Here’s a recap of how the launch of my indie dice deckbuilding roguelike for the playdate has made after 3 months. Go check the game out!!! Catalog – https://play.date/games/ribbit-rogue/
The PlayDate handheld is the little yellow gadget that looks like it escaped from a 1980s science fair and crash-landed in a minimalist design studio. With a black-and-white screen that says, “Color is for cowards,” and a crank on the side that screams, “Yes, I’m serious,” the PlayDate is like if a Game Boy and an egg timer had a weird, artsy baby. It doesn’t play Fortnite, it doesn’t stream Netflix, and it sure as hell doesn’t know what 4K is. But it does deliver bite-sized games in weekly doses like some sort of video game advent calendar run by quirky indie elves.
Playing the PlayDate feels like joining a secret club of eccentric game developers and nostalgia-addicted hipsters. It’s not about high scores—it’s about high vibes. One minute you’re using the crank to reel in fish or pilot a paper plane, the next you’re wondering if this thing is even legal in a world dominated by triple-A realism. It’s so charming, so self-aware, and so unapologetically weird that you start to believe the crank is the future of gaming. Move over dual analog sticks—Papa needs to crank.
