Board 8 > Suprak's Playdate Play Date (Playing Through EVERY Playdate Game)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Two years ago I pre-ordered a Playdate. I just got it in the mail today. Today I embark on my epic quest to actually play the thing, and after waiting this long I am going to get my money's worth out of this thing.

But I'm sure you've got questions! Let me preempt that by answering everything I know you're thinking!

Sorry, I clicked this topic by accident. Can I leave?
No. You're trapped here until I finish. Each time you click away from this topic, somebody out there in the world will die. Some will say that's coincidence and people die every second anyway, but do you really want to take that chance?

Ok, fine. What the hell is this "Playdate" and why haven't I heard of it?
It's this! https://play.date/

I'm not clicking that link. You told me people would die.
Oh yeah, I did say that. Fair enough. Well, the Playdate is this weird little handheld system that was first announced a couple of years ago. Literally. I placed my pre-order in September of 2021. Things got delayed multiple times due to microchip shortages, and they are literally fulfilling the final pre-orders for this thing right now. Think of it as a sort of spiffy looking Game Boy. You have a directional button, an A and B button, and a crank.

A crank? That sounds like a gimmick.
Probably is. But it looks cool! Some games use the crank in various ways. I'm guessing there will be a lot of fishing games on here.

What sort of games will you be playing?
ALL OF THEM

All of them?
Yes. Well, maybe. Until I get bored. I checked and there are 79 games released so far. Most of them look pretty short and I don't think there are any Persona 4 equivalents lurking on here. You actually get 24 of them for "free" as a part of the purchase of the system. It is released as a season, with two of them dropping every week (although you can apparently speed this up as it has been forever since the games first released now). I have no idea if there will be a second season, but there is a store now where you can buy other games ala carte.

Drop some hot details on some of the games you're looking forward to!
I honestly have no idea. I sort of forgot about this until I got an email the other day saying it was coming. I charged it today, opened it up and saw I had two games waiting for me, then made this topic. Now you know as much as I do! I did look for information out there, but there really isn't any. I don't see reviews anywhere (other than whole system reviews) and considering this has sold a whopping 50k so far, I can't imagine there are a lot of sources for hot Playdate info.

Ok. There. There's all the questions you have. If you think you have more questions, you don't. That was comprehensive.

I'll be posting my thoughts along the way, and ranking games as I finish them! Feel free to join me in my quest or comment if you're one of the other weirdos that has this as well.

Games playing: None
Games complete: 0/79

Game rankings: N/A

crap i'm trapped

i need to go to work in a few hours can you hurry up

Tell your boss you're gonna be late.

Currently Playing: Whitewater Wipeout

So I picked this game first based on the very scientific method of it being first in my queue. The home menu of the Playdate is basically just a list of games you have, and this one was on top.

It is...uh...a very simple surfing game. You are a surfer and you have three attempts to get as many points as possible. You surf to the left and jump and you earn points with how high you jump and how many spins you do. So can chain combos together and each run ends when you wipeout.

It isn't bad, and it at least shows off the crank since that's the only thing you use to control things. You navigate with the crank, and when you jump you rotate the crank to turn your surfer and rack up those sweet, sweet points. It does have a bit of a tech demo-y feel to it. Like "oh hey look at this cool thing you can do with the Playdate" and you're like "uh huh ok that's fine - where are the actual games"? It has like Game & Watch vibes to it where you just have one little game with one little mechanic and your job is to get as good at that one mechanic as you can.

The game has online leaderboards, which is always cool. Gives me something to chase. That's a plus!

A minus is I've never been a huge fan of these arcade style point chasers. I played for roughly twenty minutes before spending the next twenty minutes checking the store to see what else I could be playing instead. I'll probably play this one a bit more tomorrow and try to top my score, then move on to greener pastures.

Time Played: 20 minutes
High Score: 5540
Beaten? Technically, I guess. You can't really beat it
Grade: Leaning towards a D+, C- kinda range. Not bad. Functional. Very minimalist and not in a style I usually like.
Favorite Part So Far: I hit a bird with my surfboard and the game said "BIRD UP" and I have absolutely no clue what that means but I was like "hell yeah, bird up, bitches."

whitewater wipeout at least has the best trailer of any playdate game probably

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X781_LH9PN8

Exciting thread!

UF8 do you have a Playdate? I've been waiting for them to start officially shipping them to New Zealand, but I'm starting to doubt whether it will ever happen.

no but one of my ex-flatmates did

never actually got to try it out myself

been thinking about finally getting one of my own, just haven't been able to afford it yet

Tag

Is your 79 figure just counting the Season 1 games and whats released on Catalog? If you include games you can sideload after downloading on your PC (mostly from itch.io) Im pretty sure the number is higher

WazzupGenius00 posted...

Is your 79 figure just counting the Season 1 games and whats released on Catalog? If you include games you can sideload after downloading on your PC (mostly from itch.io) Im pretty sure the number is higher

Yep, just going off those for now! Basically, whatever GameFAQs has listed as an official release is included.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/search_advanced?token=comp_reviews-142

I didn't even know you could sideload other games, so thanks for the heads up! Those won't be included in those project, but that's still something fun to note if I'm looking for other stuff to play. Let me know if there are any recommendations!

Tag! Thrilled to see a thread for this. I've been interested in Playdate for some time, but haven't been able to justify the top-shelf asking price (also, and I know they can't do much about it, but that waitlist almost seems like a gamble at this point). Maybe that new Lucas Pope project can finally sway my hand.

Currently Playing: Whitewater Wipeout

Bad news is I've forgotten the name of this game like four times now. I go to type Whitewater Rapids or Wavewater Wipeout or something and have to go and check what the name is again. Gotta get away from generic titles going forward, guys.

Ok. so some more bad news here. This is less fun than I thought. I mentioned a sort of Game & Watch feel initially, but it isn't quite there. The game isn't really "endless", which is something I didn't discover until I had tried to see how long I can surf for. There is a wave coming behind you that can wipe you out, but also eventually the wave you're riding on goes back down to ocean level. I guess it is good for the world of the game because that means the endless tsunami has finally ended, but less good for the actual game because I feel like that sort of defeats the purpose of these kinds of games. Like it isn't that the wave speeds up behind you or you can fall if you don't rack up enough points quickly enough. The game just goes "ok, that's enough I have better things to do" and saunters on off after a minute or so.

Also, this game is absolutely terrible at explaining what the hell you need to do. There is no manual anywhere to sort of teach you what you need to be doing. Apparently at the crest of the waves if you press up you'll jump higher, which is kind of important because it allows you to get that extra height you need to pull off more rotations on your flips. I found this out through one of the four Youtube videos on the game. This is the sort of thing they could've put together an instruction manual for in literally two minutes. Here: "You control your surfer with the crank and press up at the top of the waves for extra height. Chain together multiple tricks for higher points and if you try to play for more than a minute at a time we will come to your house and beat you up for being a nerd." That's literally all the info the game needs. Well, maybe. I have no clue if I'm missing anything else because I didn't know that jump mechanic until about an hour in.

I think I'm almost done with this one. It is a fun little way to show off the crank but this really is "tech demo" territory for me. This doesn't feel like a full game and unless you're a fan of simple arcade style point chasers, I don't think most people will stick with this for more than an hour or so. It is good enough for you to be like "hey this console thing is kinda neat" but boring enough that your immediate second thought is likely to be "ok what can you really play on this thing?"

Time Played: 2 hours
High Score: 22904
Beaten? I got all the way to the end of a wave! That counts as beaten right? I'm in the top 5k of points right now which might be impressive if there weren't only 50k of these devices out there total.
Grade: Like a 3/10. I don't hate it but it isn't a full game.
Favorite Part So Far: I was killed by a fucking shark, guys. I didn't even know there were sharks in this game. I played for almost two hours and I think I saw a shark one time and I crashed into it. Would've been better if my little arm floated up a couple of seconds later followed by panicked screaming though.

I only know exactly 1 Playdate game, so I'm curious what the other 78 are.

They've got a tutorial for sideloading right on the official site: https://help.play.date/games/sideloading/

Most of the good games I had sideloaded have since come out on Catalog, so not sure I have any recommendations right now. Feel free to browse the playdate tag on itch: https://itch.io/games/tag-playdate

That's it. I'm calling this one.

