Interview with Rae

Rae is one of the darlings of the Playdate community — always ready to help people in the Playdate Squad Discord; creator of games like HEXA, First in… Line?, and the upcoming RowBot Rally (coming to Catalog on December 17, 2024); and generally friendly internet presence. Find her on Bluesky or her website if you’re into that kind of thing.

Since RowBot Rally will shortly be in our hands (wishlist it then buy it!), she agreed to an interview with the best unofficial Playdate-specific site on the internet! (This one.) Let’s get into it!

Playdate Unofficial: Hi Rae! We first got to try the RowBot Rally demo over a year ago, and it's finally coming to Playdate on December 17, 2024. First question: why'd it take so long??? Was it HEXA's fault? And what were some of the biggest challenges?

Rae: Hello! I’d say the main/huge/biggest thing that made RowBot take so long was simply scope. I started working on it around April 2023, had a TON of ideas of what to do with it, and even with significant paring-down over time it’s still been a massive undertaking. A surprisingly large part of it, much like most other decisions I make in life, has been just how good of a bit it is. Making full animated cutscenes for a Playdate game? I thought it was HILARIOUS, so I decided to plow forward with it. Now in hindsight, after having done them all, I can definitely say that it was QUITE FUNNY (I hope you can detect the strong sarcasm in this second beat here).

There were definitely other factors that led to it taking a while as well — in late December 2023, I decided to rewrite pretty much the entire codebase from scratch — I wasn’t happy with how it was looking, feeling, or how hard it was to add more code changes under the hood. I think the final blow came after I took a few months’ break from the codebase, and then when I tried to implement a simple save file tweak, the entire thing broke down in so many different places that I literally just scrapped the whole thing. Apparently that worked out?!?!?

Interestingly enough, since you mention it: my other games really didn’t get in the way at all! Those happened because I was, quite frankly, tired of working on RowBot full time, and I just wanted something else to do quickly to decompress. HEXA was originally done in just a few days — the initial concept image came about on July 4th, it was submitted to Catalog on the 10th, and it wound up being released as soon as the 30th. I think it’s a record!

Original HEXA concept image — you can definitely see a lot of differences!

Optimization was also a pretty huge roadblock to solve, even/especially after the code re-write. I could (and probably should) make an entire postmortem about this game’s development, but there were a ton of struggles, micro-optimizations and frustrated screams as I loaded the game up to my Playdate and found that we still hadn’t quite reached 30. Eventually, with a lot more adjustments and some delta time, I think we reached a relatively stable point that I’m happy with. It might not stand up to severe scrutiny, but I think it’s gonna be more than enjoyable.

PU: You're kind of a big star in the Playdate Squad Discord, and we all saw one of your comments in Cabel's GDC presentation. Are you/have you been active in other Discords and communities, or is the Playdate Squad special? What do you like about this one?

Rae: I mean, I’ve been around and participating a bit in some other stuff, idly? I’ve been around in a few places, and you can probably find some old art for stuff I’ve done in the past on my website. I honestly think Playdate has one of the nicest and most genuinely helpful communities around — nearly everybody’s always super respectful, offering to help or at least listen, and definitely willing to hype each other up about exciting news.

I’ve been around in some other communities before (right now you can catch me in the Puzzmo Discord!), and I’ve made some really good friends over the years whom I love and respect a lot. I think per capita, the inner Playdate community’s had the least amount of “drama” & silly things happening. I think I’ve only really ran into a case or two at best where I was genuinely like “huh???” about somebody’s behavior — on the whole people are super respectful and caring, which I appreciate a lot!

The name-drop in the GDC prezzie, btw, complete surprise to me. I only found out about that when I watched the telecast a few weeks after the show. Genuinely had me tearing up, I cannot lie!!

PU: What's a normal day in the life for you like? How much Playdate gaming vs. development are you able to do, and does one help/hinder the other?

Rae: If I said “sleep” and nothing else, I’d only be half-exaggerating. (My schedule’s been abnormally screwed lately honestly, and that’s saying a lot considering it’s usually already pretty screwed.) Lately, it's been kind of just juggling RowBot, and any other short-term obligations that happen to spring up. I’ve definitely not had enough time to play as many games as I’d like to, Playdate or otherwise — rest assured I’m definitely still buying ‘em, though! The backlog continues to grow… fortunately, now that I don’t have a looming deadline at my feet, I’m hoping to take the month pretty much off to just totally vacay and maybe catch up on some great titles I’ve been missing out on. Or play Night in the Woods again.

I think one thing that really draws me to Playdate games as a game dev who really got their start on the console, is that once you get into that developer mindset and learn the ins-and-outs of the SDK, you can actually kinda “reverse-engineer” a game just by looking at its face and trying to understand what makes it tick. For example, I can see something like Grand Tour Legends, and I can be like “oh, this is how they do it! they can use a pre-rendered video of the entire track that loops around, and then play it back at a variable speed depending on how fast you’re cranking”. But then, you still have mysteries! Things like, “how do they do actual 3D-rendering of the opponent racers? how can they seemingly move behind the walls of the single-layer video? what are the intricacies of the stamina meter, or the timing of the boosts?” It’s like an extra puzzle on top of the actual game, is figuring out how they made it.

PU: For RowBot Rally's development, what came to you first? The crank-to-paddle idea, or the art, or the concept, or something else? Did other games influence or inspire you, and did development shift greatly by the end compared to where you imagined it going at the beginning of the process?

Rae: It actually stemmed from a chat in a Minecraft server, hilariously enough! Toad can attest to this, he was there — at the time (April 10, 2023) we all had a Minecraft server running within the Playdate Squad (which I love and miss — I think we’re starting a new one up soon!!). If I can recall the convo correctly, Toad and I were brainstorming ideas to kickstart me into making some kind of game within a week (HA). Toad gave me the idea of a boating game pretty fast — obviously the crank could translate pretty nicely to a rowboat’s oar, so I could imagine controlling one half of a tandem-rowing situation. There was just one problem to solve about it, though, and I thankfully actually have the chat log from this realization…:

….a ROW-BOT

From there, it really was just kind of a total spiral — I absolutely do not think this game would be what or where it is now without the help of pretty much everyone in the devlog, especially those who’ve been there from the start. We were throwing ideas left and right, workshopping stuff; I think it almost holds up to Reel-istic Fishing with how molded by the community it’s become.

There have definitely been a lot of inspirations. If you’ve played literally any classic Sonic the Hedgehog game before, you can immediately see what I’m talking about: animal character, world being taken over by robots, evil villain who’s shaped like an egg; come on. I was also inspired in part by the PaRappa the Rapper series? At least, in that animated cutscenes seemed like such a super cool gimmick, especially for Playdate where it really hasn’t been done on too wide of a scale before. I basically wound up drawing a whole TV episode of a cartoon for this game! You can also see some of that inspiration in how the story mode is laid out, having multiple “circuits” that make the game increasingly more difficult. That particular beat comes from PaRappa 2, which I actually finally 100%’d a couple days ago as of writing!

I don’t think you could pluck out a point of this game that wasn’t inspired by somebody else, honestly. Even the boat! Well, the current in-game interpretation of the boat, at least. TheMediocritist was working on a project where they made incremental progress on a game daily for 100 days, and at one point they had an absolutely WONDERFUL-looking car that was being drawn completely out of polygons, real-time. It made me consider doing a similar sort of deal for the boat; I was overdue to re-create that part of the code anyway, and it would have resulted in MUCH cleaner rotation, transformations, and scaling — all of which I was planning to do, so it would be great to have control over.

