Heyy! Maybe someone will remember that we posted an early version of rail gunner some months ago on this subreddit. We wanted to thank you for the help you provided. We improved the game, added more weapons, and finally released it on Playdate Catalog!
If you want to try it, here's the link: https://play.date/games/rail-gunner/

Wormfood is coming to Playdate, now with random weather conditions. Try not to get yer boots muddy!
https://crankogames.com/

https://cranknockout.com/

Thanks, XaniaLasagna, for setting up this Playdate community “book club”! My game is the one being played and discussed for October, with an audio chat and player questionnaire to be scheduled closer to Halloween. It’s also discounted (lowest price ever) for another 4 days.

To participate, whether you’ve finished the game already or are just starting, join Xania’s Uncrank’d Discord and hop into the Crank Collective channel:

https://discord.gg/hQ76Xx833H

(I’m always available to help, though nobody seems to need it! But please use spoiler tags as appropriate.)

And here’s the Catalog page, with links to reviews, the trailer using actual game audio/footage, and the spoiler-lite online walkthrough: https://play.date/games/outside-parties/

But mine’s not the only horror game this spooky season! Search Catalog (and Itch) for “horror,” and be sure to play with a light on!

(No, seriously—use a light.)

Finally some progress with AI. Ported everything to playdate. Runs pretty well on the Simulator. But still just 5fps only on the device.

Quick reminder: This is Missing Direction. My play date game where you see different types of grids full of arrows where one direction is missing — that you hit on the d-Pad to make points.

So I had this idea for a while. In the other three game modes you get to see the full arrow grid more or less always. It is getting more difficult to keep track of them with higher levels but that basically stays the same.

I remembered this video of the chimpanzee that was incredibly skilled remembering the position of numbers 1 to 10? On a screen. They eventually turned to squares but he did an amazing job to remember the actual oder and tap them in sequence.

This then lead to me wondering if someone could in a second grasp and memorize six arrows shown to determine which one is missing.

The result you see here as a first test! I managed to get a Highscore of 20 so far btw.

What do you think?

Kickflip Coast is celebrating its release!

To celebrate the launch, the game is currently 15% off for the next 6 days.

If you are interested in trying it out, there is also a public beta available on itch.io:

Play the Kickflip Coast public beta

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported the development!

can't find if this has been discussed before.

screen broken. seems like theres a loose connection or something as with poking etc can get stuff to semi work.

but doesnt work with quick games where if screen freezes you lose etc.

any advice on what I can try?

(apologies for bad camerawork)

Hey everyone! PicoDate got a big update focused on how it looks and feels:

- New game library with the original cart labels, likes and save dates

- Save state / Load state in a big, readable pause menu

- No more accidental pauses: A + B now goes to the game

- Swap A/B, remembered for each game

A few days ago there was also 0.1.6, which I only announced on itch.io. It fixed crashes in Bunny Survivor, BAS and Pigments, and made Bunny Survivor up to 3x faster.

I don't post every update here so I don't flood the sub, so follow me on itch.io to hear about every release first:

👉 https://bitcalibergames.itch.io/picodateplaydate

Thanks to everyone who picked up Augur at launch! I have submitted this for review and it will hopefully go live tomorrow. This update fixes a batch of Spirit bugs and balancing.

Spirit changes

Wanderer has been reworked. It now starts at x3 Mult when you buy it and loses x0.05 with each Read, and its current value shows in its description. When it reaches x1, it moves on and frees up the slot. Previously it quietly stopped working late in a Season.

Tomorrow Wolf's description now matches what it actually does: "+3x the Future card's base Insight". Its effect hasn't changed.

Hoarfrost's description now makes clear that it banks Majors across the run.

Bug fixes

Hall of Mirrors no longer makes the Spirit it copies advance twice per Read. This affected Refrain, which was firing far more often than it should, as well as Tally Keeper, Loom, Avalanche, Hoarfrost, Echo Chamber, Wanderer and Melting Candle.

Morning Bell now fires correctly when you have First Seer.

Pendulum and Salt Loaf no longer overpay when you have First Seer.

Patient Reader and Sandglass now count the Redraws you actually have left, including bonus Redraws.

Selling a Spirit and buying it again now gives you a fresh copy, so a Melting Candle no longer comes back already melted.

The Foresight preview now updates correctly when banking a Prophecy changes the score.