Game #1 Complete! Whitewater Wipeout
Final Thoughts: It was a game or at least almost a game. That much I'm willing to say for sure. I will say that I think it was a good idea to include this in the first season of week 1. It at least shows off the crank, which is important. The sort of precision it gives you in the controls here is impressive, and it feels a lot more satisfying to land a flip using the crank that it would've on a standard controller. Like, if this was a PS5 game, it would've been a 1/10 sort of experience. It was kinda fun pulling of a 3x 360, landing it perfectly, then going back up for a second one. But I didn't really have the desire to keep trying it.

Score chasing helps, some, but honestly I was struggling to force myself to keep playing this. Like I was like "hey I should play again!" and then I'd give it another run and go "oh yeah that's why I stopped". YMMV if you're huge on Game & Watch style score chasers, but to me this is a fun little demo of the crank and that's it. Something you play when you get your system then tuck away forever.

Should you play it? I mean, why not. If you get the Playdate it comes preloaded and it shows off the crank in a cool way. I wouldn't play it for long, but see how it works and then move on.

Final Score: 3/10

Game Rankings:
2) Whitewater Wipeout
1) Whatever I play next, most likely

Oh, I guess I can update the completed number now!

Games Completed: 1/79
Coming up next: Casual Birder

Casual Birder is the other week 1 release for season 1, so it also came preloaded. It appears to be a game about taking pictures of birds. I did google out of curiosity and "birder" is a real word that means bird watcher. Thank you, Playdate, for teaching me a new word today.

Tag

I've never heard of this and that's such a completely bizarre concept but I'm intrigued and kinda want one even though it doesn't look super good

On to games 2 & 3! I started Casual Birder and have some thoughts on that, but I also started on Recommendation Dog and I "finished" the story mode so I'll talk about that first even though I'm not done with it.

Currently Playing: Recommendation Dog

What Is It? Uh so it is sort of like Papers, Please, where instead of inspecting passports to let people into a country you are a dog and finding matches for peoples' job requests.

Thoughts: This one is an interesting one. It is sort of like Papers, Please but scaled down. A lot. I beat the story mode in roughly 15 minutes on my second attempt. I only didn't beat it on my first attempt because I didn't figure out the mechanics quickly enough and failed a couple of times.

So, essentially, you are a dog. You run a temp agency, as most dogs do. People keep coming into your office asking for something. It is usually along the lines of "hey I need a gardener that is expensive and unreliable" which seems like a bad combo but hey, what do I know. I'm a dog. You can then move down to your rolodex and you use the crank to go through it. Each entry in the rolodex has what the person does (so gardener or vet or knight) then rankings in five categories (speed, cost, reliability, quality, and charisma). There is also a name given, but I don't think that's actually used for anything.

You scroll through the rolodex to find what the person is looking for. Sometimes they're like "I want a vet!" and that's it so boom, find a vet, done. Sometimes though they are like that vet needs to be charismatic because my puppy is picky and you have to go through entries that fit both. Pick an uncharismatic vet or take too long and you get a strike. Three strikes and you're out, presumably kicked out of your cushy job because they realized you are a dog and not a person. You get extra points for matching the request better (so say if there is someone with a charisma of a 7 they'll accept it but you'll get less points then if you find someone with a 9).

I kinda like it. I think. It is Papers, Please Lite (well, extra lite, really) but that's still enough to be kinda fun. I liked scrolling through, quickly finding what I was looking for, and then jumping back into the next request. It is a simple puzzle game but it still scratches that itch and it does just enough to be enjoyable. I plan on playing a bit more even though I already cleared the story mode, so that's at least something.

But, again, not great. Like it feels like they didn't finish this. This one got featured on the "playdate podcast" and they mentioned the developer was tasked with finishing this and one other game over a six month period, and I have to assume they worked on that second game for however long six months minus two days is. It is endless rolodex scrolling. You know, that sounds more damning than I actually meant it to be, but that's really all you're doing here. I don't know how much time they really spent on this after that initial concept was thrown out, and I feel like this is the kind of game you'd expect out of a weekend Game Jam. Like if you saw this game you'd be like "oh man what a cool little game to come out of a game jam" and then I'd tell you a team spent six months on it and you would call me a damn liar and punch me in my face.

I think most of the time here went into giving characters funny names. Or "funny" names. I think they're supposed to be clever. I imagine six people sitting around a table shouting out names for four months and that was a majority of the development time. Here are some of my favorites: Rol Odex. An artist named Oblate Spheroid. A chocolatier named Herschel Bar. Truly gut busting stuff here. I think some of the requests are also supposed to be funny, but those are even dumber. Primarily because this is a timed task and I don't have time to be reading all these "hilarious" requests for expensive plumbers. I just quickly scan to see what I'm looking for then jump into the search.

Also, I feel like they missed an opportunity to do something more. I scroll for job title, check statistics, and go through more if that one doesn't fit. There has to be more clever ways to iterate on this concept. Do something with names or put in something I need to review that isn't just a series of numbers, I dunno. Something. Maybe identify something on their pictures (which are all unique) or something else like that as well. There are ways to make this concept better, and it feels like they didn't try. It feels lazy, honestly, like someone had this idea but didn't want to put too much work into it.

Time Played: 1 hour
High Score: 55000 or so
Beaten? Yep. Beating story mode unlocks endless mode and I've been playing around with that for a bit now and I'll probably do another couple of runs before I call this "complete".
Grade: Hm. Maybe a 5? Somewhere in that range. I like it, but I feel like they went more basic than they needed to. There was a way to build this up more and they just didn't try.
Favorite Part So Far: When you beat the main game the final request is for a "good boy" and you check your rolodex and it is only you, the goodest of boys. Adorable 10/10 no notes on this.

Currently Playing: Casual Birder

What Is It? Adventure game where you take pictures of birds and try not to get beat up by more aggressive birders.

Playthrough Notes: I've decided that for actual games like this, I'll do some brief notes in a sort of playthrough kinda style. Or, at least I'll plan to do that until I get bored and want to stop.

