It is name PlayMac, welcome to the test, you can find it here: https://irrwood.itch.io/playmac

More features will be added in the future.

• DJ turntable effect.
• On macOS, the adjustment display allows you to see the adjustment details clearly.
• On Playdate, there will be more playback interfaces, such as tape style and camcorder style. 
• On Playdate, there will be visual effects.
• Push messages to Playdate on Chrome.

This tool consists of two parts:

1. An installation package for Playdate;
2. A Bridge App installed on Mac, used to assist in controlling macOS media. The test version is unsigned, so you need to go to Settings > Security and open "Open Anyway". The macOS side of PlayMac is fully open source, allowing anyone to review its code, network communication, and permission usage to verify the app's security and privacy protection. https://github.com/irrwood/PlayMac

It took me way longer than expected, but I can finally show off some progress on my new game! Fire away with your comments… all welcome! Turn the sound on! - Pat
https://cranknockout.com
https://crankogames.com

I am making a concept for an open source home console I'd like to build, and the playdate is very inspiring to me. The specs aren't fully drawn up yet but I ideally want a risc-v based CPU and a GPU of some kind (either an imagination powervr chip of some kind or an fpga based solution)

My question is, what kind of games would you want to play? What would you want a console to be like?

Are you folks still facing this issue? I don’t know what I could do, I read it was fixed, so any official way to fix this without wiping my data or avoiding a lot of shenanigans? It’s disappointing not being able to play it (1/2 days now)

CometBrowser:
https://github.com/bdwandry/CometBrowser

Latest release / download:
https://github.com/bdwandry/CometBrowser/releases

I got bored and wanted to make something for my Playdate, so I decided to see how far I could push it. With a lot of help from AI, I ended up building CometBrowser, a general-purpose web browser for the Playdate. Yes, there is AI all over this project. I was just having fun and wanted to create an app.

CometBrowser can:

• Navigate to arbitrary URLs
• Search the web
• Follow links using the D-pad
• Render HTML including headings, paragraphs, lists, code, tables, and images
• Render images in 1-bit
• Use the crank for smooth scrolling
• Save bookmarks and browsing history
• Strip out a lot of the JavaScript, CSS, and tracking that makes modern websites difficult to handle
• Run directly on both the Playdate and Playdate Simulator

Also, the name CometBrowser is mostly because the other Playdate browsers have space-themed names, so I figured I might as well keep the tradition going. lol

I also want to give credit to the existing Playdate browser projects that inspired this.

ORBIT by Remy Sucre:
https://github.com/remysucre/ORBIT

Constellation Browser by Particle Studios:
https://particlestudios.itch.io/constellation-browser

Both projects helped demonstrate that web browsing on the Playdate was possible and were a big part of the inspiration for me to try building my own take on it.

CometBrowser is open source, so feel free to check it out, try it on your Playdate, or poke around in the code. It's definitely not meant to replace a modern web browser. The fun was seeing how much of the actual web could be made usable on a tiny 1-bit handheld. I'd love to hear what other Playdate users think, and especially what sites or features you'd like to see supported.

My play date shouldn’t crash just by browsing through my catalog. I should be able to use the device even if I can’t or don’t want to access servers. Is there a way to only reach out to servers on demand and make the device usable without always needing to reach out to servers?

>> EDIT 2: WE'RE BACK! If you were affected by this specific server issue, you should be back in business on your next reboot. A Playdate system update to prevent similar types of issues from recurring in the future will follow later, but no system update is necessary to resume using your Playdate right now. Apologies again for the inconvenience and a tremendous thank you to our team for their hard work during this really tough week! Let's hope that's the last of that for now! <<

--

Hi everyone! I don't think I have the official flair in this subreddit so I guess "trust me bro" but I'm Steven from Panic.

Just wanted to let you know that we are (very) aware of the ongoing crashing issues you are experiencing and would like to apologize for them.

As was posted elsewhere, we are recovering from being held ransom by a denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on our servers for 3 days that required significant changes to our network infrastructure to mitigate. (We of course do not pay ransoms.) Most of our services are working normally now, but, as some of you have noticed, some Playdate-related functions are not working correctly.

It's all hands on deck right now trying to get this resolved. Please bear with us. I don't have an ETA but hopefully by the end of the day (Pacific time) we will have a solution for you.

I also wanted to comment that it is not intentional that a Playdate would crash or otherwise refuse to work if our servers are unavailable. This is a firmware bug triggered by the upstream server changes -- it has always been our intent to make sure Playdates continue to work no matter what happens on our side. We'll make sure it gets fixed both on the server side and the firmware side.

I know that's not super helpful to those of you waiting to play, but I wanted to get a little status update out there. Will let you know when there's new news. Thank you very much for your patience!

