Playdate Group 4 Represent!

Published on 07/15/2023 07:13 PM by Eph Baum

I’ve made my first game for the Playdate!

Behold:

Actually, that’s not fair, this is actually a game that they’ve made, but I’m responsible for the sprite that I doodled that’s  moving around.

This is the result of this script in their excellent docs. Panic is a fantastic group of developers and really make wonderful tools, so I would expect nothing less. All the same, it’s very impressive to see the love they have for devs.

I have to say that it was worth the wait.

The hardware feels good, the games are fun, the crank design is fun. The season concept is very clever and I’ve tried my best to avoid spoilers.

I was a little frustrated with being unable to turn it on at first as it turned out it really needed a charge. However, after letting it sit for a few hours, it eventually turned on and has been a pleasure ever since. I’m a little confused by its charging strategy as I’ve yet to see it charge beyond 84% and usually it seems to stop in the low 70’s like 73% or so.

All that said, however, I’m really hoping to carve out some time to spend toying with the SDK and poking around. I have a few ideas for games at which I’d love to take a stab.

It was easy enough to compile this simple script with a couple of quickly thrown together .png’s such that I would say they’ve lowered the barrier of entry darn near as low as you could possibly go.

Of course I have to temper this excitement with having recently begun play Dave the Diver and its kind of amazing so now that needs my attention, too 😭

Written by Eph Baum