Here's the itch.io page... getting ready for launch in about a week?
Playtime: Weird Alarm Clocks for Playdate by Adams Immersive
(Hard to know how to price a non-game for a game console! But I'm thinking $3 suggested, $2 minimum, and see how it goes. I feel like charging less than I would for an actual game.)
It's not quite available yet (the beta download above is still the only one available publicly) but if anyone wants to guinea pig a more recent version, ask away!
Why? Just curious
I'll definitely be grabbing it once you release !
Just thinking out loud, based on supply and demand: it's a game machine to most people.
That said, I wouldn't consider game demand to be simply the NUMBER of interested users, but also how MUCH they are interested, and so any game (or app) that is unusual in some way gains value even if only a small niche is interested.
I can also see this app becoming more appealing once the stereo dock is out.
(And even if I do decide to experiment with "pricing lower than a game"āwhat's a good price for a game? No way to say right now! There are a lot of small $1ā$5 titles out there, and not so many big ones like Bloom. But that will change.)
I think also Playdate owners might be more open to spending more in general, based on that supply/demand?
On iOS, there are some quality premium paid Clock apps, but there are also dozens of free ones that are relatively good quality too. Unless the premium one is doing something very specific, I can maybe get away with downloading a free one.
With Playtime, itāll be the best Clock app on the system, for quite a while probably. So Iām more willing to pay whatever you list it as; looks like youāve got a strangle hold on the Clock market segment 
Thanks! There's a cool Sunrise Clock (something like the Apple Watch Solar Dial) already out. But I am hoping to be among the top PD clocks for a) quantity and b) weirdness 
ETA next week? No promises yet!
(And I too would be glad to see PD game pricing settle in MUCH higher than the unsustainable free-to-a-buck on smartphones.)
Here's the fake "LCD fade" effect I'm using. (I'm sure it will be more realistic in the dark-on-light version.)
This is Bayer (patterned) dither. I kind of think I like the random Atkinson look better, but I can't make up my mind.
Slightly less smooth on device, but it kind of looks "right" anyway.
And the dark-on-light style, in 24-hour time mode (Atkinson dither this time):
With the light background, digits are reduced slightly at top/bottom and moved inwards, so the black digits don't touch the black around the screen.
If I had an option in the app to choose, I'd pick the Bayer. But, they both look nice
This is great, works really well at large sizes.
I have this effect in my LCD fonts, but opted not to use it in my games because it made everything appear slower!
Small detail: all transition effects in Playtime END at the accurate moment of time changeāunlike a real LCD clock where the fade STARTS at the moment of time change. (Some clocks in the collection have longer transitions than others, and it felt more accurate to have the visuals "lead up" to the real time.)
I notice modern LCD digits (like on my thermometer) transition really fast, not much of a fade. But I'm going retro! I remember how slow they used to be.
Here's the "Verbose" clock which has a normal digital display but also characterizes the time of day with 15 different natural language phrases. (Based on a clock system I came up with for my grandmother when she started having trouble understanding the numeric time. I ran it on an old iPhone on her shelf.)
If you choose the 24-hour time option (seen here) then I also format the date "27 February 2022" instead of the US-style "February 27, 2022" that I use in 12-hour mode.
(Which is a pretty limited form of localization, I will admit.)
Yes, that's a Stereo Dock icon in the corner. The battery meter shows 3 different icons for battery, USB cable charging, and Stereo Dock charging.
(No, of course, I don't have a Stereo Dock yet.)
This app is just about wrapped up! Only few more (fairly easy) clocks left to add, and then some polishing work like kerning pairs, launch card, better sounds, and some more in-app documentation.
Here's my "Hebdomad" clockāin its most traditional (round) variation, with day and date:
(It's easy to read once you "get" it. Instructions included in the app.)
This is one of my experimental clocks, not exactly analog nor digital, that I call "low-state." They indicate the time with as few "bits" of info (lights) as possible while still being useful and readable. This one has 7 lights. (No blinking, no patterns to learn. It reads much like an analog clock.)
A couple of the included clocks tell time with only 3 lights! The time is approximate in that caseābut the average inaccurracy is only 3.75 minutes. Not bad for 3 bits of information. An ordinary digital clock (lacking seconds) has an inherent average inaccuracy of .5 minutesāso this is only 3.25 minutes worse than that!
Very excited! Would be glad to stress test it if you need any users for that (paying for it on itch, of course!)
That would be a big help!
I never got around to putting out a call for testers, so consider this the call: testers wanted!
I feel my testers deserve a freebie coupon code, and I'm pretty sure itchi.io can do that. The help is worth more than a couple bucks to me.
I'm chasing down a new issue that just cropped up with the "Surprise!" clock (randomly picks a clock every 5 minutes) and then I'll have a near-complete version to test. I can just send it to you on here.
I know I'll obsess endlessly over the final details, but next week still looks like a safe bet for launch.
So... I had to tidy up what happens when one of the quick minute-to-minute transition animations crosses the boundary between hours.
Long story short, not only does that cause the hour to change, at midnight it causes the date to change. And the day of the week, which some clocks display.
Naturally, that can also cause the month to change. And that can cause the year to change. Happy New Year!
But I can't do those calculations unless I know the length of each month.
Yep. To make the minute-to-minute transitions reliable, I have to calculate which years are leap years 
It's not just every 4 years. TIL that once a century, a leap year gets skipped. And once every four centuries, the skipped one is NOT skipped, which happened in 2000. At midnight on February 28, 2024, my users can find out if my regular leap year code works. But the four-century code specifically won't get tested until the year 2400. Hooray for replaceable batteries!
More fun than that whole PITA was making the Double Digits clock: giant minutes, tiny hour and date.
11:59 on the 24th. Two-tone color scheme optional.
Just because a clock is analog doesn't mean it can't fill a rectangular screen...
late as heck but i've been following this a while and all of these neat lil clocks are rly cute and i'm excited for it! i'd love to test it on my console sometime if that's still open! 
Wow! I love the top one! Has a retro jetsons feel to it, like a Hamilton Ventura watch. This just keeps getting better. I am looking at my future desk clock. The speaker dock cannot arrive soon enough!
Testing help would be appreciated, I'll be sure to send a test version to you on here... once I track down ONE more bug...
Sneak peak at the graphics for the last (I swear!) clock I'm programming. Probably the weirdest one of the bunch: a creature is assembled from parts, the combination of which tells you the time. A unique beast every 5 minutes. It may seem hard to read at first, but you get used to it. (My parents keep an old iPhone on the side table running this clock 24/7 since they've learned to read it. Of course, that version has a choice of bright colors. This will not!)
