Readers, I caved. I got hold of a Playdate. Blame Lucas Pope, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:his excellent games, and the fact his latest is exclusive to the cranky little console. I’ve been playing a lot of Mars After Midnight, which is excellent, but there are plenty of other games that have caught my attention, too. The ones I&rsquo♛;m most drawn to seem to always use the Playdate’s uni🔴que crank as a central function, and I’ve found myself cranking all day and all night.
It started one warm evening. I set up the little yellow brick and set about browsing the Catalog. Bartender simulator Root Bear and planetary defence game s⛦atOlite instantly clicked with me, and I whiled away my evening pressing and cranking and pouring and cranking and launching and cranking.
I had expected this to happen. I got a Playdate because o🌟f its uniqueness, because of that tactile input that no other console has dared attempt or♒ replicate. But I quickly realised that I was doing way more cranking than I’d anticipated, taking the Playdate to inappropriate events, and it was becoming a problem.
I cranked on the sofa, I cranked in bed, I cranked during halftime at the football, I cranked on the toilet after eating too many Easter Eggs (not pictured, thankfu🧔lly). The Playdate’s crank has me firmly in its grip as much as I have it in mine.
But there’s more to it than jus🎶t a fun gimmick and cleverly designed games. The Playdate is truly portable. It’s not only small enough to fit in my pocket, but small enough to fit in my pocket alongside my wallet, which is fat with the stacks of cash I get from writing articles like this. That was a joke, by the way. But my point still stands. I can take my Playdate anywhere, just in case I get the ur𝓰ge to crank through a level of alien invaders or crank out the perfect pint for a judgemental bear.
The battery life is also great. I’ve charged it just once for a whole weekend of play, and we all know that less time charging means more timꦰe for cranking. The ♕Steam Deck could never.
Of course, I understand that the Steam Deck probably would last for hours and hours if it was playing games like Mars After Midnight or Sasquatchers, but it’s too big to put in my pocket (even sans wallet) and too unwieldy to pull out and play with for a few minutes. Plus, you can’t crank a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Steam Deck. Believe me, I’ve tried.
Enough silly comparisons. The Playdate excels as a console because every element of it is perfectly crafted to do one job: play quirky, unique games. The console itself can be small because it doesn’t need much power. The battery lasts for days because the screen is black-and-white and doesn’t even have a backlight. The games are interesting and innovative because they’re largely crafted by indie devs – who are always at the forefront of innovation – and are often intended to only be played on the unique console. T🦄hese are games specificallyꩲ designed to be cranked, and that’s why cranking them is so fun.
The Playdate is in many ways the antithesis of modern gaming sensibilities. It’s designed to be fun and interesting, to be innovative and push the boundaries of what consoles can be. More importantly, it has a crank. I can’t🌌 stop cranking. I won’t stop cranking. You can’t make me.