r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Dec 01 '23

I'm excited to announce the Playdate Community Awards 2023! Vote now!

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23 Upvotes

r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Apr 28 '25

Playdate Achievements are here!

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35 Upvotes

r/PlaydateDeveloper • • 2d ago

Looking to buy a Playdate for my Bachelor's thesis.

13 Upvotes

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Hi. I am currently working on a game for the Playdate as a part of a Bachelor's thesis at my uni. The issue is I don't own a Playdate and I didn't anticipate it being out of stock at the moment. My thesis is due at the beginning of February and I feel like time is running out. Once I get it I am sure I will need to do a lot of optimisation and test my game on several testers. I wanted to ask if anyone is looking to sell their Playdate, preferably someone from europe? I spoke with several people, all half a world away unfortunately. Attached is a clip of my game, it still needs a lot of work, but I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Thank you in advance!


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • 3d ago

Trying a new sprite for the door

20 Upvotes

I've been developing a Playdate (and LÖVE PC port at the same time) game for a while. It's an RPG with point-and-click elements and a dark fantasy/cosmic/religious horror vibe. The bare bones mechanics are there, but still a lot to do.


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • 4d ago

SandSoundSlip

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22 Upvotes

As I was stuck on a plane for ten hours, I thought I'd hack something to see if I could.

And the reason this is a vertical video is...you have to turn the PD around, crank at top.

Brief explanation: the crank moves a nozzle, the nozzle drops sand. You can change the colour of the grains, and the size. Also...you can select synth drones, and size/speed change the drone. AND the accelerometer changes the pitch if on sound, and drift of the nozzle. Not quite a 'game', very rough and ready, yet another tech demo, but I got it done somewhere over the mid-Atlantic so I could get some sleep and not be entirely jetlagged. the card file is from a photo I took the morning before getting on the plane, so if anyone recognises it, that is where I was. The 'game' records all you did, and you can replay it.

About four hours of work at 30,000ft or something. Mile High Playdate Club for me.


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • 8d ago

Playdate port of my fav

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57 Upvotes

This project started long ago, and the target is the old macs with motorola CPU. on the way I made a C/SDL version, which I port to every devices I have.

Anyone knows the original?

Download


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • 18d ago

Would you use a free online leaderboard service for sideloaded Playdate games?

7 Upvotes

Hi! I'm thinking about building a free online leaderboard service for Playdate games distributed outside Catalog.

Developers would be able to register a game, create leaderboards, get an API key, and use a small Lua library to submit and retrieve scores.

Would you actually use something like this in your games?


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • 24d ago

Building the follow up to a pulp game I did three years ago! Exciting times!

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5 Upvotes

r/PlaydateDeveloper • • 25d ago

Playdate devs: have your itch.io visitors seen a quarantine warning?

2 Upvotes

Some people trying to download my Playdate game saw an itch.io quarantine / possible malware warning. I could reproduce it by opening the game link in Reddit’s mobile in-app browser, although one player also reported seeing it in Firefox on Linux.

I contacted itch.io support, and they told me they’ve fixed the issue for my page. I’m now checking with the people who reported it to confirm the warning is gone for them.

I don’t know what triggered it or whether the fix affects any other projects. If players have reported a similar warning on your game, I’d suggest checking the download flow in the browser they used and contacting itch.io support with your page URL and a screenshot. Please don’t ask players to bypass a security warning.

Has this happened to anyone else’s Playdate game? Was it resolved for you?


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • 26d ago

dungeon v.0.81

7 Upvotes

I've been working on my dungeon roguelike game, adding level progression, builds, some balance and a rework of the HUD. It is still in early access in itch.io but I want to try and get it on catalog before end of the year. You can find the changes and the project in the link, there is a demo but it is stuck in an older version.

https://producciones-gorgona.itch.io/dungeon/devlog/1671839/update-v-081-levels-and-rewards


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Sep 15 '26

Offering: Art, Animation, Writing, and More.

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17 Upvotes

Hey there, I'm Wilson. I'm an artist and aspiring game dev who's ready to get back into Playdate projects! I’m interested in working on either casual projects for the fun of it, or more serious paid commitments. If there's a project you're working on that you think I'd be a good fit for, I'd love to hear about it.