-Game starts off with me getting moved into a new house by a man who may or may not have stared in 70's porno movies..
-Don't know who this guy is dropping me off, but his mustache is out of control.
-I already moved your stuff in, so youre all set. Wow. A+ moving company right here. Would recommend to any friends you have moving into the Casual Birder universe.
-Youre a pretty brave kid, movin to a town like this. Aw fuck I moved to Cleveland, didnt I?
-Do you even know anything about bird photography??? No, Im more of an expert in bird law. But I can learn!
-Oh my phone has a camera in it. So this is modern times I suppose.
-Haha the moving guy tells me to take a picture of the bobi nearby and I explore and try to go inside instead and he YELLS AT ME TO TAKE A PICTURE OF THAT BOBI. That has to be the first time someone has every yelled that phrase, ever.
-Snapped my first bird pick! You focus with the crank to make sure you get some of that Playdate functionality thrown in there.
-This is a black-bodied bobi. They hang around and fly into peoples houses, is what the description said. Damn, birds in Bird Town are aggressive.
-I show the guy my bobi pic. This is how Tinder works, I think.
-He gets a call right afterwards though. Hes part of Modos Go Co, and their motto is Where were pretty good at moving because lifting stuff isnt that hard for us on account of our muscles! Gotta rework that catchphrase, man. Never going to fit that on a park bench.
-This person has to move IMMEDIATELY because they have a bad roommate that never installed their air conditioner. I think this guy mightve gotten roommate confused with landlord but, sure.
-Modo has to bounce, but he tells me the move is free. Modo, this is just bad business practice, man. I worry about you.
-Apparently as a trade off, I need to give this girl he likes a package. Theres a whole subcategory on Pornhub for this, I think.
-Watch out for Bad Birders. What does THAT mean?
-I go explore a bit and find a bird in the direction opposite of where Im supposed to go. Does this make me a bad birder? How do I join the bad birder club? Do they have matching jackets? I have so many questions.
-This bird is the truck feathered gronkie. Honk, honk! Here comes the Gronk! is what the description said which I also think is what Rob Gronkowski used to say whenever he caught the football.
-I should probably KonMari these books. Uh. Is that a phrase Im supposed to be familiar with.
-Ok google says it is a cleaning method. This must be why Im not familiar with it, on account of me being a no good dirty slob.
-My milk is past the expiration datebut I just moved in??? Probably shouldnt have packed up your expired milk then, friend.
-I inspect my bed and find out I have a stuffed from named P.P. McFrog. What does the P.P. stand for? Pee pee.
-Next screen a snap a shot of the junkbird, which is apparently a gross type of garbage bird if the description is to be believed. Poor Oscar the Grouch bird. I still love you.
-Youre disgusting, bird! Wow, didnt know there would be bird shaming in this game. Poor, poor junkbird.
-I get some worms from the shop although I have no clue how to use them.
-Oh wait! I can cycle through what my action button is with the crank. Oh ok cool. So this is going to be a quirky little adventure game. Im down for that!
-Shop owner says shes so tired and someone usually brings her coffee. I make a note because this will be a puzzle later, Im sure.
-Youre not ready to hear what I have to say to you, dweeb. Im not ready for such hurtful language WAAAAAAAAH ITS TRUE
-I apparently cant talk to her until I have more life experience, which Im assuming means more than three pictures of birds. Bird Town is rough on new birders.
-The bartender wont talk to me because I look too young, which is funny because Im pretty sure this sprite is a 12 year old.
-Also birder reveals he is old. 35. Haha. Yeah, who would ever be that old, am I right? Guys?
-There is a trenchcoat weirdo behind the bar who offers to trade shoes with me. Mine squeak when they walk and he says his new ones dont. I dunno man my momma always told me not to switch shoes with perverts lurking in the shadows.
-Oh you know what, actually maybe I need these. Maybe my squeaky shoes will make it hard to sneak up on birds.
-Ok pervert! Give me your shoes. I guess Ill just be happy he didnt show me his dong at any point during our two conversations.
-I go to the next screen and three bullies show up and taunt me for being a casual birder!
-OH GOD ITS THE BAD BIRDERS I WAS WARNED ABOUT. PLEASE DONT MAKE FUN OF MY PITIFUL 3 BIRD PHOTO COLLECTION!
-I bet you take pictures with your phone, Scrubjay. Hurtful. And accurate. So double hurtful.
-Holy shit she straight up punches me out. Wow. Bad birders are no joke, guys.

Ok, that's it for now! So far, I'm interested. This at least has the appearance of a full, actual game which is nice. It lasted longer than 15 minutes so it already puts it in the running for best Playdate game thus far.

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

Favorite Part So Far: When you beat the main game the final request is for a "good boy" and you check your rolodex and it is only you, the goodest of boys. Adorable 10/10 no notes on this.

this is the kind of thing that i'd expect to see people post about online as a missed opportunity and i'd think "damn, that's such a good idea, the devs should've done that" so major props to them for actually doing it

Dels posted...

this is the kind of thing that i'd expect to see people post about online as a missed opportunity and i'd think "damn, that's such a good idea, the devs should've done that" so major props to them for actually doing it

Yeah it was definitely a cute way to wrap things up.

Johnbobb posted...

Tag

I've never heard of this and that's such a completely bizarre concept but I'm intrigued and kinda want one even though it doesn't look super good

I'm only 3 or so games in right now, but yeah the library isn't anything crazy impressive. The screen is small and the worst thing is THERE IS NO BACK LIGHTING. Like, this was announced but I didn't read too much about it before pre-ordering it because I'm bad at impulse purchasing weird niche gaming things. But I do a lot of my handheld gaming at night in bed and it makes it impossible to play because my spouse is trying to sleep.

Game quality is also very much itch.io. Like, good itch.io but still itch.io. Like "oh hey that was kind neat" but nothing here is coming near a best of all time list. And I'm playing the "good" games still so I'm afraid of what's hiding in the depths here.

No backlighting is insane

It is such a genuinely bizarre choice that (and this isn't a joke) I actually Googled to see if this was intentional or if my Playdate was just broke. I was like 90% sure mine was just broken because they wouldn't make a thing in 2022 that didn't have backlighting...right?

their intro video is very well-produced and the product looks so cute and sleek. it made me want one even though i know the games wouldn't be very deep. i feel it has more value as just, idk what you'd call it, a collector's item, something that you own just because it feels good to own it and have it in your hands but not for, like, the actual games.

Ok, so I've decided for story based games like this one I'll do a playthrough post, then a thoughts post sort of separately. Assume there are spoilers in the playthrough posts going forward, so if you're looking to join the legion of 50k gamers with this at some point in the future, you might want to skim the playthrough posts.

Casual Birder Playthrough (Con't):
-I wake up in some old ladies house. Both my kidneys appear to be in my body still, so Ill assume this is a friend.
-I check her bookshelf and it says wading birds eat all sorts of things INCLUDING acorns. Yep yep acorn puzzle coming up, got it.
-This womans name is Old Meg or at least thats what people call her. I hope theres at least a young Meg out there as well so the nickname is less hurtful.
-Oh, the present is for her. Well, puzzle one solved thank you very much.
-Mustache Man left a note on it calling her his dearest Magpie which is a bizarre term of endearment.
-Its a photo diary, but she says shes too old for it and those mean birders make it hard anyway. You're never too old to bird, lady.
-This town used to be pure, kid. Man, if I made a list of sentences I did not want to hear from old people, this is all the way at the top behind only help my colon is leaking again.
-That gang is called the Pearly Eyed Thrashers, and theyre pushing all other birders out of the hobby. Truly this is the worst thing to happen to birdwatching since pigeons.
-Theres some photo contest going on, but the gang of bad birders has won the past three years through underhanded and violent methods. Ok, well, good to know. I think Ill be moving, now
-Hmmmyou seem like youre pretty okay with getting smacked around a bit I dont know what gave you that impression but I assure you it isnt the case.
-Hm. Theres some legendary bird that is migrating through town for the first time in 100 years. Im assuming thats the final boss photo I need to take, then.
-The old woman is like hey you need this super important camera if youre going to beat this game and then a bird comes and steals it. Damn birds in Birdtown are becoming birders themselves.
-Theres another bird on the old ladies roof though! A Cron. 4 out of 27 GET.
-Theres some bird flying all over the place one screen over. I have acorns but they seem uninterested. Drat.
-Theres a bridge out and some guy crying. CRYING GUY FIX THE BRIDGE I HAVE BIRDS TO PHOTOGRAPH!
-I didnt even realize what I had. Im such a donk-up. You should just call me Donk-Up Donklas the Donk-Up Guy!! No I dont think I will. Im going to call you Bridge-Fixer Donklas the Bridge Fixer Guy because youre GONNA FIX THIS DAMN BRIDGE.
-He says not even a picture of his birdsona would cheer him up, but it lets me show him a picture right after so clearly some picture of a bird will cheer him up.
-Oh, well, here we go. One screen over is a woodpecker or totally not a woodpecker but a bonker-bellied tree tapper because woodpecker was copywrited apparently.
-Yeah if you wait until he starts pecking it actually says your picture is of a hammering long name here dont care to look it up again so this has to be what it is.
-YEP. Bridge rebuilt. Puzzle solved? Was this a puzzle? If so good job me!
-Theres actually a new mechanic in this second area where all the new birds move around. The woodpecker lands then pecks, some other one flies and then goes into foliage, and then a third just flies all around. You have to focus the bird when it lands and then likely snap a shot when it lands for the second time. So a bit more complex.
-There is a dark cave I cant see in (but some characters one screen over mention a camera with a flash should light it up) and the one bird flying all over the screen is never in focus. So puzzles for later, Im assuming.
-Theres also a huge hole in a tree that I cant seem to do anything with. Either there is a bird in there or a small sports utility vehicle. Its a super big hole.
-I keep trying to get a picture of that bird in flight because Im stubborn. Always blurry though. Ill try for 30 more minutes and then just come back to it later.
-Yeah it is actually showing up as speedy blur in the photograph so its too fast for my camera, probably. Ill check back later.
-Ok so Im up to 6/27 now. Got the dirty-domed hunkadoo which is my favorite name so far.
-Bro I just want to practice my love of ornithology. NEW SENTENCE ALERT EVERYONE WE HAVE A NEW SENTENCE ALERT.
-This town really is being traumatized by those no good bad birders. Poor guy over here is crying at the bar.
-Some other non-crying person at the bar drops the hot details that one of the members of the bad birders orders two coffee which is crazyunless shes getting one for someone else. A CLUE A CLUE
-I can order coffee from the lady at the bar. Y'know, this might be a coffee shop and Im just an alcoholic based on where my mind went first, oops.
-She says that I am, under no circumstances, to litter. Well, you know what that means.
-I throw that coffee cup on the ground. IM AN ADULT.
-I get a reaction dialogue so maybe Im doing the right thing!
-This dumb dumb gives me another coffee!
-HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE GROUND.
-This goes on like six more times, with the dialogue getting more intense every time until she starts speaking in tongues and kicks me out. She takes a garbage bag full of empty cups to the garbage can and a bird flies by to sit in it. Best bird so far imo.
-Also this bird is huge and fat and fills up the entire garbage can. Definitely best bird.
-Next screen over is Meatball, a bird that is just sitting in the window of a shop called dogs only. Wow what a rebel.
-Dogs are the smartest animals alive! They can tell you all kinds of things. At least, thats what Im assuming. I guess Ive never really met one. But if I did, Id see if it knew any secrets. Im not even positive you know what dogs are, from this conversation.
-Pool hall girl is ready to talk. Apparently she used to run with the Thrashers aka bad birders. The one who punched me is Cozumel, and shes the worst. Shes the BOSS OF THE GAME which sounds pretty serious. Sage and Gray, on the other hand, arent all bad. Someone needs to remind them theyre human. Ill make sure to yell out YOU TWO ARE HUMAN! when I see them to see if that helps.
-Hummingbird one screen down brings me up to 9. 9/27 birds. A third of the way done!
-Haha you dumb idiot. Ill never kiss you! I didnt ask! Do you yell this at anyone who approaches you with a camera and an album of bird photos andyou know what? Nevermind. Warranted response.
-I found a goose! There is an Untitled Goose Game reference here and the bird is called local celebrity. Yeah, too obvious a joke to miss, I guess.
-There was a sign by the goose that said watch out for pranksters and I was almost afraid to enter lest the bad birders beat me up. Turns out it was just a silly goose.
-Well, that was a nice bath! Thank you for joining me!! What the hell did I just walk in on.
- Theres someone with a camera here. Seriously, what did I walk in on!?
-Oh camera guy is a pervert. SHOO CAMERA PERVERT. YOURE GIVING US CAMERA NON-PERVERTS A BAD RAP.
-Haha the swimming people are just like wow that guy with his camera is weird. Yeah, thats one way to phrase sex criminal, I guess.

