See the Sky
See the Sky is a series of ~500 1-bit artworks that tell a festive Christmas story, and was released on the Playdate for free in December 2023. Originally for Macintosh computers back in 1992, Japanese artist Thoru Yamamoto had a series of these digital storybooks distributed as HyperCard stacks, many as part of CD pack-ins included with magazines. (HyperCard is maybe best known for being used to create the original version of Myst.) Yamamoto’s artworks played around with the limitations of Macintosh computers of the time, and the 1-bit, black-and-white look fits perfectly on the Playdate. The resolution isn’t quite the same as classic Macs, but editor and general Playdate guru Matt Sephton (YOYOZO, Fore! Track, ICARUS, Sparrow Solitaire, and more) zoomed in on the relevant bits, like a 4:3 fullscreen cut of a movie on VHS, and has delivered this 30-year-old digital art to a brand new audience.
Yes, it’s basically a slideshow. But it has the most Christmas spirit of anything I’d seen on the Playdate. There are animated bits, too; not every screen is static! The story follows this unnamed snowman as he tries to save a star. He makes friends, helps those friends, melts a little, re-forms, and braves all manner of obstacles because it’s the right thing to do. The story is told without dialogue, and the art – with a level of character that transcends (or benefits from?) the technical limitations of both the original and modern palettes – really draws you in.
The process that Sephton used to convert HyperCard stacks to the Playdate didn’t sound easy, but it also sounds replicable for someone willing to put in the time. Will we get other HyperCard games on Playdate? Is The Manhole a possibility? Maybe! In the meantime, I’ll be on the Internet Archive, getting familiar with Thoru Yamamoto’s other works, many of which only exist now because Sephton bought old Japanese game magazines and preserved the included CD’s. That’s one of the things I love most about the Playdate – so many cool people working on it! Not everything that comes out of that creativity is a “game,” and the world is a better place for it.
(Free on Itch.io.)