The upcoming indie handheld gaming console Playdate is getting a video showcase next week, on June 8. The video showcase will reveal more details about the handheld, as well as information about the games that will launch alongside the console, and Season One of the Playdate.
The Playdate is an indie-focused handheld from Panic, the publisher of 2019’s highly successful Untitled Goose Game. It’s a small yellow square with two buttons and should look familiar to anyone who owned a Game Boy. Unlike the Game Boy, the Playdate has a crank on the side that can be used in a variety of ways.
One of the ways the crank is used is in Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure, one of the games revealed for the handheld so far. The game stars a cute little robot who is trying to get to his date on time, and is controlled exclusively by using the crank to control time.
Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure comes from video game auteur Keita Takahashi, known for gems like Noby Noby Boy, Wattam, and most notably the Katamari Damacy series. In addition to Keita Takahashi, several other notable indie developers are set to release games for the console as part of Season One. Chuck Jordan, a writer for Telltale Games, Bennett Foddy of Getting Over It, and Zach Gage, known for indie games like Tharsis and Really Bad Chess, are all developing games for the Season One lineup.
Another charming feature of the Playdate is that every Playdate is a Playdate dev kit as well. That is to say, anyone who owns a Playdate can develop and release games for it.
A notable departure from other consoles is the business model, and the currently announced Season One. Instead of buying the console, then having to buy a bunch of games in order to have anything to play, the Playdate will come with 24 free games over the course of the first 12 weeks of the handheld’s launch. These games will be available to anyone who paid the $179 that the system will launch for.
A wealth of new details for the intriguing little console are sure to come with the Playdate video showcase next week, at 9 a.m. PDT, on June 8.
