It’s at all times a danger betting on new online game {hardware} from a little-known firm: what if recreation builders by no means present up? However the $50 Thumby Color, on sale this week, is a better promote — the two-inch handheld is cute as a button, suits in your keychain, lets aspiring programmers construct and publish video games proper on the internet, and I’m discovering it a lot simpler to play than the tinier $30 original!
Right here’s my video evaluating the 2 and displaying off playable takes on Tetris, Join 4, Minesweeper, Doom, Bust-a-Transfer, 2048, and extra:
The place the unique Thumby makes use of a 133MHz Raspberry Pi RP2040 to energy a black-and-white display screen measuring simply 0.4 inches diagonally, with a mere 1.4MB of area for video games, the brand new Thumby Shade can double the clockspeed with its RP2350 chip, has double the display screen at 0.85 inches, and almost 10 occasions the storage at round 14MB usable area.
As you might have simply seen, that isn’t a lot of energy, however it’s sufficient to wow in such a tiny package deal. (Sure, there’s legitimately an actual, playable copy of Doom working on the unique Thumby thanks to Graham Sanderson, with tweaks by James Brown, and you can install it here your self!)
The unique Thumby was so troublesome to play. Overlook thumbs, I wanted to make use of my thumbnails to press its buttons and D-pad, and I virtually wanted a magnifying glass to inform the tetrominoes (Tetris shapes) aside on its 1-bit OLED.
Fortunately, the Thumby Shade’s D-pad truly has a tangible pivot level. It’s stiff, however I can truly roll it with a thumb! Now all these authentic Thumby video games (the colour is backwards suitable!) and new Shade video games have reasonably usable controls — and while you add the 16-bit shade LCD display screen at 128 x 128 decision, it’s far simpler to make out these pixels. Particularly when every tetromino will get its personal shade.
The Thumby Shade additionally has new shoulder buttons a la Sport Boy Advance — that are a lot simpler to actuate than face buttons at this measurement that I hope TinyCircuits will allow us to remap them to A and B for authentic Thumby titles. For now, they’re underused by present video games, as are the brand new rumble motor and speaker.
One apparent win is a brand new USB-C port for knowledge and charging; no extra digging out a micro-USB cable like the unique. And also you’ll need that cable. TinyCircuits estimates a battery lifetime of simply two hours, and I noticed the Shade’s LED indicator sign low battery each time I took it for an prolonged play session.
I received’t fake there’s a lot to play on a Thumby Shade but, any greater than there was on an authentic Thumby when it first got here out. However I didn’t should look exhausting to seek out enjoyable.
I’d positively whip one out for a fast recreation of trick shot pool (ComboPool for Thumby Shade), the enjoyable zen of my tiny sand and water backyard (Sand for Thumby Shade), or the novelty of difficult somebody to the tiniest recreation of two-player Pong (2pddl42ppl for OG Thumby). You possibly can browse previews of every Thumby Color game here and every OG Thumby game here, and even attempt enjoying the latter titles in an online emulator (click on the sport, then click on “open”) so that you see what you’re getting. The web site additionally handles updates and loading video games onto your Thumby, and energy customers can join and add recordsdata with Thonny as well.
It feels just like the Thumby Shade is launching a contact early. It’s slower than the unique Thumby in addition, and its UI is slower to scroll by video games than I’d like, which might be useful contemplating what number of extra it might probably match. Some authentic Thumby video games additionally crashed at launch for me. “I hear your criticisms, we do have an replace deliberate for later this summer season that deal with a few of these,” TinyCircuits founder Ken Burns tells me.
Name them novelties, name them stocking stuffers, however the Thumby and Thumby Shade are cool; like the company’s TinyTV, I’d gladly be gifted one, and I might see shopping for one if I loved programming and wished to create a tiny recreation of my very own. I’m additionally wanting to see what different shenanigans Thumby Shade homeowners handle to tug: the RP2350 chip is technically capable of SNES and Game Boy Color emulators elsewhere, in addition to a fast full-color version of Doom.
Although if you need emulation in a Sport Boy Advance package deal, and don’t thoughts potentially supporting piracy, there’s also Anbernic to look at.