Casual Birder Playthrough (con't part 3):
-Birds fly off with their towel and their clothes. Uh. I take a picture I guess?
-The game flashes HOW DARE YOU so apparently I was not supposed to do that very obvious thing. I dunno game, I just littered to summon a garbage bird. I thought I could snap a pervert shot and summon a pervert bird.
-I go to talk to the girl and shes like this is the worst first date ever! Yeah, two pervert photographers arent the norm on your dates, huh?
-They want me to go find their clothes, but Im afraid if I leave them alone with this guy Ill come back and their bodies will be bobbing in the pool
-I go back to the goose and he does not have their clothes. Bummer. That would've been a pretty funny reference, I think.
-I check the other direction and find the summit of the mountain, with a fan I can put something on (?) and some guy at the top saying hed give his VERY SPECIAL CAMERA to whoever is standing next to him when he snaps the picture of the bird king. Ok, but isnt that what Im trying to do? I cant just help you do it, man. Get your own indie game.
-Theres another photographer I find that is also weird as hell and talks in WeIrD pUnCtuATiOn and fonts and hes apparently scared birds into hiding into their ponds. Is everyone besides me in this game that photographs birds a weirdo? Maybe the bad birder were right and everyone else in this town needs to be bullied.
-Please do not throw items into the pond. Screw you you dont tell me what to do.
-I throw worms into the pond and BAM new bird. Youre welcome bird pervert.
-Ok so I find one of the Pearly Eyed Thrashers and she wont let me through. She does mutter something about Cozumel being a jerk and not letting her GAZE upon her crush so it sounds like another photo themed puzzle.
-None of the random people I have photos of so far work. Or birds. So we can eliminated people and birds from her crush list.
-Oh wait, duh. I bet it is the tired lady who wasnt getting any coffee! Someone mentioned the bad birder always gets two cups and then the bait shop lady complained no one brought her her coffee today. Let me try that.
-Yep that worked. I AM A GENIUS. Fairly fun puzzle imo.
-Gray is now staring at a photo of her BELOVED and apologized to me. And I didnt even need to yell at her that she was a human.
-Also I found the towel hanging on the telephone lines AND I got it down by throwing worms at the birds on top of it. Im just flying along.
-SO the one who isnt Gray and Cozumel is standing guard in front of the base and says she has NO WEAKNESSES. I show her the nude photograph I took of the two people on the date and she doesnt even blink or call the cops. Jeez. Shes gonna be tough.
-Going down further I find the beach and the candy-coated crabswiper. Whats better than watching these things splash around in the surf? Haha I love it. Especially when they run for their lives from an oncoming wave! Haha ahh! Uh oh were we the bad birder all along?
-Theres no nudity allowed on this beach. What about pictures of nudity I took without permission? Oh, thats not allowed anywhere? And youre calling the cops? Fair enough.
-Theres some muscly guy on the beach whos like Im out of your league, baby boy. Why does everyone here think I want to smooch them?
-I get butter on a stick from the vendor here. I throw it and it does nothing, shockingly.
-I wonder if this place is so big on bird watching because they cant do anything more active than that on account of all the butter in the veins.
-I find a note in the lighthouse which might be a hint? e oo claims weakness lies not on es shelf. For shorely has failed to lay eyes on es self. No clue.
-Oh. Wait. A mirror. I got to find a mirror!
-Oh. Wait. Im a bigger idiot. Just take a picture of her.
-That works but it doesnt work. Its only phase one. Then shes like well Im better than you! and is unimpressed by my 12 species photographed. So I likely got to bump that up some more.
-A lot of introductory lighthouse material in the lighthouse which makes me worried for the person working here.
-The screens over here are all dark but I can see some stuff. Like a sea captain in a rowboat. Some captain!
-He gives me useful rhyme based clues though! One is about the coffee store which I already figured out, one is throwing the butter for the sea bird which I was already told about and the third is something that I cant remember. Im sure it wasnt important.
-I check out the cave and there is a box I can blindly inspect. I find a crank! Thats sure to be useful.
-Hm I can light up the back wall with torches, but it doesnt really show anything else I didnt already blindly stumble upon.
-I lure down the sea bird with butter and it does NOTHING. Well, I mean, I get the seabird and take its picture, but it doesnt have anything with it. Wheres my fancy camera?
-Theres a mom and baby here and the mom remarks about how fast here baby is growing up and where did it get clothes from. does your baby usually not war clothes? Because thats just a you thing, lady.
-I steal the babies clothes and the mom doesnt even try to stop me. GIMME THAT.
-Well I guess Ill go play with this crank I just found. That is both the next thing Im going to do in the game and the thing I said when my Playdate arrived in the mail.
-There was slot at the lighthouse and the cliffs, but Im closer to the lighthouse so Ill go there first.
-I put it in the lighthouse and then I think my game freeze for like a solid minute. Turns out, no, I just need to turn my crank on the Playdate to turn the crank in the game. I am not a smart person.
-Oh! I find a bird. And it is that damn thief bird. When I shine light on it, it drops that fancy camera I was supposed to nab earlier. Hooray!
-Ok. Time to take pictures of all the birds in the dark. The one nesting next to the lighthouse? Check? Owl in the tree? Double check? Bird flying around the cave? TRIPLE CHECK. I am killing it.
-I can now explore the cave using the night camera to find torches and light them up. I find two more birds this way. One is a damn bat, which is not a bird. I should be disqualified for birding for putting this in my bird book. It would be like if I entered a cake making competition and presented the judges with a chicken pot pie.
-Uh. Theres a man living in the cave down here. More perverts? Crazy psychopath? Bat-man? ONLY TIME WILL TELL.
-18/27 birds got at this point so hey, I think Im entering the home stretch! I have also explored every area to the fullest now I think, with nowhere else left to go but into that secret bad birder HQ area.

