Ball und Panzer Golf: making a Playdate game in a week | Hacker News Reader

Ball und Panzer Golf: making a Playdate game in a week

blog.gingerbeardman.com

77 pointsmsephton22 comments

I purchased on 2022-03-01 and the estimated arrival was “Late 2022” (group 5).

Now, I won’t get it by late 2022, and I kinda doubt I’ll get it by late 2023. But there’s not really any communication or acknowledgement / accountability.

At this point, I wonder if I should just cancel and get in early on Playdate 2. Kinda sour grapes on my first “kickstarter”.

> I wonder if I should just cancel and get in early on Playdate 2

If I had given my money to a company for a product and not heard back from them for a year and a half, my thought process for sure wouldn't be "maybe I should preorder the next version".

They send emails, maybe they could be more regular, but also definitely not "none."

* June 2022 - email that group 5 slipped from "Late Second Half [2022]" to "2022 (Later) ~ 2023 (Early)"

* October 2022 - email that group 5 slipped from "2022 (Later) ~ 2023 (Early)" to "2023 (Early)"

* March 2023 - email that group 5 slipped from "2023 (Early)" to "Summer/Fall 2023"

It's frustrating but they've also shipped roughly 40k units as a tiny company. I believe they are still supply-chain constrained. I would not expect a Playdate 2 soon (ever?)

If I had given my money to a company for a product and not heard back from them for a year and a half, my thought process for sure wouldn't be "maybe I should preorder the next version".

It's Panic, it's not some unknown two person company operating out of a back alley in Shenzhen.

Reputation matters.

Panic is known for producing high quality products (among the highest quality, considering the state of the rest of the tech industry), and was very upfront about shipping issues even before orders opened at the height of the pandemic.

Group 4 is shipping. And of course, the chip shortage affected everyone. They aren’t scamming anyone, I’ve got mine, have been providing updates to the console and ecosystem. Hang in there :)

> But there’s not really any communication or acknowledgement / accountability.

Are you sure you’re being fair here? I found about 20 emails from them since Summer 2021 (not including account creation kind of emails).

To be fair to you, there aren’t that many emails that are specifically dedicated to shipping updates (i.e the ones titled “Update #1/2/3/etc”). But there are still updates sprinkled in the other emails.

The email from March 2, 2023 said that Group 4 was expected to finish shipping by June and that Group 5 would start shipping Summer/Fall 2023.

I pre-ordered it Summer 2021. I landed in Group 2 even though the pre-order form was only open for less than 30 minutes. Group 2 was expected to ship in early 2022. There were delays that were communicated. The explanations grokked with what was going on in the manufacturing world at that time and also with my expectations of a new hardware venture by an indie software* studio. I received it Summer 2022.

The emails that I see for other groups are no different.

*Any web dev remember Coda?

*Any web dev remember Coda?*

Yep. And I still pop open Coda 2 when I have some random slice of HTML to validate.

I used Coda on my iPad until a year ago, and still use Transmit (iOS and Mac daily) and Prompt (iOS monthly).

The Playdate community is very impressive and makes this device such a no-brainer purchase after all the questions about whether it would be worth it (while acknowledging it's still not for everyone)! As a mostly-lurker on the unofficial Playdate Discord it's delightful to see this get attention here

I’m very happy with my PlayDate. Now that Catalog is out, there are more games than I can possibly play.

It really feels like the first gadget I have gotten in a long time that continues to delight. It's the rare gadget that keeps updating the better.

It does look interesting, but I can't get over that screen... 2-bit and no backlight in 2023 is a hard pill to swallow for the price they're asking. I like everything else about the device, but I'm waiting for gen2 to hopefully improve this.

A back light is impossible on this type of opaque display (most LCDs are not opaque). So it would ned to be a front light. But, really, it needs to be seen to be believed — I really never think it should have a lit screen. Compared to devices that really did need screen illumination — such as the 1st gen Game Boy Advance, WonderSwan or Neo Geo Pocket — the Playdate is using screen technology that is decades newer and far, far better.

And the 1-bit is a real vibe, personally it takes me back to classic Macintosh. I find it quite liberating to not have to think of colour, at least at this point a few years into Playdate development.

"After playing a friend's recent indie game for Sharp X68000, I wondered how easy it would be to write a version of the concept from scratch for Playdate. After a day I had the core of the game, two days a playable game, and after a week I had a bug free and playable.

Since the first week I'm dedicating the time needed to make it into a more fully featured, more solid and more accessible game as I get it ready for sale."

I'd really like to try (and develop for) the playdate, its just so hard to get your hands on. It feels pointless preordering now when people who preordered over a year ago may not get it this year (I dont like preorders at the best of times), the only other way to get it is off ebay at a 50% markup on what was already a fairly pricey device

I feel for you, though I will say that it's a lot of fun to develop for regardless of whether you have a device or not. The only thing I wish is for the Playdate Simulator to more closely mirror the performance of the device.

I wish I could see the screen on my Playdate. I've found it incredibly difficult to see under normal lighting conditions.

I wish they went with a different display.

Interesting. The only concession I have to make is to take my glasses off because it's quite small. I might need varifocals.

The tank is great. There is a whole bunch of maths going into drawing that final tank so it rotates properly as an ellipse.

How is it for teaching kids programming?

Probably depends on the kids' age/ability.

The playdate sdk is Lua, which has fairly basic syntax.

However, the playdate sdk is fairly low level, so early projects will inevitably be laborious with infrequent engaging feedback cycles for kids.

They would need to be self starters with some prior programming experience, or have you slog through the annoying parts.

There's a "no-code" web-based editor called Pulp that can create tile based games, something like the first NES Zelda.

It's a great choice for teaching programming, IMHO. As well as the official SDK supporting C and Lua there's also a "no-code" web-based game creator called Pulp. For somebody totally new I would recommend starting with Pulp and progressing to Lua (which is very easy to read and fine for most games) and maybe even to C if they really get the bug. I've been programming for ~35 years and picked Lua so I can concentrate on my game design more than the programming. Also, developing for Playdate does not require a device — Lua/C require a computer and Pulp requires only a web browser — so it's essentially free to tryout hand at it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com