Lovers of portable gaming and cool gadgets will no doubt have seen the reviews of Playdate go live last week. Panic's cute throwback console is a celebration of simpler gaming times and we were lucky enough to get our hands on one early — we found it to be a delightful little yellow system, one that sends us back "to a time when handheld video gaming was a simpler, more innocent pastime, and every new experience felt fresh and exciting".
Beyond the new games it comes loaded with, Playdate is also an open platform with developers of all sizes able to create and distribute easily-loaded software for it. One such piece of software is Playnote Studio, a neat little app for anyone who misses Nintendo DSi's brilliantly simple animation tool, Flipnote Studio.
While Nintendo's animation app might be unavailable to download these days, the short flipbook-style masterpieces created using Flipnote Studio can be viewed on Playdate using developer James Daniel's software. The app is based on a previous web-based player, and it uses the console's crank to let you wind forward and back through the animation frames.
Nintendo's Flipnote apps attracted a dedicated, passionate following and still stir feelings to this day. An April Fools' Day prank back in 2020 which 'leaked' a Switch version led to copious amounts of fan ire directed at the pranksters. That same year, one fan revealed an incredible 34-minute animation painstakingly created in Flipnote Studio 3D, the 3DS version. Yep, that's some dedication, right there!
You can head to playnote.studio for more information on how to download the app to your Playdate and enjoy Flipnotes to your heart's content.
"Download the app to our Playdate? What if you're not in distribution group 1?" Ah, while we might have a single Playdate in Nintendo Lite Towers, some of us on Team NL have quite some wait until our personal Playdates are dispatched. In the meantime we'll download the app and get it prepped, ready and waiting to crank through some choice flipnotes.
- Further reading: Review: Playdate - Picking Things Up Where The Game Boy Left Off?
[source twitter.com]
Comments (20)
Flipnote will ever truly die
Can't wait for mine
Group 2 a go go baby.
Loved Flipnote back in the day. It's what got me into making animations in the first place. Nowadays, though, it's such a limited tool set that I don't really see much of an appeal for it, let alone Playnote, if it's all monochrome.
Anyways, lemme take you guys on a nostalgia trip back 10+ years to Flipnote Hatena. Gizmo was my favorite creator. "You're driving me crazy, and I'm gonna lose my mind! Gonna lose my, gonna lose my, blabbity-blah-blah mind!"
Then there were such classics as Numa-Numa, "Elmo knows where you live," Do You Like Waffles, "Sittin' on the toilet," "I hate my life and I wanna die, I ain't got no iPhone," "I can walk on water, I can fly, I will keep on fighting till I die," "That still leaves 10 waffles for you " "chicken wing, chicken wing, hotdog and bologna," "Why did you cut offa my head-a?" "To start, press any key," "Link go go go, you have to saaaaaave the woooooorld"... I could probably keep going.
The best part is when others would plagiarize people's work by downloading a video, increasing the speed to where you can't tell what they're saying anymore, and reuploading the video and passing it as their own work while somehow getting more popular than the original. Good times...
Kekeflipnote is looking at this with interest.
I'm really interested in this console. I just don't have money to spend on the cost or time for this new portable right now.
A flip note like without a touch screen ?
If only my Playdate would ship! I'm in group one, but still no word on when mine will ship.
I'm still confused as to how this is Nintendo related..at all...?
It's a video game console (kinda) and it has an app that looks kinda sorta looks like a DS menu. Is that why these keep getting posted here?
This thing is straight up garbage. For nearly $200 and no backlit display. Sad.
@philwhite sounds like someone is sad they didn't preorder one. 😢
@SteamEngenius I mean, in this case it is literally Nintendo related because the article is about a Flipnote Studio player app. Is that really so hard to understand?
The thing is if you compare this to something like an Evercade handheld which came with 3 collection cartridges (with 36 old games included) for only $100, then the PlayDate does kinda feel like a ripoff. The fact that it's only $20 cheaper than a Nintendo Switch Lite makes it seem like an even bigger ripoff. If the crank and the little innovation in those new games is all you want then you probably got your money's worth.
@Specter_of-the_OLED do we really need to compare the two at all? of COURSE the Evercade will triumph over the Playdate in most areas, but I don't think that really matters.
Are the games on this little console any good.
@Ninfan Supposedly amazing.
I'm sad I didn't preorder before now. Mine won't come until 2023.
Incoming cease and desist from Nintendo to “vigorously defend our IP.”
@Abes3 i think it's just a player, That plays content created elsewhere.
stop trying to make Playdate happen, Gretchen
Wondering if my group B analogue pocket or my group 4 playdate will arrive sooner…..
These things are dumb. A Gameboy pocket and an everdrive cartridge would be money better spent f you want a little black and white non backlit handheld.
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