Dels posted...

their intro video is very well-produced and the product looks so cute and sleek. it made me want one even though i know the games wouldn't be very deep. i feel it has more value as just, idk what you'd call it, a collector's item, something that you own just because it feels good to own it and have it in your hands but not for, like, the actual games.

It is definitely:
1) cute
2) sleak
3) charming

I like weird niche handhelds so this was right up my alley. I would not recommend it for people looking for great "games" though. I doubt there's any great ones in the library. Probably a bunch of stuff that'll make you go "hm that was pretty neat" but that's about as high as praise is gonna get, if I had to guess.

Hope to be proven wrong though!

Casual Birder Playthough (Con't Part IV):
-The bird guy is some artist that has been chased down to the depths of the caves by those mean ol bad birders. He gives me a whistle that calls birds and I think Im going to be able to just about wrap thigns up.
-Ok, rapid fire puzzle solving! Give the naked couple their clothes and they move out the of the way revealing a duck they were hiding. The guy says this is a story they can tell their grandkids. Ah yes, gather round kids and let me tell you the time mine and grandmas date was interrupted by a sex criminal
-The girl says she couldnt wait to leave and isnt dating this guy again. Smart.
-I use the call to summon THE BIRD KING which is apparently not the final bird I need? Wow Im all crossed up.
-I get the time slow down camera from the guy on the peak, who then uhflies away? Hopefully thats what he did otherwise there is going to be a weird splat Im passing on the way down.
-Ok, got the fast flying bird in the trees and the one by the windmill. I find another random bird I missed using the bird call so Im at 24 out of 27! ALMOST DONE BIRDIN!
-I show my collection to the third bad birder who isnt Gray or Cozumel. She freaks out and passes out on the ground. Yes, I am aware the effect the size of my bird picture collection has on people.
-Inside is Cozumel and a bird! Where are the other two birds I need for the full set, I wonder?
-Hell, youre nothing but a CASUAL BIRDER!!! OUCH MY FEELINGS
-She sicks her attack bird after me and he bumps me down one room. What a jerk bird.
-Luckily, I have the slow time camera and I snap a quick shot. The bird starts bouncing around the screen and goes through a wall in the back. Wow Im a bird murderer.
-Cozumel yells out a final curse and then dies.
-No, really. Wow, shes really dead!! she must have really loved birds.
-Im a straight up murderer? Through bird photography?
-I leave the corpse of the bad birder before the cops show up and go through the hole in the back wall.
-I take a photo of the body before I leave. To add to my collection of people Ive murdered. Which is one, now, but thats still more than most people.
-One room back and OH GOD ITS A GIANT CHICKEN
-It is chained up, too. Break free, giant bird!
-Our birder laments how lost the bad birders really were, which shouldve been obvious when they were assaulting people in the street over bird photography.
-Theyve forgotten that birdsbirds are for everyone!!! Actually Im kinda mid on birds if Im being honest so you can keep them.
-I got to take the picture and then were like no, you didnt ask for any of this! Be free! Oops did I need to be asking all these other birds for their bird consent?
-I shoo the giant bird away. Hey wait hold on! Come back! I want that 100% completion! Gotta photograph them all!
-Dang, I accidentally entered the end game here. Im back in town for the contest and I cant leave but I still have two birds to find. PLEASE LET ME KEEP PLAYING.
-I talk to everyone around here and I get a nice end of game poem from the sea captain which is pretty cool.
-Also the nude couple is back. And nude again?
-The woman is like yeah we are going on a second date because he's nice and we share a hobby. Is that hobby exhibitionism?
-Ok end credits? BUT I NEED TWO MORE BIRDS! LET ME GO BACK PLEASE!
-Damn there's an end game photograph of the top three birders from the competition and I didnt even make the podium. Even the baby made the podium. This is what I get for missing two birds!
-Ok, I can continue and go back into the game right before I try to take a picture of the legendary bird. Time to go find those last two rascally missing birds.
-First one is easy to find. I go back to all the areas and that one jerk ass bird that stole the camera is back. Apparently if you move the light away from its nest, it will come back so I snap that shot and Im down to 1 bird.
-Help I cant find the bird.
-iwantmybird.gif
-I checked everywhere and blow my whistle everywhere and NOTHING. I refuse to look it up so I might be playing this game forever.
-Hm let me check the cave areas some more. Maybe I missed something here.
-There is one torch I didnt light. That torch is not a bird.
-I investigate all the screens that dont have birds in them. All birds Ive found are on a screen by themselves but there are several that have NOTHING and Im assuming thats where the last bird is.
-Maybe talking to people will help?
-Theres a couple of things that I feel like I maybe havent resolved yet. There is that girl who says shell never kiss me, the woman looking for dog food, and the guy who says dogs have secrets and he wants to talk to one.
-I try taking a picture of the dog, but nothing. Cant show him off. BOO.
-OH WAIT! I GOT IT! If you keep talking to the dog, it cycles through dialogue options. After doing like six variations of dog noises, he says that hes seen two birds in the pond area. Thanks talking dog, that has to be the one Im missing!
-I try throwing in worms but I mustve done that already. Throw in an acorn though and the final bird shows up! WOOOOO!
-Kinda a bummer, but I go through the ending again to get what I was assuming was the true ending but theres nothing different. Like, the ending screen is still me laying in defeat on the ground while three other people are on the podium. Its a minor, stupid thing, but there really should be a better ending shot here if you get 100% of the birds.
-GAME BEAT. GENERAL THOUGHTS COMING SOON.

Game #2 Complete! Casual Birder

Final Thoughts: This immediately jumps to the top of the list because it is 1) a full game and 2) that's it that's all it takes at this point.

I think this is a solid enough adventure game and it is on the verge of being a genuinely good one with a few little twists. One thing I really liked is that we essentially have a mini-open world adventure. Think Mario 64 but instead of getting stars you're taking pictures of birds. Outside of the first one, there isn't a specific order for things and you're free to just sort of explore and poke around. I really like that sort of format for games like this, and it works here. "Go find 27 birds" the game says, and then just sort of sits back and peaks over your shoulder to provide hints. There is some linear puzzle solving, sure. You need to solve certain roadblocks to access more of the map. But there is a lot of openness here and I think that really works in the games favor. I went past a scene with a bird in it that I just couldn't find like twenty times without even knowing it was there. I like that. I like the sort of open puzzle of knowing there is this thing you need to find but not knowing where it is or how to get to it.

And the game certainly is charming. It is just funny enough to get a passing grade. Like there is this sort of humorous undertone throughout the entire game and I was smiling at the silly bird names and bits of weird dialogue. It has personality and a bit of humor, and honestly sometimes that's enough for an adventure game like this. I've always been a fan of more lighthearted adventure games, and you don't get much more lighthearted than "an evil group of bird photographers is terrorizing the town".

But nothing about this game really gets to any sort of higher level. It is all just "pretty good". The game is funny-ish but not what I would call actually laugh out loud funny. Most of the characters here have one line and then that's it. There is a little bit of interesting world building, but you aren't getting a lot out of the story or the characters. In a game like Monkey Island you have these big bold personalities and laugh out loud lines and characters with arcs and personalities, and you just don't have this here. It is all scaled back. A miniature adventure for a miniature system.

Same is true for the puzzles. There's some stuff I like here. I like when the game is like "hey show this person a picture of their true love" and then doesn't say who that is. You can piece it together through two different lines of dialogue from two different characters, and that sort of stuff is fun. But a lot of these things are the simplest form of puzzles. Hey these people need their clothes and a towel and you can just go back and find some clothes and a towel. That sort of stuff is less good, the most basic of basic adventure game puzzles.

And that's sort of the same problem you run into with the birds. I like the underlying design here and the mechanic is sort of fun and unique too of using the crank to get your pictures in focus. But out of the 27 birds, I feel like there are really only ten or so that require any level of puzzle solving. A lot of birds are just there. Wander onto a screen, see a bird, snap its photo. Occasionally you get a puzzle where you need to get someone to throw out garbage and that's great. I just wish there was more of that sort of stuff, more actual puzzles and more meaty ones with what is there.

