Playdate Season 2, part one
Do you know the Playdate? The most hipsterish gaming console there is? It's a cute little yellow guy, with black-and-white graphics, the gimmick being that the system has a crank on the side, which games can use or not use.
When I first heard about it (from my brother, who had preordered one), I thought, the hell? What's THIS madness? What use have I for this little novelty thing? I've enough games, thanks! But my luddite tendencies were ultimately overcome by my lust for gadgetry (can those two impulses exist in the same person?), and I ordered one for myself. And it really is a lovely little thing, with some fun games (and a lot of not-so-fun ones, but hey, swings and roundabouts).
Anyway, one thing about the system is when you buy one, you get a "season" of twenty-four games to go with it. Initially, they were released on, I believe, a two-a-week schedule, so you'd have something new to play every week. I think that's quite a cool idea, but unfortunately, I got my Playdate some time after release, so I didn't get to participate in the sense of discovery. Darn! Well, now there's a season two, starting just the other day (only twelve rather than twenty-four games, though we're also promised a "special surprise"). So I'm going to participate and report back here. The first week consists of three games, which kinda bums me out; I think two a week is a good pace to draw things out a bit. Whatever! Okay, so these three games:
This is the sort of game that really feels naturally at home on the Playdate. You go on archelogical digs, each one constituting a single screen. You dig around, collect money, resources, and dinosaur bones, upgrade your equipment, and participate in a neat little story presented via text descriptions.
This is not, to be clear, a complex game; the gameplay is limited and pretty close to unchanging. I suppose there's a bit of strategy in that sometimes you have to clear large rocks overlapping other rocks to dig deeper, but really, you don't need to think about any of that to win. Does it get a bit on the repetitive side? Yeah, but I found that the gameplay loop of digging, upgrading, and reading cool descriptions compelling enough for me to see it through. Probably a normal person would play it in little bursts rather than binging it. Your mileage may vary.
I do have to say, though, I'm not too keen on the ending. I know I know, it's just a silly little thing however you cut it, but I dunno. Without spoiling anything, it ruined my sense of what I thought I was doing. You may like it; that's fine.
This is an arcade game, from the makers of FTL and Into the Breach, of all things. You control a circle in the center of the screen with a little shield protecting you; you have to use the crank to aim at an endless swarm of non-representational enemies coming at you. Sort of a reverse Tempest. When you get enough points kiling enemies (there are also point combos and things), you level up and get to choose between one of two new (randomized) abilities. You goal is to last ten minutes (though the game continues after that); this is fairly easily-achieved on easy and normal modes, but hard has so much of a difficulty spike that easy and normal might as well just be considered practice. My record is 1:41, and I'm skeptical that it'll get much better.
This is a satisfying, well-made game that wouldn't be possible (at least not in the same way) without the crank, which can be difficult to master but which allows for a great deal of precision. Hell, I'll probably take a few more whacks at hard mode one of these days.
Protip: take the bullet-speed increase if you can; it makes aiming A LOT easier. If you can get it to level two, bullets practically just appear on top of the enemies. And if you can combine that with the double and then triple shot, you'll be a force to be reckoned with.
Oh man. If there's any chance you're going to play this, I would strongly recommend stopping here and going in blind, as I did. Well, LAST CHANCE.
I knew that the Playdate could do audiovideo (someone ported Steamboat Willie to the system in commemoration of its public-domain-ness). But this takes it to quite another level. What we have here is a TV network with numerous channels (all with an eighties or early-nineties aesthetic) to flip through. You watch snippets of news, talk shows, sitcoms, cooking shows, financial reports, music videos, even the first scene of a softcore porn movie (SFW)--all with a slightly off-kilter, stilted, slightly Twin-Peaksy vibe. And yes, all rendered in glorious black and white with full sound. The production is very good, and the actors are fine (what an odd thing to put on your IMDB page).
In addition to the video (how much? Less than an hour, surely, but I couldn't really say), there are a handful of little, I don't know, bulletin boards with cryptic messages. But that's about it. There's a vague background story about aliens with a fun metafictional aspect (are there "peedees" on other planets?). And that's...it? Is there a metagame here to figuring out what to do? There may be, but if there is, I'm completely in the dark. I watched through most of the video a second time to try to glean something new, but no dice.
Or, it could just be a playful, inscrutable art object. And if so--great! I feel like given all the video, this has to have been the most expensive Playdate game (or "game") to produce. And there's sure as hell no profit motive, given the system's tiny userbase. I really appreciate that they did it.
posted by GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. at 1:22 PM