Footage from TheMediocritist’s Project C

I asked them about it, and they wound up being a tremendous help in teaching me how to set it up! Some troubleshooting and BIG scores for optimization later, the boat’s looking the best it’s ever been. And that’s honestly just only one major example of how the Squad’s been such a significant help in shaping this game. If you’re reading this, and you participated in the devlog like, at all, know that you’ve probably helped more than you think in getting this game out the door (if at least by pure moral support).

PU: RowBot Rally made a big showing at PAX -- how'd that come about? I don't think you were able to go personally, is that right? But what was the experience like, having YOUR GAME be a big showcase for our favorite little console?

Rae: Honestly, I’ve really got Panic to thank for pretty much all the major press coverage that’s happened regarding RowBot! They first reached out to me in around December 2023 — Arisa asked me where the game was, what my timeline was looking like, and if I had any kind of playable vertical slice at the moment. Some talking happened, and I wound up with a premiere slot in the Playdate Update slated for that February! Honestly, that was a total dream come true, if ONLY because the slot by extension meant guaranteed keys to the Catalog for the game, which was a wicked barrier to cross.

I could probably go on and on about that update on its own — there’s probably a whole retrospective blog post I could write there — thank you Voxy for helping me edit that. But really, all the big marketing dubs RowBot’s had over the last year or so have been Panic reaching out time and time again. I got a brief highlight in the Wholesome Games showcase (which wound up being simulcast on The Game Awards YouTube channel?!?!), and spotlights at PAX, XOXO, and the Portland Retro Gaming Expo — the latter of which I actually was able to attend! It was so awesome seeing people in the flesh playing my game and responding positively to it, even if I was too shy to come up and say “hello that’s my game :3c do you like it”. It’s still absolutely nuts to think that they believe in my game this hard, and would like to keep showing it off to interested parties, and I’ve really got them to thank for helping me get my silly little boat game in front of so many eyes — there’s even more cool stuff happening that I can’t even say anything about yet!! I think it’s gonna continue to be a really fun time, and I’m super-duper appreciative of them for everything they’ve done.

PU: That's all the questions I have for now, but thank you for your time, and congratulations on the release! Any final thoughts on where Playdate is going, or where it's been, or anything else?

Rae: Thank you! It’s been very fun chatting. I really hope Playdate continues to flourish — it’s a great console that I really love for so many reasons, and I definitely plan to keep making cool games for it for as long as I reasonably can. It still stuns me that the releases in Catalog have been coming at such a consistent clip, and the games within have constantly been such bangers; it feels like an insane quality/quantity ratio you really wouldn’t see on other platforms. So long as Playdate keeps on trucking, I wanna be right alongside making things that (at least I hope) people will enjoy very much.

Playdate Advent Calendar 2024

I missed writing about the first annual Playdate Advent Calendar in 2023 because, well… this site didn’t exist yet. But as one of the world’s foremost Playdate chroniclers/historians, I’m not missing it this year! (And luckily they archived the 2023 calendar here so I can memorialize that in words later, too!)

Created, curated, and presented by top Playdate People Dominik Haas, Uncrank’d Magazine’s Xania Lasagna, and Pizza Fuel Dev, the 2024 Playdate Advent Calendar is a 25-day long celebration of the Playdate, its developers, and its games. Each day brings a new Playdate present, whether it’s a surprise game release, or a sale on a game that will always be worth the price.

The site itself is fun, too, with an on-screen Playdate that you can navigate around with the buttons. Each day has a secret word hint, so you can try to guess what the sale or surprise will be as you watch the clock count down. And there are physical versions of the Advent calendar going out, too, also made by Xania (mine is in the mail and should be here any second!). I’ll update this page throughout the month with links and descriptions of each game, so keep checking back, or just use this a historical record of the only Advent calendar that’s ever truly excited the masses.

Note that each day of the calendar starts in Pacific Time, and the sales will only last for a limited time, which varies from game to game. Panic also has a rule that games can’t go on sale on Catalog more often than once every 30 days, so some games that were in the big Catalog sale in November aren’t able to go on sale again at the beginning of the Advent. I don’t think Itch has any such rules, but Itch has also been having a really hard time even loading for the first few days of the sale… hopefully it gets fixed up as we get closer to Christmas!

Now, let’s see how happy our holiday season will be this year!

Day 1: secret word - “Treatos”

It’s Pup Cup, a brand new Root Bear-like from Ledbetter Games of ART and Off-Planet Dreams fame. Fill cups with whipped cream for dogs, but don’t fill them too full or it’ll blast everywhere! The dogs don’t mind the mess, but the only way you’ll get a high score is to fill the cup to juuuuust the right height. Takes a lot of crank precision, but getting the pup the cup they deserve earns you plenty of tail wags. This early version is pay-what-you-want on Itch, but a more fully featured final release is coming to Catalog on February 4, 2025. (Itch link).

Day 2: secret word - “Casino”

Day 2 is Crank Casino — the first Catalog release from IrishJiminy. Initially released just a few days before the Advent Calendar went live, this sale brings the game from $6 down to $5 (well, $4.98 on Itch if you want to save an extra two cents). Jiminy kindly provided me a review copy so you’ll get a full Playdate Unofficial post on this soon! It seems at first like a straightforward casino game set in space, but with a sweet story and a lot of heart. There are aliens, and Elvis, and it was very impressively made in Pulp. There are lots of unlockables to keep you playing for hours, and it’s great when you have just a few minutes to spare, too! (Catalog link. Itch link.)

Day 3: “Judo”

It’s Kuroobi from Raphaël Calabro, who also made the terrific-but-challenging Poker Poker Magic! A side-scrolling shmup set in a future Japan that makes very innovative use of the crank, this whole game is just one three-minute level that you will play over and over again until you can memorize every single enemy location and maintain a combo long enough to top the leaderboards. The Catalog version (which includes online leaderboards that really let you get the most out of the game) is 50% off, from $6 down to $3, while the Itch version is now FREE. Try it on Itch to practice the martial arts shmup mechanics, then get the Catalog version on sale and try to climb those leaderboards! (Catalog link. Itch link. As of this writing, Poker Poker Magic is also 50% off on Itch!)

Day 4: “HYPER”

Be Kind To Yourself is not only good advice - it’s also one of the best TATE mode games on the Playdate. A shmup where you hold the console sideways and control the ship with the crank, it just WORKS, and for day 4 of the Playdate Advent, it’s 50% off on Catalog ($8 down to $4) and 42% off on Itch ($7 down to $4). Like others, the only way to get onto the global leaderboards is with the Catalog version, so that’s the one to grab! (Catalog link. Itch link.)

Day 5: “train”

The Heist of the Argonaut Limited is basically a text-based, single-player TTRPG set during a train heist. There’s a lot more going on than a simple Choose Your Own Adventure game, and it rewards multiple playthroughs and attempting different ways of playing! It does get a little… bloody… so if you’re averse to that and have a strong imagination, be warned. It’s all words, though, and there’s no violent imagery. It’s not a long adventure, which makes retrying new things and trying to save everyone on the train fun, or you can be a bad guy, too! It’s 60% off on Itch, bringing it down to just $2 from the normal $5 asking price. (Catalog link, but not on sale there currently. Itch link.)

Day 6: “Orbit”

The recently released Spaceshipment is the day 6 game, and it's 25% off on Itch, bringing it from $6 down to $4.50. It’s a physics-based puzzle game where you launch a probe and try to hit the target on the other side of the screen. However, you’re in space, where every celestial body creates its own gravitational field, and each of those fields will have an effect on your probe. It has almost a Worms quality to it, where you pick the angle of your shot, the velocity, and hope you hit what you’re aiming for. You won’t hit it — a lot — but you can always try again! There are over 50 levels, a free demo, and even a level editor where you can make your own levels. It’s also been accepted for a Catalog release soon! (Itch link.)