It is very basic and I worry that's sort of all I'll be getting out of this system. Your favorite developer isn't making games for this, so its a lot of small indie projects. And you know what? Casual Birder is a very solid 3 or so hour game made by a very good indie developer. But it also feels very indie, very small, and missing some of those elements you find in bigger, better adventure games.

Should You Play It? Yeah, sure. It isn't the best adventure game but it is a breezy, enjoyable adventure that you get week 1 with the Playdate anyway. Might as well!

Final Score: I want to say 6/10. Almost a 7. Could've been a 7 or 8 if it was just a bit more substantial.

Games Completed: 2/79

Game Rankings:
2) Whitewater Wipeout
1) Casual Birder

Currently Playing: Recommendation Dog and about to start Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

I haven't played much Recommendation Dog for a couple of days so I'll probably try and handful of more runs and call that one done. And I got two new games as part of season 1! Crankin's Time Travel Adventure looks interesting so I'll try that next. The second one is called Boogie Loops and I know absolutely zero about that so it can wait.

Do Boogie Loops first, you wont have much to say about it. More of an app than a game.

Oh that's....disappointing. I knew there were some things that were basically just apps in the store (the most boring of which looks to be one that changes your alarm clock display) but I didn't know we got some in the season too!

I'll check that out first then. Appreciate the heads up!

Oh. Uh. Well, WazzupGenius is correct. I'm not going to be spending very much time with this. So lets bump things around a bit.

Currently Playing: Boogie Loops

What Is It? It is an app you use to make chiptune music. Kind of.

Thoughts: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/d2cea66c-0ce7-419f-8a2d-0146ef81356a

Time Played: 30 minutes
High Score: N/A
Beaten? I made a couple of songs, but there isn't really a way to "beat" this game. You keep making music until you get bored which is going to happen pretty soon because the mechanics are limited.
Grade: 2/10. Functional, but I do not like this and I'm not sure who the target audience would be. I feel like if you were really into this sort of stuff, the mechanics here are super limited so you can't really do what you want to do. I'm also not sure if there's a way to export the music yet or not, which would be a pretty big issue unless you just want to create music that's trapped on a console no one has.
Favorite Part So Far: I guess when I started up the game and then sat staring at what I thought was the title screen for 30 seconds before realizing oops this is the actual game. No introduction. No explanation. Just "uh here's a thing we did mess around with it or not, we don't care."

Currently Playing: Boogie Loops (Part II)

Thoughts: I was honestly so confused by the fundamental concept of this, I tried googling more info and found this podcast about it! And I listened to the whole 22 minutes trying to figure out "why".

https://podcast.play.date/episodes/s01e05/

Like, I don't get why this is a thing that exists. Why would anyone want a extremely basic, user unfriendly music creation tool? The subset of people that have a Playdate and the creation of what sounds like NES era chiptune music has to be four people, and they're the people that made this game. If you're interested in music design, this is way too simple and clunky to be of any use to you. And if you aren't interested in music design? Well, this game won't be what changes your mind on that.

I haven't talked much about the "game" so far but there isn't much to say. Remember in Mario Paint that little music creation tool? This is just that but not as charming. There's a couple more tools here but not enough for it to be something you'd want to use if you're actually trying to make music. This is Mario Paint without the Mario and without the paint or the other little games that you enjoyed significantly more.

So, anyways, the interview. There's two main people they credit with making this, and only one of them shows up for the podcast. Clearly that person is the smart one. They still have plausible deniability. This was clearly done over the phone and the Playdate had a release delay of roughly one eon, so unless this second person is an astronaut there really is no reason for them not to be here unless they were just like "nah, I don't want to" which honestly might be the reason.

I was mostly interested in listening to the video because I was genuinely curious on the "why". Why is this a thing? Why make this? Who are you making this for? I think I kind've got some answers, but honestly I think the honest answer is "game design is hard and this is sort of what we felt like we could do without spending too much time on it." The person on the podcast seems extremely interested in music and passionate about learning design. What they don't seem all that interested in is games. She keeps calling this a "toy" which probably is a better category for it but doesn't really help its case as something you should spend your time with. She says they were approached by Panic to make something for this, and I have absolutely no clue why because it doesn't seem like they've worked on a game before? I mean, honestly, they still haven't worked on a game because this isn't a game.

Also, I know that podcast is basically Playdate propaganda but it is hilarious for them to talk about creative constraints like it is this amazing thing and not a crutch she's using to not try something more ambitious. Casual Birder proved you can make a full game on this, so making this lazy music tool that seems like something you goofed around with for a couple of months and then got to publish potentially because you were friends with people that worked at Panic made me roll my eyes.

I've been trying to commit at least 2 hours to each of these games, but I'm struggling here. I made a couple songs complete with the inane dance you can put on top and I don't want to do any more. This is just completely devoid of joy and I'm mildly annoyed this is one of the "things" that comes packaged in season 1.

Time Played: 1 hour
High Score: 2 songs made without deciding the Playdate would be better used as a fly swatter
Beaten? You can't beat this. You can only survive it.
Grade: 2/10. Maybe a 1 but usually 1's are games I have nothing good to say about. This one at least works, from what I can tell.
Favorite Part So Far: It is so easy to return to the menu on the Playdate. I've technically been playing this game for like three hours with one hour being spent playing and the other two hours spent going back to the menu and looking at the catalogue for games I'd rather be playing instead.

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

She says they were approached by Panic to make something for this, and I have absolutely no clue why because it doesn't seem like they've worked on a game before? I mean, honestly, they still haven't worked on a game because this isn't a game.

In fairness Panic themselves had barely been involved in making games up to this point either, theyre mainly a software developer for Apple products. And the team that designed the playdate, Girlfriend Engineering, primarily make synthesizers and other music tools

Yeah I saw some other "games" in the catalog that seemed very odd, like this one which is $9 for what looks like a low quality music player? Who's trying to use their Playdate as a music player?

https://play.date/games/kicooya/

WazzupGenius00 posted...

In fairness Panic themselves had barely been involved in making games up to this point either, theyre mainly a software developer for Apple products. And the team that designed the playdate, Girlfriend Engineering, primarily make synthesizers and other music tools

OHHH thank you. That makes a ton of sense. The person they were talking to here also said she worked as a designer for Apple for a while, so that's probably how she got roped in. She clearly had no interest in making a game, but a game isn't exactly in her wheelhouse so I moreso blame Panic here for recruiting someone they knew is likely good at their job (but unfortunately that job isn't game design).

Johnbobb posted...

Yeah I saw some other "games" in the catalog that seemed very odd, like this one which is $9 for what looks like a low quality music player? Who's trying to use their Playdate as a music player?

https://play.date/games/kicooya/

That's hilarious and unfortunately something that is in the GameFAQs database. I might be falling one short of my quest here guys because I am not sure if I can justify spending $9 on something to play music on a device I will never use to listen to music. This makes even less sense than Boogie Loops.

ALSO BREAKING NEWS.

Playdate got more titles released. I haven't checked them out yet, but we're at a whopping 90 now. So I guess I should update my rankings some...

Currently Playing: Boogie Loops, Recommendation Dog

Games Completed: 2/90

Game Rankings:
2) Whitewater Wipeout
1) Casual Birder

Game #3 Complete! Boogie Loops

Final Thoughts: I like how this started as a friendly suggestion to get me to clear something out earlier but ended delaying me like a week because I kept delaying playing it.

I'm finally calling it. I played around and made like six loops over the span of two hours and I'll be happy if I never hear about Boogie Loops again. This just isn't a good idea. It isn't a game at all, and as a music creation tool its awful. Like I mentioned before, this is slightly more complex than the little music creation tool from Mario Paint from 1993 that was like the fourth most interesting part of that game.

It is a really lazy little music design app and I feel like the developer was trying to retroactively justify their laziness. Honestly, I don't know how much is the fault of the developer and how much is the fault of the Playdate at this point. I haven't played enough games yet to have a good sense of its capabilities and just how much you can put into a single game (or "game") before the whole thing starts to break. I will mentioned that I did experience what I thought was my Playdate d-pad breaking at one point, but it just turned out the game was lagging incredibly badly. I quit out, went to the menu screen, and was able to move around fine. Then I went back into the game and had the same lag. I deleted the loop I was working on (I didn't really care that much about it honestly) and the new loop worked fine. So I dunno. I tried to google if this was a common occurrence but I'm going to take a wild guess and say I'm in the top ten of people in the entire world for playtime for this thing, so I didn't see if this was something a lot of people were experiencing or not. But it at least happened to me in the two hours I played this, so in my sample size of one it is a pretty serious issue.

