We’re still waiting for a release date for Playdate, a tiny handheld computer with a hand crank made by Untitled goose game Panic, but Panic only showed a new feature to the device on the official Playdate Twitter account: you can connect Playdate to your computer and mirror your screen.
As Playdate says in its tweet, there are many potential use cases for this, including better accessibility and making it easier to stream your Playdate game. And pressing the virtual buttons in the Playdate app will pass them back to your Playdate device, giving you another way to play. (It doesn’t look like there’s a virtual hand crank, but maybe it’s something that Panic hasn’t shown yet.)
Here is a short video of the computer connection in action:
Here’s a fun little thing we did. Connect your Playdate, launch this application and it will mirror your Playdate screen to your PC / Mac / Linux in real time. Perfect for streamers, YouTubers and better accessibility. The PC input can go to Playdate too! pic.twitter.com/OE8q1X0txC
– Playdate (@playdate) March 24, 2021
Although the Playdate computer app may look a little small in this video, you can make it bigger, Panic said in a reply on twitter. And if you listen carefully to the video, you can also hear some extremely charming sound effects from the Playdate menu, that Panic says are new.
Playdate was first revealed in 2019, with games in development from Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, Good sudoku developer Zach Gage and more. At the time, Panic hoped to ship Playdate in early 2020, but said in October that it expects to start ordering in “early 2021”.
Panic also created a Twitter account, @playdateAlerts, which will only tweet when there are “important” news about Playdate. If you want to know exactly when you can order the device, @playdateAlerts seems like a good account to follow.