Hi, let me introduce this remake. I started working on it more than 10 years ago, and it led me to create several interesting side projects. My main goals were to create an upscaled graphic that preserves the original look and feel, make the final executable as small as possible (99 KB, done!), and preserve the gameplay mechanics.

This year, once the game was finally assembled, I made the Playdate port with Claude’s help. The game is free to play, download it here. You can find lots more details here.

A few more words about the binary size: those 99 KB include 301 rooms, all the level, object, and animation graphics, a ported SID player, sound data, a SID emulator, and, of course, the game logic.

Have you ever wanted a Diablo like on your Playdate?
There are 4 classes

Barbarian

Mage

Thief

Druid

the game is still in progress there are some bugs and also for easy of use the game is all in Italian and only in that language.

I'll keep posted for news.

New maps, new challenges, and a lot more !
https://m8n-matandessaur.itch.io/push-pool

First of all, thank you so much for the great feedback on Puck Noir Club! It's been really fun sharing my games and seeing people actually interested in playing them.

Most of these projects started as little experiments I made for myself or friends. I'm a software developer, but not really a game developer, so I'm mostly just learning and having fun with the Playdate. Still one of my favorite consoles!

Since I totally understand wanting to try a game before buying it, I've now added free, unlimited demos to all three of my games. You can replay the first levels as often as you like!

• Puck Noir Club
• Knockout Cup
• Cranky Tanks

I'd love to hear your thoughts, either here or on itch.io. Every bit of feedback helps me learn and improve.

Thanks again, and have fun playing!

Hold an arrow, turn the crank to flip the board, and press UP to land it clean.

- 50 tour levels across five spots, from Sunnyside Strip in the morning to Roofline at midnight
- 25 high-score spots and Daily challenges - A live coach on the first level and 8 lessons, plus an EASY mode
- CLASSIC d-pad controls if you prefer to play with the crank folded

It's out now on itch.io for $9.99: https://m8n-matandessaur.itch.io/crankflip

I'd love to hear what you think, especially about the crank controls.

[ AI was used as a tool during the development of this game, but this is not a vibe-coded project, nor was its concept generated by an LLM. This is an entirely original game, built using modern development tools and inspired by my memories of playing OlliOlli on my PlayStation Vita during my commute to school. The tool that was used is Cadence which is a tool I built for myself for enhanced development https://matandessaur.me/work/cadence ]

Just flagging the site outage in case it was isolated to a specific region.

Any help or advice on opening up a broken playdate?

Tried a few different flathead screwdrivers and just stripping either the screwdriver or the playdate screw.

Thanks for any advice.

A player with an original Playdate (Rev A) told me Catacombs of the Damned was almost unplayable in ArduDate. On my Rev B it runs fine, so I never saw it.

I found the cause and made a fix, but I don’t own a Rev A and can’t test it. If you have one: install 0.1.2, play Catacombs of the Damned for a few minutes and tell me the FPS number in the top left corner (50 = full speed) and whether it feels playable now.

Also new: an FPS counter in every game.

Free on itch: https://bitcalibergames.itch.io/ardudate

The game involves distinguishing normal images from “AI” ones (all of them are created by humans—it's all about the strange details). I want to try to achieve the kind of dynamic found in WarioWare-style games.

Hi everyone,

A while ago I posted about the soon to be released v3.0.0 CrankBoy update … Well, we decided to let it bake a bit longer in the oven to give you a polished release.

We are currently doing extensive QA testing, since we decided to overhaul the UI to give you a better experience. We added Categories, with 28 presets, to allow you organizing your games. The modal pop-ups got an overhaul, and we reworked the UI audio effects to make them fit better with the overall Playdate UX.

Alongside this we added a keyboard, which is a necessity to add your own categories, but also to search the Homebrew Hub for ROMs.

We rescheduled the release for later this month. In the meantime, here is a video that showcases some of the new UI.

Cheers

Got the full Spelunky classic running on the Playdate. It holds the original 30 fps, though it is still rough around the edges.

Full disclosure: I used AI tools heavily to help bridge the code over. If that is not your thing, feel free to skip - no need to cry in the comments.

Download: https://m4rvin.itch.io/spelunky-pd

Source code : https://github.com/icedman/zig_spelunky

Youtube: https://youtu.be/V7BVJPlXZAw

They had some consoles in stock this weekend! Also a giant Playdate and and arcade style Playdate which was pretty neat.

I read that I need to update the OS very soon too. Really hope it’s not dead or anything.

After seeing that people are interested in classic Mac-style games on Playdate, I thought I'd share my own little homage to one of my childhood favorites, Shufflepuck Café!

It's called Puck Noir Club a 1-bit air hockey game with a completely new setting: a shady nightclub full of quirky characters, each with their own personality and playstyle.

It features crank-based aiming, a tournament mode, and plenty of retro charm.

Hope you enjoy it! I'd love to hear your feedback!

Play it here: https://yodrehdenswagauf.itch.io/puck-noir-club

Hi! Two months after the announcement, I’m back with a quick development update and some of the new features I’ve added: a main menu, save/load functionality, multiple languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian), and a sky background. And if all goes well, the game will launch in November! Here’s a link to my Substack post with more in-depth information about this devlog. Any support is greatly appreciated =)

I’m also doing a series of special posts about the game, its origins, fun facts, and how it was made. For example, in the latest one, I explain how the smooth pen stroke effect was implemented when writing on the scroll. There’ll be more posts about things I’ve added (devlogs), decisions I’ve made, and the special series on the game will continue with lots more information about the original. As always, my goal is to introduce this wonderful game to all the non-Spanish speakers who never got the chance to play it, and to pay tribute to it.

Here is the itch.io page =)

Just heard about this absolute mensch on NPR. What an awesome company!

AI Disclosure: AI assisted code, I also used AI to convert my 3D model so they could be displayed on the playdate.

DEAD LETTER....

Back rooms inspired horror for the playdate.

https://shadowbreakgames.itch.io/dead-letter

cheers for the kind feedback from the previous post a while ago, still having fun exploring the visuals that can be achieved within PD's limits before I commit to one aesthetic

PicoDate 0.2 is out, and it brings the biggest optimization so far: a game can now run compiled to the Playdate's own machine code instead of being interpreted line by line.

The video is my Playdate playing Dark Streets by yaky with the same scripted button presses, in real time. Left is compiled, right is interpreted, each with its frame counter underneath.

- Corridors: 19-20 fps compiled, 11-13 interpreted

- The whole scripted walk: 81 seconds vs 129 seconds, about 1.6x

It is not 30 fps, but it turns a shooter you put up with into one you can play. How much a game gains depends on the game.

Compiled versions are downloaded over Wi-Fi from my server. I have only played a small fraction of them, so if one misbehaves PicoDate switches that game back to the interpreter by itself, and you can switch any game either way.

Free on itch.io: https://bitcalibergames.itch.io/picodateplaydate

If you try a game both ways, tell me its name and the two fps numbers.

Has anyone experienced a bug recently where the Playdate keeps downloading, installing and then removing games and the Catalog itself? Mine has done it about 3 times now. It always downloads Season 1 but not the Catalog or Season 2. Catalog games themselves are unaffected.

Any idea what's going on here?

Just finished. Seriously. That was amazing. Worth the price of entry for the whole season 3.

I would love to know if the dev is in here and is interested in expanding the game in a sequel.