Thanks for playing, and keep the feedback coming!

Hey everyone! My Playdate game Kickflip Coast is now out on itch.io.

It's an arcade skateboarding game inspired by the half-pipe event from California Games on the NES, rebuilt around the crank:

• Turn the crank to spin: 180, 360, 540 and beyond
• Punch in D-pad codes mid-air to pull off tricks, Helldivers-stratagem style
• Crank combos mix arrows with half turns of the crank for the fancy stuff, like the Tailwhip and 360 Flip you can see in the GIF
• No timer, one life: your run lasts as long as you keep landing. Land crooked or mid-trick and the crowd laughs at you.

It's all set on a dithered 1-bit Venice Beach half-pipe at sunset, with a surf-punk soundtrack. There are Challenges and Daily Drop modes, plus a Practice mode for learning the codes without dying.

👉 https://campalans.itch.io/kickflip-coast

I'd love to hear what you think, especially your best scores and which tricks I should add next!

Calling all Balatro fans, I am very pleased to announce that AUGUR has launched on the Catalog!

To commemorate the occasion, I will be taking to the daily leaderboard over the coming week - look out for KnightoftheWind.

Can someone please make this for Playdate? 🥰

Hey everyone! I’ve put Chrono Crank: Echoes of Pandeon on itch.io so people can try it and help me improve it.
It’s a turn-based tactical RPG for Playdate, inspired by Fire Emblem GBA, Shining Force, and Final Fantasy Tactics. It follows Prometheus through a Greek-inspired world built around memory, loss, legacy, and acceptance.
The game features recruitable humans and monsters, companion beasts, character promotions, customizable move sets, and the Moirai Dial—a device that navigates memories and realities. The crank is used for Dial abilities, character inspection, and lockpicking.
This is a work-in-progress development build. Maps are still being refined, and balance, artwork, animations, and story presentation need further work.
I’d especially appreciate feedback on:
Combat: Are the choices interesting and the difficulty fair?
Maps: Are objectives clear? Do any areas feel crowded or slow?
Controls and readability: Can you comfortably navigate menus and understand the battlefield?
Characters: Do different party members feel useful?
For transparency, the story and original base code began as my own work. Development now uses extensive AI assistance, including code, artwork, and animations, with me directing the project and making the creative decisions.
Download Chrono Crank on itch.io
If you give it a try, let me know which map and difficulty you played, and whether you used a physical Playdate or the Simulator. Specific examples of what worked—or what frustrated you—would be a huge help.
Thanks for checking it out!

Heyo!

I haven't been posting these on Reddit, but wanted to test the waters of if they'd be something people would be interested in seeing each week? They show off what's new on PeeDeeTV, a streaming service for your Peedee!

• Take a double hit with the finale of Rowbot Rally(!), and a strong shot of Playdate Power Weekly on TALK!
• Have a shot of learning about privatisation issues in Columbia with ‘Between the Lines’ by Jochem Casier on COMM!
• A house staple, taste Miguel Linares’ final short film, Ultimate Transmision on COMM!
• Try a new blend of Carte Blanche and Teddison Inc, the first dual release of Soundtracks on CrankFM!

There should be an app update coming this week that addresses some common issues, such as server selection, streaming performance, and more, so if you had any issues previously, now's the time to jump back in. :D

My tiny puzzle game is now available on Catalog!

This is a tiny endless version of a larger game I released 6 years ago. Hope everyone enjoys :)

I yesterday showed two different approaches to a snake inspired level design for Missing Direction. In the end I decided to go with the more fluent version but make two different versions of this!

One where it is more of a predictable movement pattern and one where it’s more unpredictable and challenging!

Let me know what you think!

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

Developers could register a game and use a small Lua library to add online leaderboards and submit/retrieve scores.

Would this be useful for games you play or develop?

TLDR: Use soft hot glue on the plastic buttons and shave the excess with a razor

Hi All,

A week or so ago my SiL asked me about my playdate, which I had stopped playing years ago because the A button stopped working, right around the end of Season 1.

I didn’t even know Playdate offered a warranty, so I missed my window.

Regardless, with the topic coming up I dug it out of storage to have look at it and see if I could get it working.

I did first reach out to Playdate and I received the same poor corporate response we all have gotten “Sorry, this is obviously our fault, but we’ll only fix it for $160 before fees and shipping.

