Hopper
A downloadable Playdate App
Hopper is a down-to-earth Gopher and Gemini browser for Playdate. It's designed to be simple to use, and includes a bunch of starter bookmarks so you can dive into the Small Web right away. Hop on!
Browse like it’s 1991
- Access Gopher, Gemini and Finger
- Lightweight, text-focussed browsing
- Page caching for snappy navigation
- Customisable startpage and bookmarks
Who is this for?
Anyone feeling nostalgic for the early internet, or people curious about the small web. These no-nonsense, text-based sites feel right at home on Playdate.
Gopher? Gemini?
Gopher is an early internet protocol for sharing text and files. Think simple pages with links, no images or fancy stuff. It lost popularity in the 90s, but a small community still keeps some gopherholes online.
Gemini takes inspiration from Gopher, but brings it to the 21st century by adding secure connections and a touch of modern formatting. Gemini capsules are popular among people who wish for a simpler internet. No interactivity, no clutter, just text and links.
NOTE: This browser does not open regular (WWW) websites over HTTP connections.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- 2025 Playdate Community Awards!Dec 08, 2025
- Update 1.2Sep 12, 2025
- GeoPeeDees & small update (1.1)Aug 30, 2025
- Hopper 1.0 is out nowAug 27, 2025
Comments
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I first want to say I love Hopper, I find it's a nice browser and it makes me want to create a Gemini space even I already have troubles blogging regularly.
Just a couple of comments on what I noticed since I'm using it. As a French, I noticed some accented letters are missing, see below. But not all of them (ok in the Portuguese link, not ok in other French sections).
And a nice feature to have (on a future version) would be to create a QR code for web link Hopper cannot open. I don't know if the Playdate can do that but it will resolve my laziness issue. ^^'
Keep up the good work.
Hi there, thank you for the kind words!
I’ve just published an update (v1.3) that should improve some of the glyph support in the body text, and added a “missing glyph” symbol for headers as I see they were just quietly dropped.
This hopefully improves readability for the main text, though I’ll have to figure something out still for the headers and blockquotes (italic fonts), as those only really cover the basic ASCII ranges.
Regarding QR codes: This is something I experimented with in the past, but found that the Playdate took a very long time to generate them which wasn’t a great experience overall.
Are you open to adding more directories? There are some Gemini/Gopher users on https://smol.pub/ (including me)
Definitely! You mean to include it in the explore page or default start page? If you have some sort of directory page I’ll happily include it :)
Just letting you know I’ve just published an update (v1.3) which includes a Gemlog Feeds link on the start page:
(I included a couple feeds that seemed active enough, but most other links are still available under the about/explore pages)
Awesome! Thank you!
It’s basically perfect! The controls are a really good fit for the Playdate 💛💛
GEOPEEDEES FOR THE WIN
Bringing the smolweb to your smolcrank, 5 stars
This is excellent! It just works, no complaints, I'm definitely gonna use this a lot in the future.
Blast from the past!
oh hell yes, page is up and dope
Who needs Chrome when u got Hopper!?