Day 7: “Investigating…”

Advent day 7 is Hammet P.I., a game that makes you feel like a real detective! It has driving, and investigating, and covert surveillance, and a time limit! Feels like the Playdate’s version of Rise of the Dragon or L.A. Noir. There’s nothing else quite like it on Playdate, and it’s 50% off for a limited time, dropping from $6 to just $3. (Itch link.)

Day 8: “Bees”

Date Nite made me cry happy tears. It’s a short Pulp game about making a surprise dinner for the person you love, and it’s got more soul in it than probably every AAA game I’ve ever played. It’s normally name-your-price on Itch, but as day 8 of the Playdate Advent Calendar, all proceeds made during the week of December 8-15, 2024, are being donated to the Alameda County Food Bank for the holidays. Play a nice game and contribute to a good cause! (Itch link.)

Day 9: “Reflexes”

Crank It! is the Playdate version of Bop It! It’s got local multiplayer where you pass the Playdate around, seeing who can obey the commands for the longest combo without messing up. Crank the crank, push the buttons, or shake the system with the under-utilized Playdate Shake™ function. It’s still the normal asking price of $3 on Catalog, but on Itch (which is back online after an AI-fueled cyber attack from Funko Pops???), it’s 70% off, down to just 90 cents. You can also get this game bundled with another 70% off Thumb Grooves game, Kitty Pig, in a set for just $1.50. Crank it! (Catalog link. Itch link. Bundle link.)

Day 10: “Deliver”

Not content to merely appear on Engadget over the weekend, Bumbleborn’s terrific combat-less Metroidvania Echo: The Oracle’s Scroll is the day 10 game on the Playdate Advent Calendar. It’s 12% cheaper (about a dollar off) on Itch, bringing the already-fair-for-a-polished-3-to-5-hour-game price of $8 down to the unhinged price of $7.04. (Update as of 12/15/24: now $1 off on Catalog, also.) I really liked this one — it’d be a great Christmas present for yourself! Unless you hate jumping, in which case there are still lots of games to go before the 25th. (Catalog link. Itch link.)

Day 11: “Invader”

Day 11 is something kind of wacky: it’s Bullet Shoot Chronicle: Crazy Mobs Mania by Samplay. The best way to describe it is kind of an upside-down Space Invaders, but made in Pulp? There are a few Pulp games that attempt action of the dodging enemies variety, but fewer take it to this extreme with a full-on old-school action game. Normally $3, it’s down to just $1.50 as part of the Advent. If you like this style, I can also recommend Samplay’s Dreamer Adventure, which will definitely appear on this site in full write-up form someday. Pulp is Samplay’s canvas, and they are a master of the form. (Itch link.)

Day 12: “Hollow”

fatnose games’ Along Came a Spider: Valley of The Hollow is the long-awaited sequel to the original Along Came a Spider, one of the earliest Pulp hits on the Playdate. Set a year after the original game, follow “plucky spider hero” Eric Nid on a new adventure where you’ll be sure to use the crank in unique ways to succeed. Get this new one for 25% off on Itch or Catalog ($3), down from the normal $4! And don’t forget: you can also get caught up on all the fatnose games with the bundle: four games for only $6, including both Along Came a Spider games and the nothing-quite-like-it Pulp music album NOW That’s What I Call Pulp! (Catalog link. Itch link.)

Day 13: “Candies”

For Friday the 13th, it’s Luna Pork, a pig-based action game set at a carnival where you crank the crank to feed those little piggies as much candy as you can. Watch out for CandyBombs! It’s 50% off its normal $3 price, just $1.50 on Itch. How high can you score? (Itch link.)

Day 14: “Knight”

The Pulp-built exploration game Fortress is on sale for ONE DAY ONLY: 50% off on Itch, making it just $1. The money from the sale is going to new puppy supplies! This is a game full of traps and surprises, and it’ll take multiple tries to figure out how to survive with the top score. Each run is about 30 minutes long, which is just about right! The developers, Alan and Beth Cooke, also made the snow globe app that has been used by Uncrank’d on social media to show off the new Advent game each day. They might make that available for download someday, too — I hope so! (Catalog link, but full price. Itch link.)

Day 15: “Hatch”

Remember when we did Powerdive Games week, and I played all the Catalog-released games from Powerdive in a row? That’s Hand of the Divine, Rendsword, STARHACK, Soliterra, and Taxi Trouble, plus they’ve also released Pahtkest! since then. Well, Day 15 of the 2024 Playdate Advent Calendar brings a brand new Powerdive game to Itch: it’s Rock Egg, and it’s name-your-price. Not a lot of details on the Itch page, but it’s listed as a visual novel narrative experience about perseverance. Give it a few cranks and it’ll crack … but then what? It’s a mystery, and isn’t that the true reason for the season? (Itch link. And all the other Powerdive games are also on sale on Catalog and Itch!)

Day 16: “Mycology”

Day 16’s secret word was “mycology” so you just KNOW it had to be Spilled Mushrooms, which is this terrific… basically solo board game? Where you try to get mushrooms? It’s hard to explain in just a few words, but I wrote a big thing about it over here, and there are those who have played this game every day for months. It’s huge! And as part of the Advent sale, it’s one-third off, down from $6 to $4 on Catalog. There’s also a quite extensive demo on Itch if you want to try before you buy, but let’s be serious: you’ll probably want to buy this one. (Catalog link. Itch demo link.)

Day 17: “Debris”

Scenic Route Software’s Garbage Scow Captain is the “debris” game of the day, and it’s 50% off on Catalog, down to just $3. I played this as part of Scenic Route Week here on the site, and we also played it as part of our New & Upcoming Playdate Games video. (I forgot to turn on Mirror Mode and I pronounced the title incorrectly; I’m sorry! The real game is a bit faster and lots of fun.) Scenic Route has maybe made more Playdate games than anyone, ever? And they’re all great. Collect ‘em all! (Catalog link. Itch link to other Scenic Route games, not on sale but all good!)

Day 18: “Ursine”

Terratopia: March of the Demon King is Name Your Price on Itch as part of the 2024 Playdate Advent Calendar, but I recommend paying as much money for it as you can afford (also on Catalog for $6), because it’s just like nothing else on Playdate. Despite being a Pulp game, it’s more akin to Outer Wilds, which is one of those games that, if you haven’t played it, you should really go in blind. This one, too! I wrote about it and left out spoilers so you can see if it sounds like a game you’d like to feel, because that’s what it’ll make you do! Choose your own adventure, and do it today. (Catalog link. Itch link.)

Day 19: “Helix”

For day 19, we get a brand new game from Damos Games called Mutant Splize. It’s just in alpha right now, but you can tell the bones are strong! It’s a side-scrolling platformer where you have special mutant powers to fight enemies. Sounds like there will be a ton of powers to unlock as you go through the game, but a high point of this very early build is the banger soundtrack. Worth a download for that alone! Will be exciting seeing this game grow throughout the next year. Damos Games’ other big game, Top Binz, should also be arriving soon! I played the beta demo for that one here. Mutant Splize’s alpha build is pay-what-you-want on Itch. (Itch link.)

Day 20: “Deep”

Dolphin Splash is half off for day 20, down to just $2. It looks very Ecco the Dolphin-inspired, and it… kind of is? It’s a side-scrolling, dolphin-based action game like Ecco, but it’s got a lot more score-chasing elements, with checkpoint races and other more exploration-based levels. The crank controls for turning are unique but feel great once you get the hang of them. The Catalog version has online leaderboards, so that’s the one to get! (Catalog link. Itch link.)

