Even the developer admits that game development for Playdate, the cute yellow handheld that uses a crank, eventually had to end up here. Doom. Chaingun. Crank. It just flows.
As you can see, Panic were just as delighted with the effort, and we must admit that Doom may have found its true spirit console, purely for the crank.
The company is still working to finish up Playdate, whose game development is in full swing. "Over 250 people around the world now have actual Playdates in-hand. They’re putting our tools and tech to the test, building the world’s first third-party Playdate games", they tweeted.
Not every Playdate app from the latest showcase is a game, mind you, as Panic showed off some calligraphy concepts as well. They also reminded that the handheld is basically a dev kit, which you can use to make your own games if you want.
Panic's showcase featured various applications of Playdate's hardware, including the accelerometer you see in RNG Party below. Looks tasty already.
You can check out the thread for more examples, but you should know not all of these projects will ship - apparently some have been more about experimentation.
Panic Inc.
You probably realised by now that not all games use the crank, but those that do make Playdate quite a bit unique.
Crankin's Time Travel Adventure, which is made by Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, has players controlling the flow of time using the crank in an attempt to get to a date on time. Crankin's plans with Crankette get really complicated once time-immune obstacles enter the fray, leaving it up to players to crank out a win somehow.
Panic
