Wow, that's an amazing watch collection! Very creative, I can't wait to see what else you bring over to the playdate.
It looks good the way it is, but if you do decide add the animation, it would be cool if the crank was used to power up the animation for a few minutes (based on how fast and for how long it is cranked), and after the "crank power" is exhausted the animation would stop (extra points if you make it funny).
If that's too much work, you could also just use the playdate.getPowerStatus() method to determine if animation should be used when it is plugged in.
This is very cool. It took me a minute to work out how I was supposed to be seeing the hour (especially for the 12 in the last gif) but now it's twigged it feels very clever!
Thanks! Actual animation is at least a possibility... although I lean towards keeping the power use lean
I find it a lot easier to see the hours if the theme keeps the screen mostly white, with black lines "carved" into it. Easier still if the minutes are rendered with a different look from the hour lines. And easiest of all if the theme is simple and uncluttered! But it's also fun to make the time a little hidden sometimes. So I have themes at both extremes.
BTW I expanded this digit guide to show minute examples, including how the "Busiest" setting (in System Menu) affects the minutes (only 1s, 4s, and 7s). It adds small extra marks to ignore, in order to make those digits occupy their full half of the screen:
Here's a beta version 1 .pdx, if anyone wants to try this work-in-progress.
The file size is... let's see... 38... kilobytes ??? That puts Playdate development in perspective for me I had to zip it for the forum... which made it larger
I am now defaulting to the lowest digit complexity (System Menu).
Not all the clocks will be "skins" for that one clock. Playtime will be a gallery of many clocks, some analog... like this one—circles in the Golden Ratio (phi) orbiting each other:
5:45 / Quarter to Six
The big circle is simply the "face," the small inner circle is the hour "hand," and the outer circle is the minute "hand."
Because there are no hour markings, I make it easy to tell where each hand is by "snapping" it to the nearest mark. So, on a normal analog clock, that hour hour hand would be CLOSE to 6 but in between 5 and 6. This clock snaps it right to 6. No ambiguity to process.
The minute hand snaps to the nearest 5-minute mark. It will advance to "10 to 6" halfway between 5:45 and 5:50. Again, no ambiguity—you can tell the time at a glance one you're used to the style.
Plus by not updating all those in-between states, battery life is spared.
I would naturally interpret that as 6:45, not 5:45. If you're quantising the movement I'd expect it to be floored, not rounded, as that's usually how clocks work in my experience (a ticking minute hand on a clock will tick when the second hand reaches 0, not 30).
That was my first instinct too, and fear not: that will be an option! You can play with different options in the web version I made for Apple Watch:
(Under Mode, turn off "To/Past" and it will work as you describe.)
The reason this is the default though, is to follow the way MOST people read analog clocks—if they regular users of them! I have always used mostly digital clocks, and when I read an analog clock, I do it the way you describe.
But the better way to read an analog clock (especially with few/no markings) is to read the minutes first, traditionally as "to" or "past." Then look at the hour hand. Reading the hour hand first doesn't work well: is it almost 6? A little past? Whereas having read the minutes first, you know that.
So for example: at 5:55, someone used to analog clocks expects the hour hand to be near the 6, not near the 5.
I have no such habits, so I can read the time either way (as long as I know which!)—but I still want a reasonable default.
And that default is: reading the time as "to" or "past" the nearest hour. If you're just reading imaginary digits left-to-right (like my digital clock habits tell me to do!) then the other setting would be better.
Here's the most traditional clock in the collection:
Biggest digits the screen can fit (they get narrower if you choose the 24-hour mode)
Inverse dark-on-light version too, with slightly smaller inset digits, for the classic "LCD" look
Very quick "LCD fade" transitions (probably... unless I decide I don't like it!)
A bit of subtle anti-aliasing on the angles and circles—should be all but invisible at real-world viewing distances--whereas the jaggies this prevents were very visible
Custom LCD segments for Day and Date, within the colon dots
I swear people were saying you must compile separately for the device vs. the Simulator... but I have my Playdate now and Playtime runs just fine on it as is! Have at it!
So I guess that step only applies to C code.
I'm working on the "gallery" UI now so you can pick a clock quickly instead of having to cycle through them one at a time.
First look at the clock gallery UI. Scrolls vertically.
D-pad to choose. Right side shows a preview of the highlighted clock (or About screen in this example).
(A) to select a clock—shows a screen with a longer explanation, and sometimes clock-specific options. (A) again to start the clock.
Within each clock, (A) can have unique custom functions. But (B) always goes back, and D-pad and crank always change the time in various ways (to help learn to read the weirder clocks—or just as a "fidget toy").
Details screen once you choose a clock. Most clocks will have at least one customizable option. The d-pad both selects an option and, if you keep hitting Down, scrolls the explanation text below. D-pad Left/Right to change the selected option.
(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!
1 Like
fosterdouglas
(Foster Douglas / Everyday Lemonade)
25
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"—what's a good price for a game? No way to say right now! There are a lot of small $1–$5 titles out there, and not so many big ones like Bloom. But that will change.)
1 Like
fosterdouglas
(Foster Douglas / Everyday Lemonade)
27
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, it’ll be the best Clock app on the system, for quite a while probably. So I’m more willing to pay whatever you list it as; looks like you’ve got a strangle hold on the Clock market segment
I had to zip it for the forum... which made it larger 