Day 21: “Quest”

There are a lot of Playdate games where “quest” could be the secret word, and they went with one of the best for day 21: one of my Games of the Year last year, Initial Daydream. It takes the best parts of the original NES Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy games, adds just some of the best accessibility options like 4x gold and experience modes, and developer James Gameboy (great name — wonder if he’s ever called Mr. Gameboy?) even added extra stuff to the game since I played it, like new title cards for each area and post-game super bosses. It’s 20% off on Catalog, down to $4 from the normal $5. And on Itch, he’s doing an “Early Lore Bundle” where you can get his early Pulp games that would lead to Initial Daydream for half off, making the 1-2 punch of Goo Game and Distill, My Beating Heart! just $1 for the set. (Catalog link. Itch link for Early Lore Bundle.)

Day 22: “Wake up”

We go from a 2023 Game of the Year on day 21 to a possible 2024 Game of the Year with day 22: it’s Ledbetter’s Off-Planet Dreams! This is a good one to go into without knowing too much, but I did write about it here (with no real spoilers!). It’s 50% off on Catalog and Itch (just $3), and Ledbetter is also doing an Itch sale where you can get this game and the entire, incredible ART series for just $10. That’s 59% off (or get individual games for 50% off each), and if you just got your Playdate or have been living under a rock, this is a great starter pack to see how fun and weird the Playdate library is compared to a “normal” handheld that maybe doesn’t have a crank on the side. (Catalog link. Itch link. Itch bundle link.)

Day 23: “Starship”

Day 23’s game is well-known to Playdate Unofficial readers: it’s the puzzle game HEXA from Rae! You know, the game that might hold the record for being the quickest game to go from initial concept to being sold on Catalog? Learn more about that in our interview with her here. And see if you want to try HEXA for yourself by reading what I wrote about it here, as part of Rae Days! She also just released RowBot Rally on the 17th of December, 2024, and we’ll have a full post on that soon. HEXA is 14% off on Catalog, down to $6 from the normal $7. Good luck on those leaderboards, though; GreenMan has over 10x the score of the next highest player! (Catalog link. Demos/game jam games on Itch.)

Day 24: “Turkey”

Life’s Too Short might be the single best series on the Playdate, and it probably wouldn’t have ever even existed at all if not for the Playdate. It’s about a little ghost that helps people, and the games are all about kindness. I saw this quote the other day randomly on the internet: “If you weren’t put here to help people, then what good are you?” Been thinking about that a lot this holiday season. Every Pixel Ghost game strives for that ideal, and when I interviewed them a few months back, it’s clear that Pixel Ghost the person also does his best to be kind and help the world.

The Life’s Too Short games make the world a better place, and for one day only, you can get the holiday-themed entry, Life’s Too Short: A Christmas Spirit, for free on Itch. While you’re there, throw a few bucks at Hidden to donate to a homelessness charity in honor of the season. I will always support people who do good work for good causes, and Pixel Ghost makes fun and nice games while doing it! (Itch link, free. Catalog link, $2. Life’s Too Short: On Reflection on Catalog, profits go to mental health charity. Hidden on Itch, profits go to homelessness charity.)

Day 25: “Varmint”

We made it! It’s Christmas Day, and the final day of the 2024 Playdate Advent Calendar. Today is a day that’s been teased for a long time: the release of the Shellslinger beta — the new game from Xania Lasagna and PizzaFuelDev! It’s got animals, robots, and cowboys, and you can be among the first to play it on a real Playdate. Normal price will be $8, but it has a launch discount of 40% off, bringing it down to $4.80. Check it out, as the culmination of the whole month of Playdate deals and surprises! Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you all here again next year. (Itch link.)

Interview with Scenic Route Software

You were with us through all of Scenic Route Week, where I played every Scenic Route Software game released on Playdate, all in a row, including one that as of this writing isn’t out yet (but will be on Catalog on September 10, 2024!). Now let’s learn a little more about the person behind the games!

Playdate Unofficial: How’d you get into game development, and what drew you to the Playdate?

Scenic Route: I got into writing games when my family got our first computer — an Atari 400 — when I was 8 years old. My aunt and uncle were both computer programmers, and along with game cartridges, they also gave me a Microsoft Basic cartridge. That was my first programming language, and I wrote a lot of goofy choose-your-own-adventure games with it.

Since then I’ve always had an interest in computer programming, and have been doing it professionally for most of my adult life.  Making games is something I do for fun. It combines my love of problem solving and making music and art into one nice package.

I can’t recall where I first heard of the Playdate — it might have been a post on BoingBoing. It seemed like such a fun idea, so I signed up to be notified when it became available. I placed an order on the day they went on sale and managed to get into group one. I’d originally intended it as a Christmas gift for the kids, but since it didn’t come until May the following year, I set it up for myself and started playing around and was instantly intrigued and wanted to learn more about making stuff for it. I found the SDK documentation and went from there!

PU: You have many games of many genres. How do you decide what kind of game to make next? Where do you get your inspiration?

SC: Inspiration comes from all over. Post Hero was the result of my daughter and I brainstorming a game over Thanksgiving that went from a puzzle game to an adventure game. Shift was loosely based on a mini game in Superstar Saga on the GBA.  I have a puzzle game that I haven’t finished yet that was inspired by a plate of cheese and crackers. I looked down as I was carrying it upstairs, saw they were in a grid and thought, “oh … there’s a game here!”

I have way more half-started projects than released ones, which I’m sure is true for anyone that makes games.

PU: You’re very involved in the Playdate Community. What’s so special about it to you? How would you like to see it grow/advance?

SC: Everyone is so nice and supportive! There are so many cool and interesting people making things for the Playdate, and the players themselves are fantastic. It’s a genuinely unique space to be in, and you can’t help but want to give back to it.

I’m very happy that the community has continued to attract more people, both players and developers. It’s really thriving, and while nothing lasts forever, I can certainly see it remaining active for a long time to come. Just look at the dev log section of the Squad Discord — SO much interesting stuff in the works!

PU: You make iOS versions of some of your games, too. How does that differ from Playdate development, and which is more fun?

SC: Well, color for one thing. And fading and scaling things is trivial. And iPhones have way more memory and a dedicated GPU. But it’s really not that different when you get right down to it. Generations and Shift II for iOS are both written with Apple’s SpriteKit SDK, which has a lot of similarities with the Playdate SDK. I like Swift a lot — it's a more sophisticated language than Lua — and I write it all day long for my day job, so I’m really looking forward to embedded Swift being ready for prime time so I can start writing Playdate games with it.

That said, making games for Playdate is more fun. Writing a really cool feature that tanks performance on hardware, and then figuring out how to optimize it might not sound like something that would be fun, but I really enjoy it.

PU: Your family is clearly very important to you – how do you balance time for them, and making games, and presumably a day job until Playdate can make us all millionaires?

SC: Super important, yeah, and they always come first. My family is very supportive of all of this, and they know that I’m the type of person who isn’t really happy unless I’m making things — be that games, art, or music. I also try to involve them in the process with play testing, bouncing ideas off of them, incorporating their feedback, that sort of thing. They also know that if I wasn’t making games, I’d be doing something else obsessively, like drawing or playing drums.

A not insignificant portion of my games were written in the parking lots of ice rinks and baseball fields up and down the east coast waiting for my son’s travel hockey or baseball games to start. It also helps that my kids are older — it definitely took way longer to wrap up any project when they were little.

PU: Last question: what do you want to do next?

SC: Finish and release The Whiteout! I’ve been working on it since Post Hero released in 2023, and it’s been a huge effort. I keep getting distracted with new ideas, but I’m doubling down on it now and plan to have it out by Spring of 2025. Which, according to the game’s lore, is exactly when it started snowing and never stopped.

New and Upcoming Playdate Games to Wishlist

Look, my wife and I made a video! It’s just like that one on the main page, but this one is all about Playdate games that haven’t come out yet (as of August 2024). At least on Catalog — you can sideload one of these on Itch today, if you read my handy guide. Hope you like it… Maybe we’ll make more someday! (She does all the video and audio editing, and you should check out her whole YouTube page full of delightful and nice indie games!)

