The Playdate is a strange but oddly appealing little console. It’s a tiny little black-and-white console that, aside from sporting regular buttons, also has a hand crank that can be incorporated into gameplay. But just what can you play on this device? Here are all the games currently on the Playdate console.
A List of All the Playdate Console Games
Right now, there are 40 games available for the Playdate, though the way they’re delivered is a little curious. We’ll start with the games that you can purchase right now, from the moment your Playdate lands in your trembling hands, and we’ll explain why in a minute:
- A Joke That’s Worth $0.99 ($1.00) – crank-operated game with a little bouncy-butted guy
- Bloom ($10.00) – a narrative-driven social sim about running a flower shop
- Carve Jr ($8.00) – a snowboarding game
- Direct Drive ($15.00) – a musical game about silent movies
- Down the Oubliette ($5.00) – a spook-based dungeon crawler
- Eyeland ($2.00) – a short, mysterious adventure that needs to be completed in one sitting
- Grand Tour Legends ($6.00) – a crank-powered cycling game
- Hidey Spot ($6.00) – find your hidden presents on Christmas Eve
- Playmaker ($15.00) – a creativity tool, the Playdate’s equivalent of Mario Paint
- Recommendation Dog!! (Free) – a puzzler about a dog who works at a temp agency
- Reel Steal (Free) – reclaim art that has been stolen by billionaires
- Skew ($6.00) – an endless runner, a spinoff from The Last Worker from the creator of Alone in the Dark
- Swap Machina ($5.00) – a puzzle game inspired by the likes of Panel de Pon and Tetris Attack
- Tapeworm Disco Puzzle ($9.00) – a puzzler where you play as a nightclub-owning tapeworm
- The Botanist ($9.00) – an interactive sci-fi comic
- Word Trip ($6.00) – a word puzzle game
The additional 24 games, which are free for purchasers of the Playdate, are delivered at the rate of two a week. What’s curious about that is they start being delivered when you activate your Playdate.
So, if you receive and activate your Playdate tomorrow, you’ll have to wait 12 weeks to be able to play them all. If your friend buys a Playdate and activates it next month, they’ll still have to wait 12 weeks.
Why? According to Panic, the company behind the Playdate, it’s so players can take their time with them. We can certainly understand that — there’s more than a few TV shows we’ve regretted binging all at once.
So here all 24 of the games that compose “Season 1” of the Playdate console:
- Whitewater Wipeout – a surfing game
- Casual Birder – an adventure about photographing birds
- Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure – use the crank to control the titular Crankin
- Boogie Loops – a rhythm game with cute animals
- Lost Your Marbles – a branching visual novel
- Pick Pack Pup – a match-3 puzzle game about a dog who works at a fulfillment center
- Flipper Lifter – a silly penguin-guiding game
- Echoic Memory – a musical puzzle game
- Omaze – a puzzle platformer with circles
- Demon Quest ’85 – a weird high school adventure
- Hyper Meteor – Asteroids, but you ram rather than shoot asteroids
- Zipper – a retro-styled isometric game from Bennett Foddy. Yes, Getting Over It Bennett Foddy
- Questy Chess – an adventure set inside a barely used chess program
- Executive Golf DX – a golf game set in a procedurally generated office
- Saturday Edition – play as a man who may or may have been abducted by aliens
- Star Sled – a spaceship action game inspired by the arcade games of the ‘70s and ‘80s
- Spellcorked – craft potions for a witch’s digital customers
- Inventory Hero – an RPG where the computer handles the battles and you mind the inventory
- Snak – Snake, but you can jump over your tail
- Sasquatchers – a team-based cryptozoology game
- Forrest Byrnes: Up in Smoke – save campers from forest fires and more
- Battleship Godios – a shoot ‘em up where you have limited bullets
- b360 – Arkanoid with a twist
- Ratcheteer – a top-down adventure set on an icy Earth
Again, these 24 games represent Season 1. A second season hasn’t been confirmed, but if there is one you can expect to have to pay for it.
So, if you buy a Playdate, you’ll get 24 free games delivered at the rate of two every week. You can also get two games (Real Steal and Recommendation Dog!!) for free and purchase 14 more.
As for the Playdate itself, it’s priced at $179 and is available direct from Panic. However, while it was released in April 2022, it’s so heavily in demand that new orders won’t ship till late 2023.
That’s everything you need to know about all of the games available on the Playdate console.