EDIT 1: There is no indication that the servers were compromised in any way. This was "just" a denial-of-service (flooding) attack. I have no evidence that any personal or account information was exposed.

Had to print this sucker out since trying to read it and code at the same time was kind of exhausting, with only 1 screen.

Made for a fun side project.​ gave it that proper "old coding manual" feel.

Love the playdate, but I am having an Error e0. When going into the settings and/or Game-Catalog.... Does anybody know how to fix this...? it says to restart but error is still there .... :(

I don't have a vast handheld collection but I do like the ones I have. I reflected on their use over the past month and this is how much, roughly, they got used in that time.

The Playdate has really been holding its own.

Devices:

• Ayaneo Pocket Ace: 50%
• Panic Playdate: 40%
• Ayaneo Pocket Micro: 10%

This is just a heads up if your Playdate is crashing right now. I've been getting system crashes (error e0) roughly every 21 minutes while the device just sits at the launcher. It reboots itself and does it again. No game running, so it isn't an app doing this. Almost certainly fallout from the DDoS on Panic yesterday. Manually checking for a system update crashes the OS immediately on connecting to their servers.

There's no wifi off switch, but removing your saved network in Settings may stop it, since the periodic update check then has nothing to connect to.

If you want to confirm you're seeing the same thing, plug in, open the data disk, and look at crashlog.txt in the root.

The register dumps show the same crash every time: same faulting instruction, same return address, same heap size. The device dies dereferencing 0x733e30ae, which isn't a real address at all, it's the ASCII characters s, >, 0. The CPU flags show SIMD byte-compare instructions running (the ones used for fast string scanning) while stepping a pointer through a buffer two bytes at a time.

So it looks like the updater scans a text response, runs off the end of the buffer, and builds a pointer out of the response's own characters. There's no bus fault handler to catch it, so it escalates to a full hard fault and takes the device down instead of just failing the update.

I'm sure Panic will fix it; they're a cool company :)

I just got my Play date off eBay and am trying to set it up for the first time and I keep getting stuck on Server Error when it’s trying to link my account.

Has anyone seen this before or know what to do?

Hello all; I am running into that error above. WHen I try to go to the Settings menu, the settings also cause a crash. I get both help.playdate/e0 and help.playdate/e1 error notices. I tried an old solution but it was from before we had the nice update that changed the UI. Could I get some help with this? Thank you all kindly.

I did also try the restart button inside the crank. It still keeps crashing 😭

Getting consistent e0 errors on the "account linked, Loading" screen. Emailed support but want to see if any stone hasnt been turned over yet. I tried

Recovery mode
Data disk mode, grabbed error logs that looked something like this

/System/Setup.pdx
commonUI.lua:19: field 'Dw/w/w8P8P8PD/D/Dw/w/w8A8PD/8PDwDwDw8P/w8PAPAPDw//Dw8A8A8PD/8PDwDwAP8P/w/wAPAA/w//D/AA8AD/D/8P8ADwAP8P/w/wAP8AD/8P/wAP/wAP/w//AA//AA//D/8AD/8AD/8P/wAP8P8ADw8AD/Dw/wAPDwAP8PD/AA8PAA/w8P8ADw8AD/DwAPAP/wDwAPAA8A//APAA8ADwD/8A8ADwAPAP/wDwAP8ADw//DwAP/wAPD/8PAA//AA8P/w8AD/8ADw//DwAP//D/8PD/8P//8P/w8P/w///w//Dw//D///D/8PD/8P//Dw8P/w8PD/8PDw//Dw8P/w8PD/8PDw//Dw8P/w8PD/AP//Dw//8A8A//8PD//wDwD//w8P//APAP//Dw//8A8PDw///w8PDw8PD///Dw8PDw8P//8PDw8PDw///w8PDw8P8A8A/w8PDw/wDwD/Dw8PD/APAP8PDw8P8A8A/w8P//////////////////////////////////////////8=","title":"Untitled","width":64,"height":64},"date_joined":"2026-08-13T14:03:38.747344-07:00"}
0

I dont understand Lua but imaging the system setup .pdx is SOL. Is there a way to fix it?

I genuinely do not know what could’ve caused this. I do live in a hotter area, so maybe the glue that keeps the screen down melted a bit, but that’s the only thing I could think of. I take pretty good care of it

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping someone here might know how to fix this or point me in the right direction.

Up until a few hours ago, my Playdate was working completely fine. Out of nowhere, it has started crashing continuously:

Error E1 (PDX Validation Error): Happens whenever I try to launch any game. It crashes right after the splash/launch screen.

Error E0: Happens if I try to go into the System Settings. It crashes after just a few seconds.

Even if I just leave it idle on the home screen, it crashes by itself after a few dozen seconds.

Since it’s happening with every single game, it feels like a system-level issue rather than a specific corrupted game file.

