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I'm sure you've played a couple obscure games. However, much less common in my experience are obscure indie game consoles, and I rarely if ever see them talked about. I thought I'd mention some that are currently on the market and rank them based on how cute and unique they are. Also, currently the only one of these we own is the Arduboy, so take these ratings with a large pinch of salt.
And yes, to those in the know, the PlayDate wins.
This is not a comprehensive list of little indie consoles, if you want a much more comprehensive (and objective) list of awesome indie handhelds, check out this list by Oshaboy.
- Arduboy/ArduboyFX/Arduboy Mini
Cuteness: 4/10 | Uniqueness: 4/10 | Coolness: 7/10
Overall: 8/10
The Arduboy is what got us into obscure handhelds. We have an original Arduboy from the kickstarter, and it still works, even if the plastic part of the case is a bit worse for wear and it's missing most of it's screws. We'd say what this console lacks in original design and cuteness it makes up for in community support and library of games. We highly recommend it, though we're sure nostalgia is partially why. Unfortunately, the community is pretty dead these days, having seemed to peak when it first released in 2016. Still, it's got a lot of games out there, and is pretty simple to make games for yourself if you're into that. It's really well made, with a plastic and aluminum shell, thought the screws seem to come loose sometimes. - AttinyArcade
Cuteness: 5/10 | Uniqueness: 5/10 | Coolness: 5/10
Overall: 5.5/10
This tiny console intrigues me, mainly because of it's two face buttons. That's it. No d-pad, no options buttons of any kind, just two buttons, as well as a tiny 1-bit screen. It's such an incredible limitation it forces me to wonder what you could possibly make for it outside of Pong or Game & Watch-esque games. We like it's cute shell. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem made with game-making in mind; you just order it with a game pre-loaded onto it. Still makes for a fun and cute keychain though. - BrainPad Arcade
Cuteness: 4/10 | Uniqueness: 5/10 | Coolness: 5/10
Overall: 5/10
The larger of the two BrainPad consoles we're rating. With a full RGB screen, four face buttons, four direction buttons, two options buttons, and a reset button, it's definitely one of the more complex systems in this list. It's got a block-coding app for making games for it that's just adorable, but that doesn't count to the cuteness score because it's not apart of the console!! Honestly the only thing that gives us pause is that it doesn't have an official shell of any kind; many of the handhelds in this list don't have shells, and as cool as the aesthetic of exposed boards is, it's just not very cute and gets a bit boring. - BrainPad Pulse
Cuteness: 4/10 | Uniqueness: 6/10 | Coolness: 7/10
Overall: 6/10
The smaller of the two Brainpad consoles we're rating. The main unit only has an A and B button and a little 1-bit screen, greatly limiting what you can do with it in a similar way to the AttinyArcade. However, this console has little holes for alligator clips and game-making in mind, and you can attach a variety of accessories available from BrainPad, such as a joystick and a full set of four face buttons. The first-party expandability of this one makes it pretty interesting and unique, though definitely not very cost-effective. It also encourages a wider variety of games for the system. Overall, pretty cool, though it's another one of these without a shell of any kind. - ByteBoi
Cuteness: 6/10 | Uniqueness: 4/10 | Coolness: 5/10
Overall: 6.5/10
We're just going to start out by saying that the only way to order this console is apart of a bundle with the Nibble console and a DIY tamagotchi from CircuitMess. And that bundle is over 300$. And after that, you put together the console yourself, soldering all the parts together and such. A cool learning tool, but what the heck, CircuitMess? It makes it incredibly costly and difficult to get ahold of this system if you're just interested in making cute little games for it.
Aside from all that, the design of it is pretty cute. It's got four direction buttons, two face buttons, and a select and reset button. As well as that, it uses microSD for it's storage and appears to charge through usb, which makes it one of the most user friendly out of all of these! We'd be interested in getting one if it weren't so absurdly costly and bundled with other things no matter what. - Gamebuino META
Cuteness: 3/10 | Uniqueness: 4/10 | Coolness: 7/10
Overall: 7/10
Don't let the cuteness score fool you, this one has a really cool design for it. A nice shell of wood and plastic, easily the most unique of the shells for these. This one has a d-pad, two face buttons, an options button, and a home menu button. It also has what look to be LEDs within the shell the games can control as an extra visual output, which if true, is a really cool and unique touch. This one seems to have a (relatively) active community around it too, which is a plus. - Nibble
Cuteness: 6/10 | Uniqueness: 4/10 | Coolness: 5/10
Overall: 6/10
The only way to order this console is apart of a bundle with the ByteBoi console and a DIY tamagotchi from CircuitMess. And that bundle is over 300$. And after that, you put together the console yourself, soldering all the parts together and such. A cool learning tool, but what the heck, CircuitMess?
