The tomatoes growing in that apartment is great level design. I had the same reaction of "how could these plants survive without people?" and then you get jumped and it's like "oh, should have known." The apartment also has a door you can't open that's opened after you get jumped which explains where the people came from. I remember appreciating the details (after struggling to not die).
For anyone else whose never heard of a playdate console before it appears the crank on the side is “used for gameplay in select titles” rather than, as I hoped, a way to power the device like those old timey radios.
Still looks great, good article and more power too them! (Tho not via crank)
Ahhh that’s annoying. The crank looks like it makes the whole unit much more awkward to hold, especially for larger hands. The fact that it’s just a control gimmick which doesn’t really add anything to classic Game Boy games makes it a hard pass for me.
The crank is the sole reason this thing exists. If you want an emulation handheld to play Gameboy games without a crank there are countless options out there.
It’s a tough sell then. I did a search in the article for the word crank and got a lot of matches but it was too long for me to read. I would have preferred some short video clips to demonstrate exactly how it works.
This article isn’t about the playdate, it’s an article about an emulation software someone wrote that runs on the playdates hardware, so you won’t get a detailed explanation about the playdate as a general device there.
The playdate is a novelty device that anyone can develop Minigames for which use the crank for their gameplay. It is several years old at this point. It’s also very expensive for what it is so if you’re not a fan of just having little novel devices with not much use there is no reason to buy one. It is indeed a tough sell for most people but they have their own demographic of enthusiasts.
I’m a little confused why you’d form a strong opinion on something you willfully refused to read. In fact, even my title for the article kinda gives it away. Or the screenshot.
The crank folds down into an extremely satisfying magnetic dock that it can sit in while not using it.
Also… These aren’t classic Gameboy games, they’re modern games made specifically for the device. The unique control mechanism is the niche, and it’s surprisingly fun to use. You just also CAN emulate Gameboy games on it. There’s people who have made e-readers for it too… Though… That’s where even i draw the line lol
Sounds like this isn’t your thing though, there are lots of Gameboy emulator powered handhelds if that’s all you’re looking for. If you want extremely unique gameplay by tons of small indie developers (including Lucas Pope of Papers Please), super easy to make games for (I’ve made 2 just for friends), really easy side loading, and something just fun to show people, it’s a super easy sell.
But in relation to my article, and their work on CrankBoy…you can watch how they added the crank to the fishing part of the original Link’s Awakening fishing section. This kind of thing is why I think Sodium and Stonerl are doing amazing work, because it’s so different!
Now I’m curious if one can pull that off with simple games if features like high refresh rate and wireless thrown off. Also, price. With that ‘Memory LCD’ of theirs, it costs $100 per unit as per their Twitter.
14 days standby clock, 8 hours active
That’s what PD team claims for 740 mAh battery, it is what cheap mp3 players now have\consume. If there is a space to optimize it further, we’d see even better numbers, but I’m not confident this crank or little solar panel on the surface (whole back panel?) could make it autonomous. Yet, the idea of a handheld that LOVES sunlight is tempting. And, also, the idea of games that are built around slow and infrequent refresh like those minigames on e-books.
Last week I played through Ryse: Son of Rome, and I was pleasantly surprised in how much I enjoyed it, especially for a rather QTE heavy game.
Right now I'm working through Fobia: St. Dinfna Hotel, and man there is so much backtracking for puzzles and lockboxes and whatnot. But it's been fun, and basically feels like a first person Resident Evil game, at least atmosphere wise.
When they were building the Gotthard Base Tunnel under the Swiss Alps, they considered including such a station, linked to the alpine village above by a very long, high-speed lift, but decided against it on grounds of cost. More’s the pity.
I’m very slowly working my way through my fifth Baldurs’s Gate 3 run since it went from early access to release. Decided I want to do all the origin characters and make decisions as they would.
I’ve already done Gale, evil Dark Urge and now Shadowheart (spoilers below)
Tap for spoilerIn the beginning, I didn’t have Shadowheart save Lae’zel from the tieflings when she’s captured because to me she would want to be as far away from the githyanki as possible. I chose to romance Karlach because I never had before, and in my headcanon Karlach swayed Shadowheart from choosing Shar. Romanced the emperor and am going to try siding with him on a play through because I never have before lol
I find something I missed on every single play through, and so far there is enough unique content in the origin runs to keep them interesting. Not sure which origin character I will try next but I am really enjoying playing as Shadowheart.
Edit - I loved Cyberpunk 2077! At some point I want to replay as male V.
I’ve tried this, too, and they always self-destruct. Their character growth when you don’t play as them is so tied to them reacting to the player character’s influence that taking that influence away tends to prevent them from growing.
With Shadowheart in particular,
spoilerNightsong made a convincing argument that I shouldn’t follow Shar anymore but I saw no reason why I should just go along with the vanilla thing that she immediately switches to being a cleric for the opposite deity and I spent Act 3 bumbling ineffectually through a couple questlines with no clear ideology to lean on, plus a history that had previously skewed quite evil and thus left me without the alliances a more moral character would have developed by now.
The two exceptions to that rule have been Karlach who right out the gate has got her shit shockingly together for this cast and, hilariously, Astarion who absolutely thrives as his worst self. Those are the only two Origins I’ve managed to beat without betraying the RP of it all.
That’s fair. I’ve also noticed dialogue in places that assumes you are not the origin character you are playing, or ignores when specific characters are not in your party.
Tap for spoilerWhen you recruit Minsc as Shadowheart, there is a place in the dialogue tree where you refer to yourself in third person. There was a line suggesting I ask Lae’zel about a githyaki slate in Act 1 when I chose to kill her instead of join her earlier in the game.
I wonder if the difference is because Karlach was a later addition to the game as an origin character.
Well, I was trying to complete my second playthrough of Metal gear solid 2. But a bad Windows 11 update seems to have corrupted something, and now my PC is crawling.
So, attempting to reinstall/repair. Thanks Microsoft :3
Other than that Metal Gear has been awesome. I finished 3 the other week and have also been playing 4 on the ps3. Not super keen on the bombardment of cutscenes so far in 4, but it’s still pretty neat.
I have really appreciated learning the mechanics of each game. I feel like this is one of the first series where I can play each game twice and learn new things about the game on each playthrough. I can tell how I’m improving and when certain fights were completed with luck or if I actually mastered them. The depth is super addicting
Not super keen on the bombardment of cutscenes so far in 4, but it’s still pretty neat.
This isn’t a spoiler but I need to warn you: the final cutscene is 40 minutes long with no break/checkpoint and you can only save your game after, not before or during. Literally everyone who goes into the game blind ends up trapped there late at night wanting to go to bed.
Thank you for the heads up! I’ll have to go check when the cutscene comes up so I don’t get caught off guard.
I ended up having to watch the MGS2 cutscene before the last boss, and one of the really long MGS3 cutscenes on youtube because I fell asleep while they were playing lol
bin.pol.social
Najnowsze