Although Panic has halted development on its official Playdate repository, a popular character artist has stepped in with an open-source kit (via Gizmodo) that turns the device into a robotic pet.
PlayBot is Guillaume Loquin’s name for a great add-on, which anyone with the right experience can build. (For the uninitiated, don’t be alarmed if you eventually see others selling the build on platforms like Etsy.) Made of two wheels, a motor, a microcontroller and a 3D-printed casing, it fits into the Playdate’s built-in accelerometer, microphone and sensors to change the game console. of indie became a good-looking desktop companion.
Loquin, whose day job is a character artist at Ubisoft, used those skills to bring the device to life. While it won’t do anything crazy like chat, pop wheels or fetch, Loquin’s video below shows it reacting to the wake tap, spinning around a corner and getting dizzy after spinning the Playdate crank. It can also move around your desk, avoid obstacles and avoid falling off the edge.
The developer estimates 45 minutes of gameplay per charge. When you are not playing with the device (on a game console or robot form), the robo dock charges the console.
Loquin provides the 3D printing instructions, corresponding application code and firmware for its Teensy 4.1 microcontroller on GitHub.
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