Playdate Podcast

Whether it’s composing music for your game or designing your own sound effects, challenging yourself to expand your game dev toolset can lead to unexpectedly satisfying results! This week, Chris Makris, creator of Saturday Edition, and Greg Maletic, Playdate Project Manager and developer of Star Sled, interview each other about their Season 1, Week 8 games in this special format episode of the Playdate Podcast! Show Notes Chris Makris’ website Chris Makris on Twitter Greg Maletic on Twitter Qix Sierra Games Lucas Arts ASCII Art Asteroids Super Hexagon A Shell in the Pit Factory Default (Aaron Bell and Jesus Diaz) Star Sled Soundtrack on Bandcamp BFXR Sound Effects Tool Tim Skelly Saturday Edition game page on Playdate’s website Star Sled game page on Playdate’s website Episode Transcript

Designer, developer, composer, and newly-minted foley expert Dave Hoffman on how they made a tongue-in-cheek game about golfing and corporate culture—two topics they confess to know nothing about! Putt your way to the top of the tower and become Chief Executive Golfer, in Executive Golf DX! Show Notes davemakes’ website Dave Hoffman on Twitter Executive Golf DX soundtrack Mixolumia Robot Fishing Sneak Peek Bit Summit Firewatch Panic Japan Desert Golfing Golf on Mars Rogue Urban Golf in Portland Downwell Spelunky GameBoy Color DX series Playdate SDK Season One, Episode 12: Zipper QWOP I Am Bread Surgeon Simulator Executive Golf DX game page on Playdate’s website Episode Transcript

How Dadako founder Hawken King fused his interests in role-playing games and chess into a minimalist, atmospheric puzzle game, with help from artist Dan Clarke and musician-turned-sound designer Justin DiCenzo. As the sole surviving pawn from an outmoded chess program, trapped in an ominous machine, can you use an old rule set in new ways to stave off the oblivion of being overwritten? Show Notes Dadako’s website Hawken King on Twitter Dan Clarke’s website Questy Chess soundtrack by Justin DiCenzo Justin DiCenzo on Soundcloud Nova Koto Shamisen Pocket Operators by Teenage Engineering Edge Magazine issue featuring Playdate Tiled Software Intro to Bauhaus by Kelly Richman-Abdou on My Modern Met Caps Tool Playdate Pulp Playdate SDK Train Chase Scene from “The Wrong Trousers” Questy Chess game page on Playdate’s website Episode Transcript

Host Christa Mrgan answers listener questions from Twitter, Reddit, and the Playdate Squad Discord. Did Panic ever consider a left-handed model for Playdate? What games or apps surprised us by doing something we didn’t think was possible? And what’s up with Bluetooth? Listen now to find out! Show Notes Steven Frank’s Playdate post (Gopher) Steven Frank’s Playdate post (read in browser via Floodgap) Playdate Podcast Episode 1: The Story of Playdate Link to Playdate Dimensions document via the developer forum Printables.com projects tagged “Playdate” Daily Driver devlog Daily Driver posts on Twitter Zachary Snyder’s 3D Engine for Playdate Zachary Synder’s on-device 3D level editor(!!) Thread of awesome third-party games for Playdate Fort Atlantic on Bandcamp

Mo Fikree—designer, developer, and CEO of Vertex Pop—talks about why he loves arcade-style games, and the ups and downs of creating the “Asteroids” homage “Hyper Meteor”, including one of the hardest parts of programming: naming things! Show Notes Mo Fikree on Twitter Robby Duguay on Twitter Halina Heron on Bandcamp Vertex Pop on Twitter Vertex Pop Asteroids on Wikipedia Play Asteroids on the AARP Website Plastic Fern Ground Kontrol MAME Super Hexagaon Teenage Engineering Panic Podcast Playdate Podcast Episode 1: The Story of Playdate Hyper Meteor game page on Playdate’s website Episode Transcript

With Zipper for Playdate, game designer, developer, and philosopher Bennett Foddy wanted to share his love of the particular style of isometric tactics games he grew up playing on the ZX Spectrum–games that may be unfamiliar to people from the United States. Drawing on the influences of Akira Kurosawa, the anime and manga series “Bleach”, and the British game “Last Ninja 2,” Zipper is a beautifully-crafted homage to classic samurai films and 8-bit black and white games. Show Notes Bennett Foddy on Twitter Bennett Foddy’s website ZX Spectrum Bleach official website Last Ninja 2 on Moby Games List of works by Akira Kurosawa Dan Messing on Twitter Playdate Software Development Kit Synth documentation in the Playdate SDK Japanese sho Playdate Podcast Episode 4: Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure Playdate Podcast Episode 1: The Story of Playdate Zipper game page on the Playdate website Episode Transcript

Writer and game designer Duncan Fyfe tells the story of Demon Quest ’85—from the small but mighty team, to an ill-advised management system for branching narrative paths, and how they ended up eschewing Playdate’s crank in favor of a visual novel that pits the likes of the Marquis Shax of Hell against Beth from your high school Physics class. Show Notes Duncan Fyfe on Twitter Alex Ashby on Twitter Lawrence Bishop on Twitter Belinda Leung Jared Emerson-Johnson Firewatch Telltale Games Ouija Board Sound Blaster Playdate Mirror DIY Playdate Magnifier by Grhmhome MYST Encarta Neocab Where the Water Tastes Like Wine Proteus Demon Quest ’85 game page on Playdate’s website Episode Transcript

When custom-hardware game maker Gregory Kogos tried to copy his award-winning circular puzzle platformer RotoRing directly to the Playdate, it didn’t quite pan out. Find out how he persevered to turn the game’s core concepts into the delightfully addictive spin-off, Omaze! Show Notes Gregory Kogos on Twitter Gregory’s Omaze write-up on gamedeveloper.com RotoRing on Facebook Gregory’s synth tool Playdate Software Development Kit Synth documentation in the Playdate SDK Katana Zero Playdate Pulp Arduino Arduboy alt.ctrl.gdc Game Developers Conference Busan Indie Connect Nick Suttner on Twitter Furniture and Mattress Games Eggplant: the Secret Life of Games Boogie Loops Playdate Podcast episode Casual Birder Playdate Podcast episode Whitewater Wipeout Playdate Podcast episode Untitled Goose Game Panic Podcast episode House House Omaze game page on the Playdate website Episode Transcript

What does it mean to remember? As Samantha Kalman, Carol Mertz, Rachelle Viola, and Everest Pipkin created their innovative Playdate game blending procedural narrative and a musical memory puzzle, their ideas of memories evolved, along with their understanding of how most people hear, recognize, and recall music. What memories might be restored to the ECM1010 smart speaker devices when you play as a technician tasked with repairing them? And how does Playdate remember where you left off when you leave a game? Show Notes Samantha Kalman on Twitter Everest Pipkin on Twitter Carol Mertz on Twitter Rachelle Viola on Twitter Asesprite Playdate Developer Forum Playdate Software Development Kit Echoic Memory game page on Playdate’s website Episode Transcript

A small team from game development and publishing company Serenity Forge started out with a great idea for a Playdate-specific game, but soon realized its characters were kind of… boring. One arctic facelift and a lot of QA and play-testing later, and Flipper Lifter was a fun and fast-paced penguin-moving game (with a few key voiceover cameos and a great soundtrack)! Show Notes Serenity Forge Kevin Zhang on Twitter Samuel Herb on Twitter David Forman on Twitter Kersti Kodas on Twitter Plastic Fern Flipper Lifter game page on Playdate’s website Episode Transcript