And sorry I mispronounced “scow.” I’m blaming Google’s new AI-powered search results.

Here are some handy links to everything you can hear about above, so you, too, can get the latest and greatest Playdate games the second they’re released.

Original “What is the Playdate?” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoGqTY_3CFA

Asobimon on Itch: https://leftovernick.itch.io/asobimon

Echo: The Oracle's Scroll devlog (no game page yet): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrI57PelR4M9Iq3bj3djsC6fDsRBmaT4v

Comet on Catalog: https://play.date/games/comet/

Comet on Itch: https://guv-bubbs.itch.io/comet

Voidblazers on Itch (Catalog coming soon, release date August 27, 2024!): https://tkers.itch.io/voidblazers

Garbage Scow Captain: no game page yet, but here's the rest of their games on Itch (Catalog release on September 10, 2024): https://scenicroutesoftware.itch.io. We accidentally recorded this one without “Mirror Mode” enabled, so the actual game will run a little faster. Looks good anyway!

Playdate Community Direct - Summer 2024

Hosted by PossiblyAxolotl, the first interview I ever did on this site, here is the Summer 2024 Playdate Community Direct! You can watch the hour-long showcase yourself here, and download the companion app for your own Playdate here!

This thing you’re about to read is kind of an unofficial companion post? I’ve assembled links to (almost) all the games so you can follow along with their development and get excited! Some of the games don’t have Itch pages yet, but I’ll do my best to keep this post updated over the coming months.

There’s a lot to look forward to in the 1-bit world of our favorite tiny yellow console. I’ll give you the game with a link and a short description. Don’t think of this as the “complete” show experience (far from it), but use it instead as a place to fill out your Itch.io “following” list after you watch the Direct yourself… and maybe buy some games that are already out. Let’s get to it!

Hope Lost – zombie bases, upgrade, defend, survive! Demo available now!

Agents of Groove – Disco rhythm game with a funny/weird story. Disco PaRappa on Playdate?

Along Came a Spider: Valley of the Hollow – Pulp adventure game, long-awaited sequel. No link yet, but here’s fat nose games on Itch.

Life’s Too Short: On Reflection – Catalog, Itch, or Playdate Unofficial writeup!

Magic Castle – surprise launched on Itch for $3.99!

Echo The Oracle’s Scroll from @bumbleborn – non-violent Metroidvania about climbing, like Hollow Knight and inspired by Zelda music. Cave Story vibes. YES, exactly what I want. Devlog here. No game page yet on Itch but follow dev here.

Cabel is here! Talks about the lost and found Playdates! Loves this community! (I’m gonna try to interview him later – he seems approachable and nice and maybe won’t even be mad at my unofficial Playdate website.) New Playdate cover coming after they move off Shopify. What color are we thinking?

PossiblyAxolotl is here to remind us to buy the Fun in the Sun ‘24 Bundle! I already bought it (of course – it’s 48% off regular price for ten cool games!), but you can get a special, only-20-made bundle box including a zine, two trading cards, wristband, sunglasses, tote bag, and LED fan! The “Fun in the Sun Box” and all the other Uncrank’d magazines can be bought HERE.

Bundle games:

Echoes of the Emergent – from makers of Bloom. Story-heavy, kinda creepy. Hope nothing happens to that cat! (Catalog link.)

Poker Poker Magic – poker and magic and Puzzle League?

Crank It! – Like Bop It! but local hotseat multiplayer on Playdate. Filmed at Papa Kenos and I would love a pizza right now. (Catalog link.)

The Heist of the Argonaut Limited – D&D-style text-based single-player TTRPG for Playdate! (Catalog link.)

Faraway Fairway (didn’t make it into bundle, alas, but available now) – mental health golf game!

Gnarthex drumming to Mars After Midnight and Direct Drive songs.

Sacre Sleuth by XaniaLasagna – you get to be a detective; lots of great-looking character art.

CrankVenture Capitalist – save your mom from aliens by earning money?

Shield Arena – survive waves of enemies with your shield.

Top Binz! – garbage man sim by Damos Games.

Bwirds – whimsical word game, do certain missions for certain characters by spelling certain things!

Be Kind To Yourself – wrote about this one already! A quote from yours truly is in this part of the video. ;-; My first direct, won’t be my last! (Catalog link.)

(That’s all the bundle games - what a list!)

Asobimon by Black Hole Collective/@leftovernick – monster catcher game with fusion mechanics, so Pokémon but elevated. My wife is SO excited for this (she was screaming and swearing and it was so cute). Wish Playdate was backlit so we could play all night!

Jump Truck teaser – no Itch page yet but look at this.

HOMERUN: Spin-Off Forever from @MubarakAlkhuzai – use crank as baseball bat, game carts inside the game, reminds me of Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball on 3DS (complimentary).

Shellsligner – cowboy duel game? Wild character designs. From Pizza Fuel.

Dolphin Splash! – Been so long since an Ecco the Dolphin-type game, and this is crank only. Out now for $4! Has level editor!

Gnarthex is back with Casual Birder and Ratcheteer covers.

Further and Rarer by Joel Moss – grid-based procedural dungeon delve! Pulp game. Looks like you can really spend a long time in this one, like an old Ultima. Crammed so much in here – inventory and procedural dungeons and lots to see!

Fortress by @84pinkflamingos – Pulp adventure RPG, looks like there’s tons to discover.

Fill ‘Er Up – Gas pump attendant game from Scenic Route Software. Many mini games in different genres. The CHARM on this one.

Baito Fight!!: Part-time Devil Hunter by King of Shibuya @kingshibuyaltd – made HANA. Playing this SOMEDAY SOON for the site. Real world-time life sim? Hard to explain, but sounds so cool. Real world/in-game melding, very unique. (Catalog link.)

One more Gnarthex set! Didn’t recognize this one but the album artwork said refractiveDX, then did a song from MDMA.

PossiblyAxolotl comes out one more time to thank everyone. And so do I!

Thanks, everyone involved, for making such a great Direct, and hopefully these links help you find everything you’re looking forward to. See you next time!

Interview with Pixel Ghost

Ollie Coe is the creative force and main/only person behind Pixel Ghost, one of the most prolific Playdate developers to date. You may recognize his games from this site, since I wrote about every single one of them over the course of one big, glorious week. And, since he’s so nice, he said he’d be willing to get interviewed for Playdate Unofficial, too! Let’s get started!

PlaydateUnofficial.com: I read that you got into Pulp because of a New Year’s resolution, but had also tried making games before in other engines. Why is this the one that actually stuck? Do you have plans to work in the full Playdate SDK someday, too?

Pixel Ghost: Before exploring Pulp, I had a look at Game Maker and Godot (Which I do plan to come back to probably next year) but I found myself just rewriting code from tutorials without really understanding the fundamentals and having it clear in my head what my actions were creating.

Playdate and Pulp came along and I was able to follow some of SquidGodDev's tutorials (For which I'll be forever grateful) and with the visual style of Pulp, it was able to stick in my head and make sense! I have also made two Gameboy games using GB Studio and this is another great piece of software as it's not so heavy on strict code.

The way I feel at the moment, I sort of like being able to push the boundaries of Pulp as it becomes a bit more of a puzzle (Big up orkn and Scribe who are also repping Pulp)... so no immediate plans for diving into the SDK but I do plan to learn Godot and try and release something on Steam in the future (That was the plan this year but I had so many plans and had to cut some...). Maybe once that becomes clearer for me, I can explore the SDK in the coming years.

PU: How did the ghost become your mascot? Does it… have a name?

