestly, I love Pick Pack Pup so much that I’d go so far as to call it the handheld’s killer app. If you never expanded your game library past Season One, you could still squeeze hours of chill puzzling fun out of this one title. It’s fantastic.

For more discussion of specific games, see our post of Playdate game reviews.

Wrapping up…

Now I have thoroughly enjoyed the Playdate and can recommend the handheld without hesitation, but that’s kind of to be expected because I am squarely in the target demographic. As stated at the start of this review, I'm a middle-aged retro gaming enthusiast who’s all about the Game Boy, so of course I’m going to like this thing. Old folks like me are predisposed to appreciate even those aspects of the Playdate which others might consider weaknesses. But kids today probably couldn’t be bothered to try it, right?

Well no, at least not in my personal experience. Not sure if it’s the continued popularity of Pokemon or the constant recycling of 80’s & 90’s pop culture or what, but today’s youth can be just as interested in Game Boys (and Game Boy-likes) as my generation had been. At times they appear even more enthusiastic for this stuff.

When I first received my Playdate, I brought it to a dinner party with my old soccer team friends and the event had several kids in attendance. The reason I brought the handheld was actually to show it to Mike, but one of my friends’ kids saw it first and asked to take it for a spin. He dove right into Whitewater Wipeout, the device’s first game to be presented to players, a surfing sim played entirely with the crank.

Considering how unwieldy I found the surfing controls to be, I thought he’d surely get frustrated and drop it quickly. After all, the next game available to play, Casual Birder, was quite similar to Pokemon, so I thought surely he’d spend more time with that one. But to my surprise, the kid wasn’t frustrated by the crank surfing at all. He really got into doing tricks, pulling off bigger and bigger moves, and setting new high scores.

Over the course of the evening this kid absolutely mastered Whitewater Wipeout. First he was pumped to get a high score above 1000 points—eclipsing my own (pathetic) best score by a factor of 10—but then he managed to double that feat. Really the only thing slowing him down was that his little sister also wanted to play the handheld and good manners dictated that he share. A month or so later, at another event with the same friend group, the children again got a chance to play the Playdate. This time the kid obliterated his previous surfing high scores, going past 2000, 3000, and 4000 points on a few occasions. Looking at my Playdate now, the top score is 8119, and it definitely wasn’t me who reached that number.

Much like we’ve seen with classic arcade games, the appeal of old-school handheld game consoles might potentially be timeless. Kids went crazy for the Game Boy in the 90’s and kids still appreciate a similar style of portable games these days. Which isn’t to say that the Playdate is primarily for youngsters, or that your kids in particular will love this handheld—just that the appeal of the little yellow square is perhaps more universal than one would expect. Given a little hands-on time, the Playdate can win over just about anybody.