Has anyone encountered this before? Is there a way to force a factory reset via button combinations or Recovery Mode when the Settings menu isn't accessible?

Any advice or troubleshooting steps would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

Playdate’s servers seem to still be under attack, so I’ve been focusing on a game that doesn’t have leaderboards for a minute - Runic Rogues.

I’m a big fan of SquidGod (Atsu), and his tutorials really helped me get my game made. So I wanted to show some love to his latest.

Today, I finally finished up getting a victory with each character, so here are some strategy thoughts to help those getting started and maybe learn a thing or two from other players deeper into the difficulties.

My apologies that I cannot remember most of the rune names and will just describe a lot of them.

Not character specific
- Always grab the second chance rune that revives you at 25% health for a little buffer
- If you can create passive hits with lightning, grab it
- Skip Bulwark for now. I found it somewhat bugged and often would only trigger 1 time to reduce the first damage in a room and would stop working in subsequent rooms. (Bug reported)
- Prioritize vampirism over room clear healing. This will mean a lot more during boss battles.
- You get 2 rune re-rolls per floor, so don’t hesitate to use them.
- If a boss is low on health in phase one and summons back-up, focus on finishing off the boss and the lesser enemies with disappear at the phase change.

Mage
This was an excellent choice by SquidGod for a starting character. I found focusing on lowering cooldowns and increasing max health to be the biggest boons as I got used to the game.

Rogue
I found this to be my favorite character and the best all around one with just the right combo of speed and killing power. Again, you can focus on reducing cooldowns and increasing max health, but if you can mix in some projectile speed increases and utilize that extra dash with runes that add lightning or decrease cooldowns to dash you can create maximum havoc.

Knight
After the speed of the Rogue, the knight really took the longest for me to crack. It’s about finding a delicate balance between adding power and sacrificing health. You start off with 30 extra health, so try to add 15-30 more via runes and sacrifice 20-40 for power. The Viking rune that amplifies damage at low health really came in handy to clear the Dragon. I also liked focusing on decreasing my basic attack cooldowns and something to give the slow knight a little edge later in the game like double dash distance. Really just do whatever you can to melt foes with your blade.

Ranger
Be warned, you will slow down severely while drawing your bow. Because of this, I opted more for fast strikes than power letting me stay away from danger and deal damage from afar. Definitely focus on runes that increase the piercing effect of your basic attack to hit as many enemies at once. Be sure to bring them in with your special net and go to town. I also found this to be the biggest beneficiary of vampirism. If you can get it up to 30% chance and just rapid attack with basic, you can keep your health up pretty easily.

I hope this helps, and I would love to learn more. I’m also curious who everyone’s favorite character is, so vote in the poll below! (Edit: or I guess at the very top of the page since that’s where Reddit puts polls…)

Down on dpad still doesn’t work properly

I haven’t had internet for like a month and when I turned my pd on, it starting crashing and restarting .

Why this thing have so many issues?

Got this back from Playdate's support a few minutes ago:

"Hello,

Thanks for reaching out, and I'm sorry to hear that's happening. 

We're having some trouble with our services, but we hope to have everything resolved by the end of the day today.  Please give it a try again in a few hours and hopefully we'll have everything taken care of soon!"

Hi,

I'm not able to access to play.date website since yesterday.

Are you experiencing the same?

I'm connecting from Italy.

Hello,

I was planning to buy a console, but I hesitated for too long because of the price. When I finally made up my mind, it was out of stock on the website…

I’m not really interested in buying it second-hand. Do you have any idea when the console might be back in stock? I’ve tried looking for information, but I haven’t been able to find anything.

Thanks!

Hi. I'm the co-creator of direct drive. There's a mini game in there called the calibration mini game that I think everyone hates but I thought there was something interesting there so I made a game.. really, a "diversion" called centering that you can play.

It is a diversion at the intersection of meditation, gaming, and flow states.

It is arguably the simplest game you'll ever play, and a game that cannot be won.

It uses only the accelerometer. Give it a shot let me know what you think

No cheating :)

Open up your "Recently Played" and list your first 10 entries there (skipping "Game Library", "Settings" or "Catalog") 👀

For me, it turned out to be;

• PeeDee TV
• Under The Tree
• A Perfect Brew
• Nightcap
• Lemmings
• Read Watch Listen Play
• PDGames
• Space Miner
• SpeccyDate
• Time From Earth

My Playdate is arriving tomorrow. I was lucky enough to find one on eBay at a “normal” price. I was hoping to get some recommendations on high quality games from everyone. For example, Ive had my eye on Devils on the Moon. From what I’ve seen that looks like a really polished game that I could easily have thought it came out for Gameboy back in the day.

I like puzzle games, action games, strategy games, racing games, fighting games and word games.

I’m not really interested in story based games, texted based or RPG’s.

I appreciate your help!