Long before Playdate and its crank arrived, some part of me already understood that every handheld is, before anything else, a puzzle to be solved. The Playdate, which I’ve spent the last fortnight with, features a crank! It features a crank.Īnd yet. Maybe this is why handhelds are where normally sober hardware designers deploy rear touchscreens, or two screens and a hinge and stylus, where a cartridge might come with its own little rumble pack, or a light sensor for weaponising the sun as you fight digital vampires. Handhelds are allowed to be odd, because they’re objects – clue in the name here I guess – to be held in the hands, and the hands are curious things themselves. It’s Mario slung in your backpack: where next?įreedom to roam! And there’s a peculiar freedom of form too. It’s Mario queueing for an ice cream or waiting for an MRI.
The Switch is Mario on the sofa or sat up in bed, sure, but it’s also Mario under a tree in the park, in a window seat on the bus or a train as forests strobe past. They task you with finding new ways to fit them into your life, your days, your tangled journey through the world. I love them more than any other aspect of this brilliant and difficult medium. Handheld consoles are the best part of games, I reckon.
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