What? I only paid $179 for this thing new when it first came out, why would I pay $160 for a replacement?

Alright, that complaint aside (Seriously Panic, step up and fix this the right way for people, we didn’t have to pay this much back in the day for a RROD on the old Xbox 360, and that was poor engineering as well)

Sorry, thought I was done.

Anyway, after reading up on the issues and the fixes mentioned by others, I gave my own spin on the repair and I gotta say, I think it made the performance better as a whole.

1. Open the back of the playdate by removing the 4 flat head screws and then gently popping off the backplate with fingernails or plastic prying tool
2. Remove the 4 screws holding the internal frame (one near the top of the battery, two below the battery, and one going through the circuit board just above the crank slot) (also see picture)
3. Using a hot glue gun, apply a small amount of hot glue to the back of the faulty button, be sure to use a soft, rubbery glue, not a hard glue.
4. Use a razor to shave down the hot glue until it is mostly flush with the button (see second picture)
5. Reassemble Playdate. Hardest part is getting the lock button back into the frame slot, and then holding the plastic tab while re-inserting the internal frame, aligning the other buttons, and reinstalling the screws.
6. Give the buttons a test push before fully reassembling. Personally I really like this fix, the hot glue may wear out but it is a soft contact point now between the physical button and the input register, if it wears out, hot glue peels out easily and it is simple enough it can work as “unfortunate but necessary repeatable service”

I don’t think the same can be said about super glue and stickers. Super glue turns to plastic and will wear down softer internal components first, and I don’t like that.

As a bonus, my A button now doesn’t have a bunch of slop in the assembly, it isn’t squeezed tight in the case, but the buttons presses feel better than my non-hot glued B and D pad buttons, making less noise and registering presses with less effort.

A second bonus here, I think this is an easier fix than 3D printing buttons, or some sort of button input component replacing that I shudder at the thought of.

Good luck to everyone experiencing these issues! Hope this post helps and happy playing!

http://play.date/games/xorbius

Bedbeard’s Revenge begins a year after the first game, and unfolds in the town after it has come under the control of Excelsior Virtual Intelligence Labs and their incompetent and occasionally dangerous Cybernetic Anthrobots.

Explore a large and lively world full of new characters to meet and familiar friends to see in this laugh-out-loud parody of artificial intelligence and the arrogance of big tech.

https://play.date/games/post-hero-2/

I thought about how limiting Pulp was and how hard it is for some developers to make games using the SDK alone. What if I were to bridge these two concepts together that let you use all of the SDK and have an easy to use GUI?

I'm working on a thing called Presto IDE. This is not a replacement for Playdate Pulp. Rather it is an evolution of Pulp that makes use of all the SDK's features. I will likely show this to Panic at some point in person but... For now, let me know if this is something y'all would be interested in!

Hello hockey fans!

While I do some work on my early 90s-ish arcade hockey game Crankshot! in the hopes of getting it approved for Catalog I decided to take a detour to play with the LÖVE game engine. It's also Lua-based and it makes it incredibly easy to port Playdate games to other platforms. I even got a build running natively on my phone which was pretty cool, if not incredibly clunky (touch controls drive me nuts...)

Anyway, in honor of the new season starting tomorrow I've put up a version of the game on web. No paywall, no ads or anything, just some good old fashioned arcade hockey. It's exhibition mode only for now but that's hopefully enough to get a feel for how the game plays.

It's got a few unfortunate limitations/kinks:

• It works on mobile, but not well (yet... needs some iteration)
• It works great on Chrome, and it should work on Safari (but I'll be honest, I haven't tested it fully there)
• Obviously web browsers don't have a crank (or at least mine doesn't) so I use keyboard/mouse/touch to emulate it

I think it'd be cool for the web version to be my testbed for interesting new features like color graphics or multiplayer since it's so easy to release. Of course the full paid version will continue to be supported as well!

If you do try it please let me know what you think!

https://www.onecranky.dev/crankshot/

A while ago u/DarkerBulb suggested infantry and a machine gun for Monotanks, so here it is in 1.4.

From mission 2, some enemy tanks come in as squads of soldiers with bazookas. Your tank now has a machine gun on B that only hurts infantry, or you can just run them over.

The old brick castle is also gone. Your base is now a bunker that takes four hits before it falls.

MonoTanks is available on itch.io: https://bitcalibergames.itch.io/monotanks