PG: So the way it came about was I had to draw a 8x8 character in Pulp and after messing around for a while I had something that looked like a ghost… so then I drew a haunted house, filled it with residents and Life's Too Short grew from there! (Credit to my partner Abbie for the name.) It was sort of by accident but now the ghost is the logo for my limited company and has been involved in 6 games across Playdate and Gameboy… I even did a run of merch earlier this year and have loads of stickers somewhere.

I don't think the ghost has a name but people normally refer to them as “little ghost.” I keep thinking about the idea of doing an origin story but I kind of like the idea of a non-specific silent protagonist who just wants to help!

PU: You do marketing consulting as your “real job.” Do those skills help your own game making/promoting? Is it the kind of day job that gives you the freedom and energy that being creative on nights and weekends requires? It can be hard to balance.

PG: I would actually say that being a game developer has helped my job as a marketing consultant. I have worked jobs for Ubisoft, Nintendo and I'm currently contracting at The LEGO Group and in all of these environments I'm working at a high level with large teams, lots of processes and stakeholders. What launching indie games has taught me is that I can't use those same tactics and instead have benefited from being active in the community and being open and authentic on social platforms to grow a following and community. Having 14+ years experience with games marketing certainly helps with instinct on branding, assets, channels and getting things done though! I think some of my trailers have been pretty cool...

In terms of then balance, it can sometimes fry my brain but I'm pretty good at juggling a lot of projects so I've been able to release most of my games whilst also working high level full time marketing jobs.

PU: You donate a lot of your small game profits to charity, and the people you’ve met on your travels have inspired some of your in-game characters. Can you talk a little about what drives you to do that, and some of your favorite/most inspiring places you’ve visited and people you’ve met?

PG: I used to joke that making games that help others means I can continue exploring a career making games without the guilt of just doing something frivolous for a living but I also think art can be a vehicle for good. Games don't just need to be about shooting, murder and war so it's cool exploring social issues or just making games about being nice to people which I'll continue doing. (Although my next game is not that at all...)

We met and volunteered with a lot of cool people on our travels including a head teacher driving progressive non-violent education in Nepal, an American lady looking after horses on Gili Trawangan, an eco warrior cleaning up the beaches and restoring coral on Gili T, an amazingly crazy lady in Mexico rescuing street cats and dogs and a family in California who rescue all sorts of animals. Life's 2 Short: Unhooked is actually based on Gili Trawangan, all the characters are named after people we met on our travels and the 4 wives are 4 of the most incredible women I've ever met! You can read more about them here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PlaydateConsole/comments/15g2abk/lifes_2_short_unhooked_out_this_month_meet_the/

PU: Your next big game is Shadowgate PD, which will really do some things in Pulp that we’ve never seen before, even though the game itself and the style is decades old. Can you talk a little about how that collaboration came to be, and how working on a licensed port differs from making your own game from scratch?

PG: How this came to be is funny but simple… I remember thinking and writing in Discord that “Oh man, Shadowgate on Playdate would be so cool, someone should make that game!” and after a while I just started thinking “Why don't I make that game...?” I reached out to Dave Marsh (original creator of Shadowgate), asked if I could make the official port and pointed him towards some of my work. He liked what I had done, agreed to let me make Shadowgate PD and we signed a contract! He's been very supportive in letting me explore the vision for Shadowgate PD and I'm very pleased with how it's coming along.

The biggest benefit of working on a licensed port is that it has to be the best it can be. I will concede that on some of my games I probably released them before they were developed to their true potential (although this is also a process of learning and growing), but for Shadowgate I have to make sure it's great. I actually started off doing the art myself and after drawing a few of the early rooms I hit a block where I wasn't doing the art justice so I started working with an artist called Than from Brazil who has done an amazing job on the art for the game. You can see here where it was apparent it was time to switch up: https://x.com/Pixelghostuk/status/1751951858396975471

PU: Last one: you’ve gotten really good at being able to crank out a new Life’s Too Short game during the course of a weekend-long game jam. Does that help break up the longer dev cycle of Shadowgate PD, and can we keep looking out for more whenever there’s another jam, like PlayJam 6 coming up in October? Or maybe another big one after Shadowgate PD is finished?

PG: Absolutely it helps! I love working on Shadowgate PD and it's really helping me grow in terms of what I'm able to achieve with Pulp (I literally couldn't fathom what custom functions were before but now it feels so obvious) but I do miss writing and developing original content. I have a bunch of ideas in development with some of them having to wait until after Shadowgate but some might appear as shorter games for game jams in the future. I love telling stories so getting Hidden and On Reflection out during Shadowgate development has been great.

PU: That’s all for now, thank you for your time! Excited to get my hands on Shadowgate PD even though it will be like nothing else you’ve made and I’ll be so bad at it, just like when I played the NES version. Still excited to try! Thank you for making so many neat Playdate games.

PG: And thank you! I think you're doing a really great job with the website. The reviews and articles are short, insightful, thoughtful and entertaining. (Just like what a good Playdate game should be I think!) Keep up the good work :) 

Game Jams

I’m sure there have been/will be more, but here’s every Playdate game from a game jam I could find, in chronological order. Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter @TheGameLlama if you know of any I missed and I’ll get them added!

I’ll keep this list updated so check back later!

Ludum Dare 49 - October 1-4, 2021. Theme: Unstable.

Submission: Bloom - The Playdate didn’t start shipping to the lucky 10,000 people in Group One until April 18, 2022, which means this Playdate game hit Ludum Dare 49 a full SIX MONTHS before the release of the Playdate. I’m not sure the simulator was even available on the Playdate website at this point, which means it was strictly to be played by other Playdate developers that had an early dev console. They knew when submitting that they wouldn’t get many jam ratings, and they really didn’t, but what a cool thing to be first on. The eventual full-game release is one of my favorite Playdate games ever – read about it here and here.

Pulp Dev Game Jam - November 15-21, 2021. Theme: Scary Heartbreak. Use Pulp! (Since the Lua/C-based SDK for Playdate didn’t exist yet!)

Started by Neven Mrgan, who helped make Pulp! (Here’s the rest of the team, if you were curious.)

Submissions: Pulp Game and I Was Dead, But…

Play.Date Jam! - February 5-27, 2022. Theme: Mystery Game.

Only one entry, but still very early on in the Playdate’s life. Only going up from here!

Submission: Glitched out!

Playdate Minigame Jam - April 2-8, 2022. Theme: use Mobware Minigame Engine from GitHub. Compilation of all jam games in one release here.

This batch of games also came out before the Playdate’s launch, but luckily there was a minigame engine on GitHub that everyone could use. They compiled all the games into one big collection so you can enjoy them one after another, WarioWare-style.

Winner: Catch the Thief

Other submissions: Sleeping Tanuki, Rock-Paper-Scissors, Voyage Phaser, Polar Wave, Dashing Adventurer, Plate Spinning, Labyrinth, Quick Draw, Key to Success, Parachute Grab, Smiling Savage, Gated Castle, Bong, Squasher

Goblin Bunker Game Jam May 2022 - May 20-22, 2022. Theme: Combination.

Twelve submissions but only one Playdate game. Always great when our favorite little console can make appearances in non-Playdate-specific jams!

Submission: Locksmith Playdate

PlayJam 1 - June 24-27, 2022. Theme: Something’s Missing.

The PlayJams have been hosted by the delightful PossiblyAxolotl (who I interviewed here!) and are the longest running Playdate jam series to date. Lots of great ideas and eventual Catalog games started here!

Winner: Avava

Other submissions: Herbtales, Shopping Spree, Absence makes…, Nana’s Words, Shrimp Boom, Plunge, Salt in an Open Wound, Redacted, Sail, The Missing Note

PlayJam 2 - December 2-5, 2022. Theme: Crank It Till You Make It.