You really don't have many tools to work with here and the way the developer hand waves it away is pretty funny. There's like eight different dance moves and the developer is like "haha we wanted to show how you just need to learn a few simple moves to put together a dance" and not "animating these dance moves was more effort than it was worth so I just did as much as I could in a weekend and called it a day". You have four different percussion options and two rhythm and some little tuning you can do, and that's it. It is just such a minimal little tool that I honestly don't know who would find this interesting.

And the sound system for the Playdate isn't that great! And while there does appear to be some way to get the loops off the system, it was more trouble than its worth and that sort of functionality isn't automatically built into the concept. So it is a bad idea on the wrong console that doesn't do the thing it wants to let you do and they didn't put enough tools in to make it worthwhile. Other than that, I have no complaints.

Also, this is so bad it makes me feel less good about the rest of the season, and the Playdate catalogue in general. I'm now worried how much stuff on here isn't going to be games, but worthless apps and vanity projects that people tried to shoehorn in because they didn't know how to make a game. Boogie Loops is so bad it makes me less excited about the Playdate. Its going to take some real work to top this one at the back end of the rankings

Should You Play It? Absolutely not. I spent no money on it and I'm still trying to figure out if I can get a refund.

Final Score: Real bad. Maybe a 2/10 if I'm being generous. This is a borderline 1/10 thing but it mostly works so it passes the "is it functional?" test. Real low 2/high 1 kinda quality here.

Games Completed: 3/90

Game Rankings:
3) Boogie Loops
2) Whitewater Wipeout
1) Casual Birder

Casual Birder is sounding real good right about now

I miss Casual Birder.

Although I've played 5 minutes of Crankin Presents Time Travel Adventures and its already better than all time time wasted in Boogie Loops.

Currently Playing: Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

What Is It? A game. An honest, complete game. What a time to be alive.

Thoughts/Playthrough:
-Crankin's Time Travel Adventures opens up with a lullaby playing and its already better music than anything that ever came out of Boogie Loops.
-We have a tin man sleeping on a bench here. Not sure whats going on but its cute already.
-I gotta crank to start which is also a fun touch. It pulls up an enveloper from someone named Crankette and it says 1st date Meet at 3:00 PM. Got it. Tin man has a hot date.
-Uh oh. Keep cranking and it says the time is 3:05 PM and tin man finally wakes up! Way to ruin your date, dude.
-Hm ok the time keeps going whether or not Im cranking or not. Thats good to know.
-Well, Im late anyway so might as well play around with the mechanics here some.
-Oh, ok, this makes sense. So I crank for a while, get to an empty spot and tin man begins openly weeping. Times Suprak has made a robot cry on Playdate: 1.
-HOWEVER. Now it sets me back at the house and I crank like Ive never cranked before. Tin man sprints outside and Crankette is still waiting for him at 3:07. Hooray Im a hero! Or a robot matchmaker, at least. Which is almost beter than a hero.
-So slow cranks make him move slow, fast make him move fast, and I can both move him forwards and backwards. Im curious what sort of puzzles come out of this.
-It moves forward to the second date. I crank as fast as I can and get there at 3:04 (four minutes late). I get kicked in my robo-nuts. What the hell, Crankette? Thats assault!
-Hm. Third date is basically the same thing, other than instant lose butterflies coming into play. If I run into them, I get sent back to the beginning. These are the worst butterflies EVER.
-What I have to do is time when I bend over the sniff the flowers, and let them flutter over me. It makes me twenty minutes late and I get kicked in the robo-testicles again. Think shed accept that Im later because of dangerous butterflies?
-Also, my dude needs to set an alarm for like 2:50, or ask if he can push the date back to 3:15 if 3 is his nap time.
-Day 4, more of the same, but now I have to avoid birds by jumping up on stuff and uh separating my body? It does it automatically, and I just need to crank until I get to the safe zone and then wait.
-Boy, I hope theres more to the game than this.
-Wow. Im so late she suplexes me this this time. Next time shes gonna DROP THAT STONE COLD STUNNER AND WIN THE BELT AT WRESTLEMANIA.
-Ok, you know what? This isnt that bad once they start adding more stuff to it. Theres a lot of timing you have to get right here, moving tin man back and forth, making sure you get your movement right. Its a fun little concept.
-Less fun is the number of times Crankette has destroyed my testicles. This 9th date isnt worth it, man!
-Most fun level so far is timing going over hurdles with these butterflies that move up and down at this weird parabola pattern. The timing is satisfying to get right.
-One of these just has me cranking as fast as I can to outrun pigs and I make it to Crankette at 3:03 and she STILL punches me in the face. I feel like 3:03 is well within the margin of error, lady.
-15 dates in and it is an interesting game. A lot of going back and forth to avoid obstacles with the crank. You move him forward or backwards, and he progresses through whatever motions he did or will do. So, see a table and hell sit at it and drink something. Go past it and you can rewind to it again and he will repeat the same animations again. He has specific movements during each of these animation which let him avoid obstacles. So, at the table he will pick up his tea and then bow his head a bit to take a drink. You need to time this bob to let a bird fly over head. You can just pause him at the right moment for as long as you need, but you need to figure out which animation lets him avoid the obstacles and where to hold it as the danger passes. It is a simple concept but I think it works well on the Playdate and it isnt something Ive seen before.
-Ok 23 levels in now. Still enjoying it. There are some here that are actually fairly challenging, which is nice. I checked and the game has 50 levels total so almost halfway done!
-What this game does really well is show off how the crank is necessary. This is the first game I really dont think could be played on another system. You really need that crank for very fine movements and the sort of speed/precision you get out of the crank doesnt have a close duplication for me. Like youll need to crank really fast to get past something, and then youre immediately thrown into a table where you take a sip of tea and need to bob your head a fraction of a centimeter to avoid the incoming bird. That sort of back and forth feels like it genuinely benefits from the crank.
-One minor complaint is a feel like a lot of these levels are sort of guess and test. Theres multiple levels here where you start climbing stairs and pigs are shot out of a cannon a million miles per hour and theres no way to avoid them unless you know theyre coming and are already cranking as fast as you can. The levels are short enough I dont necessarily mind it, though.

Time Played: Probably 1.5 to 2 hours, if I had to guess
Beaten? Nah, still halfway to go.
Grade: You know? This might be a 7. Maybe an 8 if they can really perfect the formula here on the back end and its not more of the same. But it is fun and interesting and I'm into it.
Favorite Part So Far: Crankette gave me the ol' kamehameha for being late which has been my favorite way to die on the Playdate thus far.

Crankins Time Travel Adventure is the game that was designed by Keita Takahashi and his studio uvula

Oh wow, no way. That's very cool! Thanks for the info.

That actually makes a lot of sense because it is far and away the most polished of the games so far. It feels like a well thought out, actual game that you would pay money for. Casual Birder is cute and charming but definitely feels like a indie/itch.io type adventure game.

Unless things fall apart by the end, this will be taking the number one spot shortly.

This is the game that I was referring to earlier. So it's most likely downhill for the next 86 games.

Game #3 Complete! Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

Final Thoughts: I feel like that Gordan Ramsey meme. "Finally some good fucking games." Outside of Casual Birder, there haven't been a lot of "highs" so far, but this definitely helped reinstall some optimism back into the system. I'm sure that will be killed next week again, but for now I'm running on a high.

