GAME CLEAR No. 300 -- Casual Birder

Casual Birder (2022, Playdate)

Developer: Diego Garcia
Publisher: Panic
Clear Version: Playdate
Clear Platform: Playdate
Clear Date: 6/19/26

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Why should I care?
This debut title for the charming Playdate seems to lay out pretty well what the point of this device is (positive).

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Fowl shots

Wow, 2022! The Playdate came out in 2022? That really doesn’t seem right. Well, it is, but I only just got one. For those not in the know, the Playdate is a handheld video game console created by Panic. It’s a tiny device whose form factor is vaguely reminiscent of a Game Boy but with a retractable crank on the side. It also recalls the Game Boy with its low-resolution, monochrome display. It is a digital-only device that includes a “season” of 24 games with the purchase of the device. They unlock two at a time on a weekly cadence after completing setup. Casual Birder is among the first pair of games that unlock.

It, too, hearkens back to the handhelds of yore. It is a little top-down RPG in which you assume the role of a new-guy-in-town. The town in question is Bird Town, and all of its human residents are obsessed with photographing birds. They used to have fun with their photography contest, but the gang known as the Pearly-Eyed Thrashers have had the prize on lock for the past while thanks to their aggressive and underhanded tactics. Will you be the one to dethrone them?

Over the course of the game’s two- to three-hour runtime, you will find out. Most of the game involves walking around and talking to people. The residents of Bird Town are all fairly odd, but they generally want to help you vanquish the Thrashers, so they offer what help they can. Usually their silly little personalities are charming and funny enough, but sometimes the game can also be overly twee in that Undertale sort of way. I could tell that was likely to be the case from the title art, tbh.

Anyway, beyond that you will mostly be focused on photographing birds. You do this by aiming your (in-game) phone at a portion of the screen and using the crank to adjust the focus until you’ve got a clear view of the fella. Snap the photo, and you’ll add it to your Bird Diary. A few birds just sort of perch out in the open, but many require you to solve some little environmental puzzle or another to make them photographable.

Between taking your little pictures and helping the townspeople with various interpersonal tasks and fetch quests, you’ll eventually get your shot at the Thrashers. I’ll leave it to you to play the game and find out exactly what happens after that.

It’s a cute little time of a game, and that’s sort of in line with what the ethos of the Playdate seems to be. I’m glad for games like that to be encouraged by a new platform. I am curious about the ways third-party catalog developers and even Season 2 games push the hardware in ambitious ways, but this game is Pretty Good.

I expect the Playdate to become my public transit device, so I reckon I’ll be playing some more of these. Look forward to that when you turn your dial to Nixon Computer GAME CLEAR.

ALSO, it seems like the Playdate has a robust SDK and is pretty easy to work with. So that’s appealing too. I’ve already got some irons in the fire on another little project, but I’ll be keeping this in mind for sure.