Winner: Super High School Sports Day Crankathlon

Other submissions: A Deep Dive, Crown of Zephyr, Rocky Stairs, Honest Rod’s Rollback Rally, From Scratch, Idle Surge, BLACKBOX, U.F.O. NO!, Crankin Car, RocketBird, Wheel Runner, Crank Dat, Crank Hero, Can You Make It?, The Money Factory, infshot, Wax On, Wax Off, Vitality Cranker, Clock Game, Squirt the Clown!, Fish Finger, Ice Fishing at the North Pole!, Crank That Soulja Boy

Global Game Jam 2023 - any 48 hours (determined by local organizer) during jam week of January 30 - February 5, 2023. Theme: Roots.

Nearly 40,000 people in 108 countries made around 7,600 games for this jam. A few of those were Playdate games! Learn more about the giant annual event here.

Submissions: Root Bear, Tender Root, Cropbuster, Truffled Times: No Snout About It, Yoga Therapy

PlayJam 3 - May 12-15, 2023. Theme: Just Out of Sight.

Winner: Digscovery

Other submissions: Beat Fish: Prototype, Hidden, Dog Knowse Chapter 1: The Dame, Sonar, Lights Out, Sight Blight, Mornin’ Joe!, Subby V Squid, Stalk the Giant, Bacdex, glasses i ges, 1-BIT Living Being Finder, Beyond the Black, Untitled Bunny Jam, Shot in the dark, Ripple Synth

Go Long! Playdate Jam - July 7-21, 2023. No theme.

Sole Submission/Winner: Montgolfier

Yellow Square Jam - October 1-29, 2023. No theme! Win a Playdate!

From what I can tell, this was the first Playdate game jam to offer a prize? That is: a brand new Playdate of your own! The winner eventually got their award-winning game onto Catalog with global leaderboards, so seems like they put it to good use.

Winner: What the Crow?!

Other submissions: Koko & Kebi - Crank Harrier, Palm Reader, War is Hare, ICARUS, Raise the Flag, Angel Pop, Suddenly Bird, Easy Godding, Vacuum, Maki Maker, Piece by Piece, Crystal Daze, Foot Cats (and dogs)

PlayJam 4 - November 10-13, 2023. Theme: Your Time Is Up.

Winner: Snooze or Lose

Other submissions: LiftUp!, List-Runner, 60 seconds barriers, Runaround Reaper, The Art of Clocktower Maintenance, Time Shared, Solo Tower, queue simulator, Stuck Like a Stone, Time Climber, Tic Toc Shoc, Time Flies Like An Arrow, Bubble Catch, Counterglass, Gotcha Number, Supernova, Scythe Shepard, one last sunset, About Time, The King of Alzoria

PlayJam 5 - April 19-22, 2024. Theme: You Forgot Something.

Winner: Discontrolled

Other submissions: I Forgot The Level!, Lighthouse, First in…Line?, Quiz·zi·cal, Froggotten Recipes, The List, Memory Match, name, Did It, Shred It, FORGOT SOMETHING, Crank Defense Force, DeAndre Says, super sunburnt siesta snoozer, Double Check, Tiles Memory

Uncrank’d Game Jam - May 3-11, 2024. Themes: “reflective” and “float”

This jam is hosted by friend-of-the-site Uncrank’d Magazine, which you can and should buy here (issue #3 is shipping now!). This jam will have two themes and also offer a Playdate as the grand prize. A neat twist on this one is that it’s eight days long and will have a panel of judges, including Panic’s Neven Mrgan, who literally invented Pulp. Try to impress them!

Winner: Dragon Flagon

Other submissions: Boatload, Cloudly Aware, Masterworks Inc., Safety Diver, House, Obol Trobol, Floaty McFloatFace: Just Keep Floating, Thought Bubble, Montgolfier Brothers’ Test Flight, Rorschach, Pappyshow, Shield Arena, Torpedo Trouble, DUCK GAME, Siege of Syracuse, The Crystal Bay, One Man Threat Ops, Prop of the Class, Jelly Float, Number One Fan, Reflektor Jam, Cooking for CrabTopia!, Lake Hero, Life’s Too Short: On Reflection, Quack Magic, Blown Away

Go Long! Playdate Jam: The 2nd One - June 8-22, 2024. No theme.

Two weeks to make something fun! Four times as many entries as the first. No ratings/winners, just a nice time!

Submissions: Under the Radar, Wing Squadron, Lathe Hero, Revolver

PlayJam 6 - October 11-14, 2024. Theme announced at start of jam.

Hosted by PossiblyAxolotl, the latest in the longest-running series of Playdate game jams!

Submissions: Sweetstakes Spooks (for Playdate), Tricks For Treats, Tricky Tracky Road, Treat Feat, Picky Treats, Trick QR Treat (Playdate), Treated, Quick Or Treat (Playjam 6), Bona Fido, Trick treating, Trick or treat by Samplay (Playjam 6), The Greatest Trick, Pentagram, Trick’s Treat

Interview with PossiblyAxolotl

PossiblyAxolotl is a PILLAR of the Playdate community, whether it’s making award-winning games like Rocket Bytes, maintaining a popular YouTube channel, or hosting a fifth Playdate PlayJam on Itch.io this Friday, April 19, 2024. (I’m making a full article on these but probably won’t be done before PlayJam 5 starts, so mark your calendars!)

What makes someone host PlayJam after PlayJam while doing a bunch of other cool stuff on the side? They were nice enough to answer a few questions for the site, and now I get to bring them to you! Please enjoy what will hopefully be just the first of many Playdate interviews.

PlaydateUnofficial.com: *old-timey television announcer voice* Playdate Unofficial here with PossiblyAxolotl, who this weekend is hosting their FIFTH weekend-long PlayJam on Itch.io. Impressive for the short time the console has been out. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into all of this?

PossiblyAxolotl: Sure. I've been learning to make games for a little while and a lot of my learning process has been experimenting with weird ideas, especially during game jams. Some of the most creative games coming out start as Ludum Dare jam games and I think that's really cool. Ever since I heard of the Playdate I became super interested in it and the community, and after noticing that there weren't many Playdate-specific jams thought it could be fun to try hosting one of my own. That's how a lot of my projects start, I just think "that could be fun," or "that would be kinda funny," and then do it.

PU: You’ve hosted other jams, too, like the just-completed FishFest that got a whopping 567 entries. How does a huge one like that compare to smaller ones like the PlayJams? I had a hard enough time keeping up with Season One on the Playdate and that only had 24 games. Are there differences in how you spread the word about your various jams?

PA: The main thing with hosting a huge jam like FishFest is it's a lot harder to keep up with everything going on. Since a fish-based game jam is a lot less niche than a super specific console based game jam, there were a lot more people to try and keep up with and it gets a little exhausting. (Especially with the amount of late submissions I had to generate links for, solid day total spent on that probably haha.) PlayJam feels like a more casual jam with a smaller group of people; most people in the jam already know each other from the Discord server or some other communications so it's a lot more relaxed and chill than even the most laid back FishFest. Marketing-wise the main difference is I tend to post more about PlayJam in Playdate based communities since it's relevant there, but I just post a bit about most of my jams on socials and that kind of thing.

PU: You also make games, and videos (over 10,000 YouTube subscribers!), and music, and game consoles, and a particle system for the Playdate SDK, and host many game jams, and you have your own wiki, and you’re active on Discord… how do you balance that all? Is there even MORE you want to do if you could squeeze it in?

PA: Haha I don't even know how I balance it all, I'm also a student so there's that, too. I just have fun doing that kind of stuff and somehow make enough time to fit it all in. There's also the whole "doing whatever cause why not" thing. I would someday like to make a webcomic, I have some neat ideas for that, would also be fun to do a bunch of other random things like making a little webring with some other developers and creators. I've got a lot of ideas so my goal is to eventually get to everything I can.