I think this winds up being a very good but not quite great type of game. It uses the crank really well, and I definitely don't think this could be on another system. You really need that finesse that the crank offers because there are so many obstacles here where failure and success are really dependent on the smallest of fractions on that crank and without that ability to do quick, minute adjustments I don't think you can really play this game. Even more than Whitewater Wipeout, this is a game that really shows off how much the crank is needed

It also helps I quite like this. When I found out it was made by the guy who did Katamari Damacy I was like "oh ok that makes sense". Everything else, even Casual Birder which is solid, felt very amateurish. Big indie dev energy. This definitely feels like it was made by someone who actually knew what they were doing. I was shocked to check his resume and see he hadn't really done much since the first two Katamari games, which is a bit of a shame. This shows he still knows what he's doing. He has a wildly original concept here, makes full use out of the system, and just blew away my rock bottom expectations after Boogie Loops. It is unique and clever and fun and just a really impressive display of what can be done on the Playdate if people know what they're doing.

Still, it falls just one rung below great for me. There's a lot of "guess and test" type levels here and there's a lot of stuff I got back just by sort of memorizing what the pattern was. That might be the point, I guess, but there's some stuff that's kind of annoying. Usually you get something like a sound cue and a little visual warning sign to let you know danger is coming. That's great. But sometimes you'll go up the stairs and suddenly a hundred pigs will be flying at you 100mph and there's absolutely no hope of dodging them. That's less fun. That's the kind of stuff that feels sloppy, particularly when you're at the very end of a challenge two minute level and have to do the whole thing all over again.

Still, minor frustrations aside, this was a very good game. A lot of fun. First one I'd whole heartily recommend to everyone. I'm also a bit worried this is the pinnacle of Playdate gaming from what I've heard so far which is a bit disappointing. I kinda didn't want to hit that four games into a 90 game catalogue and I hope it isn't all downhill from here.

Should You Play It? Definitely. It is part of season 1 and likely the best game on the console. You'd be silly to miss it.

Final Score: I keep going back and forth between a high seven and a low eight. Think "very good but just short of great with only a few minor tweaks needed to get there" kinda score, so whatever that means to you.

Games Completed: 4/90

Game Rankings:
4) Boogie Loops
3) Whitewater Wipeout
2) Casual Birder
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

One minor complaint that isn't really a complaint but just something that occurred to me: I have no idea what the hell this game has to do with time travel. Sure, you move your robot friend back and forward in a loop, but that's not what time travel is. In fact, the game is very clear about showing you that no matter what direction you're going, you're not doing time travel. I mean, unless you are being super literal about going through the linear progression of time at the normal rate technically counting as "traveling through time" because that's all that's occurring here.

NEVERMIND I TAKE IT BACK THIS IS WORSE THAN BOOGIE LOOPS

Tag. Also got a Playdate and this was the exact topic i was hoping for. Got around to Crankins tonight and it is easily the best ive played on this thing so far

Bump. Heres my tier list so far:

Dope:
Crankins Time Travel Adventure
Pick Pack Pup
Gun Trails

Aight:
Whitewater Wipeout
Casual Birder
Recommendation Dog

Nah:
Lost Your Marbles
Reel Steal
Boogie Loops

Oh hey! Nice someone else actually has this too haha. I'm going to do a quick update tonight, but I am currently stuck in Lost Your Marbles. There are TEN endings here and my interest to replay the game wanes with each one I find.

I really wanted to like Lost Your Marbles. Really clever concept, but theres just way too much story, and the core gameplay loop feels more like a chore than anything

Honestly why do so many playdate games have so much story? Gameboy games were not like that lol. I just wanna jump in and go

Currently Playing: Lost Your Marbles

What Is It? Uh. Marble Madness meets a CYOA, I guess?

Thoughts:
-I actually have mostly the opposite problem of TomNook! I'm fine with the talk-y parts. I'm way less fine with the non talk-y parts.
-You play as Prota, who has unfortunately lost her marbles through a classic science experiment fiasco. Hate it when that happens.
-She starts her new job working for Professor Marbles, a sentient cat genius. Yes, this game really likes to look at you and make sure you know how QUIRKY and WEIRD it is. Lot of the humor here feels kinda cringe adjacent, like an early 2010's sort of lolcat type humor.
-Marbles has made a Marbelizer to celebrate the towns upcoming ball festival which is basically a little festival put on the town that celebrates...balls? No not that kind. Pervert.
-Anyway, things go sideways because Prota is completely irresponsible, a them that shows up like six different times. She shows up half an hour late to her first day, and brings her dog with without permission because she forgot to walk it. It's like eight different mess ups crammed into one!
-The dog does dog things, chases the cat, knocks water onto the marbelizer (that Prota happens to be wearing) and runs off.
-Prota's brain becomes scrambled, which probably should open up Marbles to some sort of malpractice investigation considering he's testing this prototype invention on a kid who almost certainly didn't know the potential side effects of it. Oh, and he's a cat. Someone might want to look into that to.
-This brings us to the game portion of the game. Essentially, the marbelizer is an invention that is supposed to allow you to make optimal decisions. Unfortunately, by getting your brain scrambled things are now a bit of a mess and you're no longer making good decisions unless you try really, really hard.
-What happens is you'll start a scene and the game goes "hey what do you think about these three questions" and you get taken into a little marble mini-game to answer the questions. Each question has a really bad, a pretty bad, and a pretty good response and you select the one you want by crashing your marble into it. The levels are these little labyrinth type areas and you rotate the screen around using your crank which will cause the marble to move. Crash into bad answers to get the bad ending to the scene, and crash into the good ones to get the "good" ending. There's branching pathways here, but you're free to just sort of roll around and crash into whatever you want.
-I've got mostly complaints from here, sorry. I guess the good thing I'll say is the dialogue is funny sometimes. It usually boils down to 1) you pick the dumb answers 2) Prota gives a dumb response and then 3) the other character in the scene sort of stares at her and asks what the hell is wrong with her brain. Here's a funny example I liked. When Minty (your dog) flees, you go to make a poster and you need to select what paper you'll use for the missing poster, what the poster should say, and then a picture of Minty. So, naturally, I selected an old timey scroll with just the word HELP and a close up picture of Minty's butt. That flashes on the screen and got a good giggle out of me. Good job game.
-The problem is this game is short and some of these choices don't really mean all that much and you're going to need to replay things a lot to get all the endings. Each ending itself takes like maybe an hour, but to get all the checkmarks you'll probably have to play for 15-20 hours. That's too much of this game. Hell, 1 hour is borderline too much for this game.
-I don't really like the marble controls in this game. I want to. I like the concept! But you a lot of small levels that don't require all that much thought and even the "best" ones are kind of unimpressive.
-Also, the marble physics can get weird. They're fine most of the time, but you need to hit each choice three times to actually pick it and if you hit it once gravity gets all weird and the marble can get all floaty.
-Here's something dumb: there's no way to fast forward to a decision point you've already been to. Well, you can skip dialogue. But say you did the bad choice three times in a row and just want to get back to that fourth choice, using the exact same choices as before, to see what one of the other dialogue options would've been to. You have to play through the whole tedious game to get there and it just isn't something that's worth doing for what really is a minimal payoff.
-OH. And also some of these decisions mean jack squat. For example, one level has you dealing with a psychic toddler and you have to guess the answers to his riddles to figure out where Minty might be. Pick the three worse options? You go to the ball museum. The three best options? Ball museum. One best, one ok, one bad? Believe it or not, ball museum. You overcook chicken? Ball museum. Undercook fish? Also ball museum.
-It might not sound like a lot, but it is annoying as hell because it makes the whole central conceit of the game pointless if all you're changing is a couple of lines of meaningless dialogue.
-Also, too many scenes here just aren't that funny. There are some good ones, sure, but there are other ones like where you're talking to a cactus man and trying to read his future that just lead to zero lines of funny dialogue no matter what choices you pick.
I have six endings left to fine and I've been struggling to do so. This is roadblock game number two for me now after Boogie Loops. I'm hoping I can finish this out and move on to stuff I actually want to play because I have a couple of interesting things that I got the past couple of weeks that I haven't been able to start yet.

Time Played: Um. Like 8-10 hours at this point probably. Jeez. That's way too much guys.
High Score: N/A
Beaten? Kinda? I have seen 4 out of 10 endings so far and got a bunch of the chapter endings crossed out too. Not fully though. And I don't count a game as beat until I see everything.
Grade: Like a 3 or 4 out of ten. Not terrible but this is mostly a slog to get through. There is some funny dialogue here but a lot more not funny dialogue and even more tedious marble adventures
Favorite Part So Far: The butt poster. I did literally laugh out loud at that. Good job game.