Unfortunately, this one seems to be just a slightly worse version of the ByteBoi. The reasoning for that might be that it's meant to be an easier project for younger children than the ByteBoi, but still. It's got four direction buttons, two face buttons, a menu button, and a microUSB port for uploading games to it. This one uses AAA batteries as opposed to the rechargeable battery of the ByteBoi. It's cute, but in our opinion, just a worse ByteBoi. However, it does get points for having a cute name. - PlayDate
Cuteness: 8/10 | Uniqueness: 6/10 | Coolness: 8/10
Overall: 9/10
The PlayDate is probably the most well-known of all of these consoles, and it's easily my favorite and the one we want the most. It has a reflective 1-bit screen, two face buttons, a d-pad, and an analogue crank as an input. It's easily got the cutest style of any handheld I've seen from it's physical design to it's OS to it's library, it's adorable and so cool. Plus, the crank is an incredibly unique input method, one we'd never seen before. Unfortunately it's a bit expensive, but it is an exceedingly well-crafted and lovely console, and we'd say it's worth it for us. It's got a growing community and plenty of games, including a couple by large indie devs we love like Bennett Foddy and davemakes. Looking forward to the day we have one of our own. (Update: We have one now, it's our favorite little handheld and we've been developing games for it since we got it!) - Pokitto
Cuteness: 6/10 | Uniqueness: 4/10 | Coolness: 5/10
Overall: 7/10
The Pokitto is like many of these; a d-pad and two face buttons, as well as an options button and RGB screen. However, it also has some expansion ports for simple breadboard connectors so you can hook up more inputs and outputs. This one notably has a headphone jack, which... Feels like an odd thing to mention, despite it genuinely being an uncommon trait among these. It's pretty cute and has an active community making games for it, but generally pretty generic among these. - Retro Game Tiny
Cuteness: 2/10 | Uniqueness: 5/10 | Coolness: 4/10
Overall: 5/10
This one is lucky we decided against rating their names, because wow, this one needs a name change. Aside from that, this one is pretty interesting for only have a left, right, and fire button. Control limitations like with this one are very interesting to us, as it's such a difficult thing to design around. However, this one isn't made with game-making in mind, when you order it you choose which game is loaded onto it like with the AttinyArcade. It's also another one using a 1-bit screen and without a shell, so... - Thumby
Cuteness: 5/10 | Uniqueness: 4/10 | Coolness: 5/10
Overall: 6/10
It's a tiny Arduboy. That's pretty much it. It's called a Thumby because it's literally the size of a thumb, it's just a tiny Arduboy. 1-bit screen, two face buttons and a d-pad, it's an Arduboy. Still, it's really novel to have such a tiny console you can make games for.
No, we're not going to adjust the coolness to line up with the Arduboy. Bias, baby. - Xtron Pro
Cuteness: 7/10 | Uniqueness: 7/10 | Coolness: 6/10
Overall: 7.5/10
This one is incredibly interesting to me, mostly because the unit itself is just a screen with a couple buttons, but it comes with a watch strap as well as an attachable d-pad and two face buttons to make it more of a console. It seems like it's made to be used in a variety of ways, which is pretty cool. The pastel shell is really cute too. It looks like it has an options button and back button, as well as a power and reset button on the unit itself, as well as having motion sensing to some extent. It also has a color screen that can be used vertically or horizontally (as the unit can be rotated either way when magnetically attached to the button set or watch strap). It seems quite flexible, and I'm really interested in what some people have done with this platform.
Let us know if you have any indie consoles you like or want, whether they were listed here or not. We're interested to see how many people have heard of any of these.
Comments
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Palette
An update: I've come to think that a lot of these consoles aren't actually indie consoles, but DIY consoles or hackables.
Amadeux Xandros
This is so cool, maybe I can get my hands on some of these. Thanks for the info!
xalli
this is such an awesome blog post omg ! i love these reviews. definitely gonna check some of these out !
turquoise: Thank you! We put a lot of effort into this post.
by Palette; ; Report
ofc !! it definitely shows
by xalli; ; Report
gadgetron
Definitely researching these!!! This is so cool and and you made an extremely interesting 10/10 blog post. Virtual hugs from across the world 🫂
turquoise: Thank you for the hugs and the high praise! We worked pretty hard on this post, I'm glad you enjoyed it so much.
by Palette; ; Report
Michael
Wow, A+ for effort!