For developers, Playdate is a delightful design challenge

digitaltrends.com:

Panic’s Playdate handheld is unlike any other video game system. It has ample storage and supports Bluetooth, but also has a 400 x 240, 1-bit monochrome display and a crank on the side of the system. New platforms are always a risk to invest in, especially when they are as weird and gimmicky as Playdate.

Despite that, Panic attracted some top-tier indie talent to make games for the system’s launch. From the man who created the iconic interactive Mario face in Super Mario 64 to the studios behind great titles like The King’s Bird and Backspace Bouken, plenty of developers are already testing the limits of what this cranky handheld can do.

Digital Trends spoke to three developers who created Playdate games ahead of its launch to discover what drew them to the system. I learned that making games for this quirky handheld is just as weird and fun as it seems as developers break new ground on a platform that’s unlike anything before it. Whether it’s figuring the right way to use that peculiar crank or finding out what being a third-party developer for the Playdate looks like, early adopters are writing the system’s first design rulebook.

Giles Goddard, the CEO of Chuhai Labs, helped create some iconic Nintendo games like Star Fox and Super Mario 64. Still, he was surprised when he first learned about the Playdate at BitSummit, a Japanese indie game event. When Nick Suttner, head of publishing at Panic, “discreetly” approached Goddard with the device, he was instantly intrigued.

“It was such a unique and cute-looking thing that we all became quite enamored by it!” he said. “The crank, super-crisp screen, and size make it the sort of device that you want to just pick up and play with all the time. So we wanted to make a simple