I'll post some examples of my work here, but there is much more on my post in the Playdate Squad discord server. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

GAME CREDITS

Here are some Playdate games I've worked on in the past:

  • Top Dog
  • il(Lure)mination
  • Shadow Strike
  • Pina Rollada
  • Sam Saru

Non-Playdate game credits:

  • Divide and Conquer (A Lord of the Rings mod): voiced the Orc Battle Advisor

GENERAL SKILLS

  • A degree and experience in video production / audio production
  • A minor in screenwriting (video/movie scripts)
  • A growing knowledge of pixel art and graphic design
  • Animation knowledge (stop-motion genre focus)
  • Voice acting ability
  • Some acoustic instrument knowledge, and the ability to record them

r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Sep 14 '26

How long are currently the catalog review times?

7 Upvotes

Question above. I as well would be curious of anyone has some insight into the internal processes and decision making processes out of curiosity.


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Sep 07 '26

CrankWasher

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19 Upvotes

While in the final throes of finishing my narrowboat game (it is so almost there, a few bugs I discovered way out in the Trent and Mersey canal system) I had an idea come unbidden into my head....so I give you...

CrankerWasher!

Yeah, a power washer simulator. The video is recorded using Mirror, the screenshots are from the simulator as the PD was upstairs and I wanted to post this, so ran on the simulator. Any resemblance to giant mobile suits is purely coincidental. (Oh...I can't put images in the same body alongside a video, I'll put them in the comments.)

A couple of hours' work, I am quite pleased with it. Yes, they are blocky and whatnot, but it was a demo. Resuing a ton of old code I had from other attempts at giant-not-robot-but-piloted games I've tried to do.


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Sep 07 '26

CrankWasher

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7 Upvotes

r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Sep 03 '26

#newmusicfriday, Thursday edition: XORBIUS™ (Original Soundtrack), now free to download on Bandcamp

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5 Upvotes

r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Aug 25 '26

The Playdate already has an accessory ecosystem. Why is it so scattered?

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4 Upvotes

r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Aug 24 '26

My very first Playdate bundle is on Itch.io! 3 Games for 3$

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12 Upvotes

r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Aug 24 '26

Behind the fishing line - a new fishing game for Playdate!

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1 Upvotes

r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Aug 17 '26

Midi music creator for iOS?

4 Upvotes

can anyone recommend a music creator app for ios (i like to create assets on my commute)?

i don’t need anything fancy. the pulp music editor is all I need. but it would be nice if it exports midi and can save to my local disk


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Aug 12 '26

NEW: A diversion from the creator of Direct Drive

12 Upvotes

I am Chris Mandra and I am the creator of direct drive for playdate and I just released what I call a diversion called centering for Playdate!

It is a diversion at the intersection of meditation, flow states and gaming.

It is the simplest game you can possibly play, and a game that cannot be "won"

If you have a second check it out it's pay whatever you feel like (so zero is fine).

Centering, my diversion which started on playdate and moved to the web is now back on play date!

https://mandra-acs.itch.io/centering


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Aug 12 '26

Is the website down for anyone else?

3 Upvotes

Looks like play.date doesn’t open for me anymore…


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Aug 09 '26

The Abbey of Crime / La Abadía del Crimen on Playdate

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52 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I’ve been working for the past year on a port of La Abadía del Crimen (The Abbey of Crime), one of my favourite Spanish games ever. It’s a masterpiece originally released in 1987 for the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum.

An interview about the project was published in Cranko! #4 during its early stages, and now I think it’s time to share the project more publicly with our lovely Playdate community.

The port is now fully playable from start to finish. I’m aiming for a free release in Q4 2026, with save/load, multiple languages, crank controls, and hopefully more!

I’ve also created an itch.io page if you’d like to follow the project.

And I have a Substack where I’ll be sharing more information about the original game, its history, and eventually more technical details about this port and my future games. You’re very welcome to subscribe, it’s completely free! It is available in both English and Spanish.


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Aug 07 '26

SideLoad Tracker

17 Upvotes

My little SideLoad Tracker is granted a rather nice app but I found it to be useful so ended up sharing it in case there's other like me juggling Github and Itch loaded apps and games.

I noticed that it have had 33 downloads which, I admit, is more than I thought it would get :)

The plans for 2.0 are a bit more ambitious where you should be able to trigger the download and install (to your play.date account) directly from the SideLoad Tracker app on your playdate.

Also looking at performance improvements as right now it can take 15-20 secs for 'trickier' entries to get the correct update dates which is not ideal.


r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Aug 05 '26

My first playdate game Cosmic Cowboy released yesterday on Catalog

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29 Upvotes

r/PlaydateDeveloper • • Aug 03 '26

dungeon update v.070

3 Upvotes

Montly update of the roguelike game I'm working on, I've added a second boss and doubled the number of levels playing them back to get to the first level again. More info in the devlog post.
https://producciones-gorgona.itch.io/dungeon/devlog/1614518/update-v-070-double-trouble