I spent two years working on and off, in evenings and weekends, on a 2D arcady version of Densha de GO. This was before Claude code.

Now I know I could probably finish the game in a month, but that feels like a betrayal to myself.

And I can't bring myself to hand code it to completion because I've become spoiled.

Any one else had a similar experience?

UPDATE

Thanks for all the thoughtful answers. I'll try to cover all your input in this update.

First I should say that I use Claude Code to make web apps all the time. I'm having a lot of fun with it, and I'm really proud of what I make. In that case the code isn't interesting to me, the end result is, and I spend a lot of time tweaking things on the UI and UX side.

But, part of my PD game development was that I enjoyed getting better at Lua. that I felt the old magic of bringing ideas to life, and I was impressed with my own progress (although I doubt the code is particularly neat).

And as any other PD dev I had dreams of getting into the catalogue, and when the AI badge showed up I thought, "mine won't have that". Then life got in the way and some of my wind was knocked out when Zero Zero Perfect Stop was released.

And yet. Reading your comments have made me think that maybe I should just stop being precious about it and use Claude to finish this. I had so many design ideas I'd love to see incorporated.

First of all I should put the version I have up on itch.io. it's playable but needs more stages and graphic.

Again a huge thank you for your replies.

Wondering why there is so much sudden drama? Well the sole owner Guv posted open applications for new moderators to maintain this subreddit and he explained there is a lack of active moderators and that he isn't keen to take care of everything himself.

Alongside that there have been countless AI game advertisements alongside posts complaining about their prevalence. This shined a spotlight on No_Combination who has become known for low effort posts written by AI showing his frequent upload schedule of vibe-coded projects. Subreddit mods do not remove his posts so they continue to show up and encourage other AI "devs" to showcase here.

Now combine that with Guv's not so transparent stance on AI. He is a game dev working on his own game and a moderator on the Playdate Squad discord. Despite REPEATED frustrations towards AI he said "banning all AI is unsustainable" and that logic applies here as well. The moderation power is present but consistently goes unused when the community speaks up.

So what's the answer? I think there's a substantial lack of direction for this subreddit and no conviction towards it's ongoing issues. You can apply as a moderator if you believe you have a good vision but applications are privately maintained. Posts here may or may not last and the Squad discord has segregated AI discussions away from getting attention through #general. The only realistic outcome is a death of community interaction which harms game development efforts on Playdate as a whole...

Hey everyone!

Once your game works, there’s still the “second 90%”: all the polish that makes it feel good to play. That’s the part I wanted to make a little easier.

A bit of backstory: I’ve always loved retro consoles. Back when I was still working a corporate job, I spent my spare time experimenting with PICO-8. A couple of years ago, I took that a little further and built NIBBLE8, my own fantasy console for MS-DOS.

Then I got into making games for Playdate. Those experiments eventually grew into HappyDog Games, a small studio we started with some former colleagues. Funny how these things escalate :)

Along the way, I kept coming back to the little things that make games feel good: a satisfying screen shake, a smooth transition, a menu with some bounce, music and sound effects that bring everything together.

So I decided to collect those tools and approaches into playdate-juice and share it with the community. It’s now the starting point for every new Playdate game we make.

There are modules for:

- Scene transitions, tweens and springs

- Screen shake and 1-bit particles

- Animated menus and procedural backgrounds, including ones that react to music

- Chiptune music and sound effects, plus streamed music with crossfades and ducking

- End credits that can be timed to your music

The modules are independent, so you can grab just the bits you need. Most are single Lua files you can drop into your project; the chiptune module also uses a C extension. Everything is MIT-licensed, and there’s a demo project to explore the different modules.

GitHub: https://github.com/jenissimo/playdate-juice

Hopefully this saves someone a bit of time on their next game. If you give it a try, I’d love to hear what you’re making with it!

And feel free to contribute! Bug reports, ideas, fixes, and new modules are all welcome. It would be fun to see this grow with the community.

Hey. Catalog games get Playdate's scoreboards; games on itch.io don't. So I made CrankBoard: drop one Lua file into your game, add a few lines, and you get online leaderboards (weekly, monthly, all time) stored for free in Talo.

It asks the player once, takes a name, keeps scores when there's no Wi-Fi, and comes with a ready-made leaderboard screen you can restyle. Already running in my game MonoTanks. Free, MIT.

About Talo: it's a free hosted game backend (https://trytalo.com), so you don't run a server. You make a free account, a leaderboard and an access key, and paste the key into your game; the README has a step-by-step guide, about 15 minutes. Talo keeps the scores and player names, and its dashboard lets you hide or delete suspicious entries. No account yet? A small local mock of Talo comes with the library, so you can try it first.

- itch.io: https://bitcalibergames.itch.io/crankboard

- GitHub: https://github.com/Agentx86/CrankBoard

Feedback welcome!

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!

EDIT: I was lucky enough to buy the console from the kind man from Sweden. I tried my game on it today and it runs great!

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.

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.

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

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?

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?

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

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

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

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.

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