By Todd Russell
In 2022, this yellow portable gaming device with a crank called Playdate (https://play.date/) was released and we covered it in 2024 here: Playdate the Portable Gaming Device with BW Screen and Crank for $199 – PlayGamesMore
It still seems dramatically overpriced at $200 and is “deskshit” according to one PGM member and yeah, looks exactly like the picture above but with one unique twist: the crank.
The crank!
The dev section is here: https://play.date/dev/ where games can be sideloaded using Lua programming language, the same language used to create the fantasy game system Pico-8 (https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php).
We haven’t talked much about PICO-8 at PGM and it’s an oversight, definitely. There is a community of indie game creators around these games.
“A fantasy console is like a regular console, but without the inconvenience of actual hardware. PICO-8 has everything else that makes a console a console: machine specifications and display format, development tools, design culture, distribution platform, community and playership. It is similar to a retro game emulator, but for a machine that never existed. PICO-8’s specifications and ecosystem are instead designed from scratch to produce something that has its own identity and feels real. Instead of physical cartridges, programs made for PICO-8 are distributed on .png images that look like cartridges, complete with labels and a fixed 32k data capacity.” – via FAQ for PICO-8 Fantasy Console
My co-host Bradygoat and I scrapped a bit in the PGM Discord because I confused with the idea that these two are one in the same. They are not, of course. One is a virtual fantasy console using the Lua programming language, the other is a portable gaming device with a crank that runs games using Lua. It’s like saying anything that runs in Linux will run on a Steam Deck. That’s sort of accurate, but misleading.
The point I was trying to make to Brady is that Playdate can more easily run PICO-8 games since they are already programmed in Lua. I remembered when first looking at this a couple years ago that they both used Lua. Of course I didn’t say that in the Discord, which was my mistake, my bad. Discord to me, anyway, is more chatty and given to streams of thoughts. I use it for a diary and notes and quick thoughts. Sometimes, a lot of times really, those things make it into better researched and more well written articles here — but not always.
But what about that crank? That’s the only reason, in my opinion anyway, to be interested in Playdate. The crank is the unique control you can’t get elsewhere, unless you create your own. I like that crank as an unusual, unique game control. I wondered how many Playdate games use that crank?
And also, I wondered, what if we made our own crank? Just something simple and not super gamified. I’d need in order to test it buying one of these Playdates and I just haven’t pulled the trigger to do spend the $200. I have several creative, but probably mostly stupid crank game ideas. Minigames really.
Like see if you can crank the PGM logo up a ladder with oncoming objects, when you’re not cranking the sign falls with gravity. Almost like a Flappy Bird type game but using the crank instead of pushing a button. Yeah, not a great idea maybe, but hey, an idea!