A coat pocket can handle all kinds of things. The Retroid Pocket 5 is very popular, has a lot of power to emulate up to Dreamcast and even PS2 generation consoles, and runs Android so it’s incredibly flexible. It’s very Vita-like in form factor and will probably be a solid Anything Device. It’s pricey, but it’s a real One and Done machine.
Myself though, I’m partial to the TrimUI Model S (also rebranded as the Powkiddy A66) and the TrimUI Smart. They are older, far less powerful, and lack L2/R2 buttons and analog sticks so you’ll mostly want to stick to pre-PlayStation for the most part, but they’re insanely pocketable. Plus they can be had rather cheaply, so they’re a pretty easy impulse treat.
EDIT: seeing elsewhere that your budget is closer to $100, you might look at anything RG__XX__ from Anbernic. The RG35XXSP (rolls right off the tongue) is much loved because it’s exactly like a slightly chonky GBA SP. Performance tops out just north of the PlayStation 1 generation, but the price is well within your budget.
Important questions: What do you want to play? Do you prefer vertical (GB), flip (GBA SP), or horizontal (GBA) form factor? How do you want to carry? Is there a handheld you have particular fondness for?
Depending on what you say, there are systems of all these form factors, some pocketable, some not, and varying in power from “anything up to certain Dreamcast games) down to “stick to 16-bit generation or lower”. Some recent efforts have admirably mimicked the designs of the original GBA and GBA SP, while many have a pretty generic but effective form factor.
Valve did the same thing for the Index VR kit. They create these little brief but fully produced games to demonstrate the functionality when they release new hardware, and they’re delightful.
that has growth potential defined strictly by external factors
It’s insane that this isn’t nationalized immediately. Privatizing it in the first place is the work of people who are corrupt as hell, inhumanly evil, dumb as rocks, or, most likely, all of the above.
If you like Horrified, you should try and track down the Ravensburger Wonder Woman game. Similar style but has an awesome mechanic to prevent coop quarterbacking.
Players strategize using a set of face up cards, but receive some face down cards afterward and have to program 3 actions using the whole set without communicating, adapting plans based on the newly revealed cards. Then each action plays out simultaneously for all players. It makes sense in action and is really quite elegant. I’m a big fan.
Cottage Garden is very satisfying. You Tetris together garden pieces to fill plots and you can cover a single spot with a sleeping kitty. There’s scoring and competition, but it’s not antagonistic in any way.
I’m also a big fan of cooperative games in general.
Google has sucked for a very long time. They’re greedy, monopolistic sociopaths that scrubbed “don’t be evil” from their principles pretty much the second there was a buck to be had from it.
Palmer Luckey sucks. Don’t buy this.