Life’s Too Short
I played through this original again to compare it to Life’s Too Short: On Reflection (hey, it’s only thirty minutes long) and got to see how far we’ve come with Playdate development in such a short time. The new one was made in just two days and is a comparable experience to this first one, with spooky-cute characters to help, additional dialogue options, and a pleasant story… if a little light on environmental variety and hidden secrets compared to the original.
The original Life’s Too Short took about three months to make, in an engine he’d never used before, on a system he didn’t even own yet. It’s from Pulp’s early days (released in April 2022, the first month Playdate actually shipped!), and developer Pixel Ghost even thanks SquidGod in-game for his YouTube tutorials like this one that are still helping new developers today and will be as long as the Playdate is alive. Pulp is one of those engines that if you put time and your heart into it, you can make something great. And one thing that every Pixel Ghost game has in common is heart.
You’re a little ghost in a haunted mansion, and you need to get the vampire couple to talk to each other again. You wander around the house, collecting items and using them in appropriate places. It’s inspired by some old point-and-click adventures, but there’s no “rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle” solutions – everything makes logical sense. We’re not trying to confuse and befuddle. We’re trying to have a nice time! If you do get lost, though, there is a butler in the foyer that’ll give you hints. Every character is pleasant, and there’s only one real “horror” moment. But it’s for love, so it’s okay!
Life’s Too Short (and everything else on the Playdate) really inspires me. I could stop writing this website and instead devote all my time to making a game, but do I have the attention span? Do I have the heart necessary to make a game that’s nice, that makes people happy to play? That’d be my goal. My wife makes small games that bring joy to the world, but she’s amazing and awe-inspiring. I’ve got this little website to bring eyes to my favorite platform and its lovely creators, and that’s enough for now.
Ollie of Pixel Ghost made a New Year’s resolution to finally make games, and he had one published by April of that year. Now he’s got about ten full games and the Shadowgate license to make a Playdate port. How rad is that? Life’s too short to waste too much of it, but if you’re reading this now: it’s not too late to make things that make people happy! Whatever that means for you, spread some joy.
(Get it on Catalog or Itch or EVEN ON GAME BOY.)