PU: Saw you won the “Best Launch Experience” award at the 2022 Playdate Community Awards for Rocket Bytes, which had to be double fun because rockets… also launch. What was that experience like, and how does the Playdate community differ from other online worlds you’ve been a part of?

PA: It was pretty fun! It was really cool to watch the stream and see my game show up, we all got to learn the winners in real time with the rest of the community. I'm super proud of Rocket Bytes and it's been my most successful game ever so far, so anything to do with it is really exciting to me. I love how dedicated the Playdate community is to creating things and sharing them with each other, I don't think I've seen many communities host an awards show, direct-style showcase, create a zine about it, and create a certain unofficial website dedicated to the console, so it's really cool to see everything coming out of it.

PU: I’ve probably taken enough of your time, gotta get ready for the next jam! Any last things you’d like to share that we could look forward to from you or the rest of the Playdate world?

PA: I'm currently working on an RPG for Playdate slated to come out eventually called Sporestory (https://www.possiblyaxolotl.com/sporestory) and of course hosting PlayJam, I'm always working on stuff which you can find on my socials or sending me a letter via carrier pigeon, and just generally try to keep an eye out on the whole Playdate community cause I can guarantee if I tried to mention everything going on I would still miss something.

PU: Really appreciate you putting on these jams and supporting the best little portable console being made today. Thank you for your time, and good luck with PlayJam 5 and everything else you’ve got cooking!

PA: Thank you! :D

How to Sideload

Don’t try to drag-and-drop a game file here - this is just a picture of where you should do it on the Playdate website.

I know that Panic did their own “Sideloading Playdate games” help article on their official website, but this is the UNOFFICIAL website so I’m going to show you how, too.

First: make sure your Playdate console and your online Play.date account are linked. You should’ve done this while setting up your Playdate on Wi-Fi to download games and do system updates, etc. You can confirm that everything is set up correctly here.

Second: download a super cool game from Itch.io, maybe one that’s not included on the official Playdate Catalog like the tremendous port of Celeste. (There are Playdate games available on other sites, but the Itch.io store games are the most likely to be legitimate and safe to download. Still, part of the beauty of the Playdate is its freedom, so if you find a Playdate .zip file somewhere else on the internet, good luck and have fun! Maybe do a quick virus scan on it first, though.)

Next: drag-and-drop that zipped .pdx file into the box at the top of the Sideload site here. This will add it to your account and enable you do download it from anywhere your Playdate is connected to Wi-Fi, as long as Panic’s servers remain up.

Finally, on your Playdate: push the Menu button, go to Settings, Games, Refresh List (might do this automatically), then download/install your new game, which should show up right at the top of the list.

Now your game is good to play — have fun!

Fair warning: the downloads are SLOW. Most Playdate games are tiny, so spending thirty seconds to download and install a 250kb game isn’t bad. But when the games hit 50mb, you’re going to have to wait for a while. Using the Wi-Fi also eats battery like nobody’s business. Luckily, you can set your Playdate to download new games while it’s charging overnight, then you have a little present to open in the morning. Literally — each new game delivered to your Playdate is gift wrapped and needs to be opened individually. It’s cute but can take a while when you download dozens of games at once.

You can also move games to your Playdate with a USB connection, but I’ve never, ever done that. It’s more for game developers and I’m not there yet. Maybe someday… Pulp makes it super easy. Kind of busy with this website right now, though, you know?

2023 Playdate Games of the Year

I don’t have articles for all of these yet, and one technically came out in 2022 but had a massive update in 2023 that basically doubled the size of the game, and like many others I didn’t even get my Playdate until 2023 so these were all “new to me.” But these were my five favorite Playdate games I played in 2023.

I also liked Tchia and Diablo IV last year. But the Playdate is what really made me feel something. Let’s begin.

5. Initial Daydream (Itch.io)

It’s like Dragon Warrior on the NES if it had a weird sense of humor and featured quality-of-life enhancements to make it feel like it wasn’t wasting your time and forcing a grind. You play as “The Choosed One” and get to make deliveries for various kingdoms, before it becomes something more. This is the only Playdate game that has made me cry, in a good way. The turn-based combat makes sense and the level-up method is interesting to fit within the constraints of Pulp. Terrific stuff.

4. ART&.. More (Catalog) (Itch.io)

There are a handful of these 1-bit art galleries by Ledbetter Games available right now, and this one has enough exploration elements and mini-games to make it feel like so much more than just a showcase of unique digital art, which would already be compelling enough reason to check it out. There are submissions from all across the Playdate Cinematic Universe, and you’ll recognize names and art styles from other games as you wander the halls, collect tokens for the mini-games in the arcade, and gander at all sorts of unique takes on what the Playdate screen can do. It always felt like there was more to explore and experience, and while it can be hard to drag myself to a physical art gallery sometimes, this plus some of the things in Dreams really brought the weirdness of digital design into my own home last year.

3. Bloom (Catalog) (Itch.io)

I played this game for maybe 15 minutes a day for a solid month. I’d never played a real-time SMS texting-based game like Mystic Messenger before, and the addition of the gardening plus some of the best characters I’ve ever read in a game meant I was here for the long haul. Originally conceived of as a small game jam game before the Playdate was even released, this is the one with all the post-launch endgame content I mentioned above that kept me coming back for more. The characters in this one are truly something special, in a way that not many games have ever pulled off.

2. Stars of the Screen (Catalog) (Itch.io)

This is… kind of a collection of old Windows screen savers with mini-games inside of them? I know, I’m underselling it. But I don’t really want to spoil it. This is one of those games that you let someone play on your Playdate for an hour without telling them anything about it. Go in blind and remember what video games can be when they’re not shackled by publisher demands. Truly original in a way I’ve not seen in a long time, Stars of the Screen is a big reason that I made this website, to tell people about games like Stars of the Screen. Please buy it so they make more games.

1. Resonant Tale (Catalog) (Itch.io)

Whereas Stars of the Screen shows what games could be in the future, Resonant Tale perfects the past, paying homage to Game Boy classic The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and doing things with Pulp that no one could’ve imagined (including the people that created Pulp). It’s like playing the old Game Boy Zelda for the first time, with all the secrets and areas to explore and enemies to slay and townspeople to trade with. Feels… so great. Did I find every secret? I hope not. I’m going to play this game once a year forever. Resonant Tale isn’t just the best game of 2023; it’s a strong contender for Best Game of the Decade. It’ll take a lot to top this, but I’d love to see everyone try.

Snake Games

There are a ton of Snake games on the Playdate. Why? Not really sure yet. Here’s a list of the ones I’ve found SO FAR:

Snekris: Snekris for playdate by dmrschmidt (itch.io)

Ikaruga Snake: Ikaruga Snake (for Playdate) by omoikane (itch.io)

Snakes: Snakes (Playdate Pulp) by raspberrybrain (itch.io)

Pizza Snake: Pizza Snake for Playdate! by RUMBLEBOX_ (itch.io)

Simple Snake: Simple Snake [PlayDate] - Open Source by TauchMe (itch.io)

Tapeworm Disco Puzzle (technically a worm but still with many snake attributes): Tapeworm Disco Puzzle Playdate by LowtekGames (itch.io)

Slitherlink PD (more snake-esque, but only one creature truly SLITHERS and that is the majestic snake): Slitherlink PD for Playdate by Sp*ecial Games (itch.io)

Snak (Season One game)

Which ones are good? I don’t know yet, but I will try them all someday. I have a snake named Daisy in real life and she’s amazing, so I have high expectations for at least one of these.