playdate

Echoes of the Emergent, a hauntingly beautiful Playdate exclusive, sold me on visual novels
21 Jul

Echoes of the Emergent, a hauntingly beautiful Playdate exclusive, sold me on visual novels

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Somehow in all these years, I’ve never gotten into visual novels, despite being a person who loves both reading and video games. The idea has always intrigued me in some way, but I’ve never really felt compelled to actually pick one up. That changed when I first saw the announcement for a few months ago. Described as “a personal journey through a shattered post-apocalyptic world,” all it took was a glimpse of Echoes of the Emergent’s gritty aesthetic and melancholic atmosphere to get me to preorder it. And now that I’ve finally gotten around to playing (reading? experiencing?) it, I’m…
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Laser Sphere uses Playdate’s crank to control a space laser, and I’m having a blast
14 Jul

Laser Sphere uses Playdate’s crank to control a space laser, and I’m having a blast

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The horde is relentless. Every time I naively get overconfident in the timing of my laser sweeps and think I finally have the advantage over my enemies, the next wave comes in tenfold just to put me back in my place. I flatten them, they come back stronger and overtake me, and our little dance starts all over again.In , a Playdate game made by Pulp creator Shaun Inman, it’s just you and your prone-to-overheating space laser against the world. From the game’s description:The lights in the sky are fading. A massive shell around an ailing star is the last…
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Angel Pop brings cutesy chaos to Playdate in a highly addictive bullet hell
07 Jul

Angel Pop brings cutesy chaos to Playdate in a highly addictive bullet hell

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This is it, the first game to nearly make me throw my Playdate against a wall. Angel Pop, a bullet hell shoot ‘em up that landed on the Playdate Catalog last month, is utter chaos. Playing as an adorable little girl, you must fend off a nonstop barrage of enemy fire over the course of 50-or-so levels, trying to clear each stage of all enemies within a limited span of time as projectiles bombard you from every direction. It moves at breakneck speed, and at some points, there may be as many as 1,000 objects on the screen. Basically, it’s…
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Touch Egg is the most ridiculous Playdate game I’ve tried yet, and I’m hooked
23 Jun

Touch Egg is the most ridiculous Playdate game I’ve tried yet, and I’m hooked

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Sometimes we all need to just turn off the ol’ brain for a bit and have some dumb fun. That’s the kind vibe I was after when searching the Playdate Catalog for a new game to play this weekend, and let’s just say I got more than I could ever ask for in Touch Egg. The game, made by Joelle Tindall, is simple: crank wildly to extend a finger Pinocchio-style and poke the egg as many times as you can, but don’t let the horrifying man in the room see you or you’ll lose said finger. It’s all about chasing…
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In the Playdate game Penrose, your past has come back to haunt you
16 Jun

In the Playdate game Penrose, your past has come back to haunt you

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Are you more than your past? This seems to be the question at the heart of Penrose, a short but impactful psychological horror game for Playdate by Liza Olson. The answer will ultimately be determined by the choices you make as you try to find your way out of the strange titular town.Much of the experience in Penrose is exploration, and the game plays from start to finish like an eerie, emotionally challenging walk down memory lane. There are things your character might encounter, like an old playground, that’ll spark a tinge of fondness, while others — a mirror, a…
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Halfway to Dawn is a surprisingly tense, bite-sized survival horror game for Playdate
10 Jun

Halfway to Dawn is a surprisingly tense, bite-sized survival horror game for Playdate

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Andrea Baroni’s Halfway to Dawn is unbelievably bleak for a game you can play from start to finish in about 10 minutes. I mean that as a compliment; it’s the best horror experience I’ve had on the Playdate yet.As someone who tends to gravitate towards all things spooky, one of the things I’ve been most interested in as I explore what’s out there for Playdate is seeing how developers will make horror work for the weird little handheld. Halfway to Dawn takes a blended approach: in the first half, it’s a text-based narrative game where you’re scavenging for resources and…
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The Keyper is a casual adventure game for Playdate that unexpectedly made me cry
02 Jun

The Keyper is a casual adventure game for Playdate that unexpectedly made me cry

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Sometimes it’s the simplest games that end up leaving you all teary-eyed and emotional.When I first downloaded Cool Lemon Club’s The Keyper for Playdate, I didn’t have much in the way of expectations beyond a general sense that it should be pretty good, since lots of people online seemed to be recommending it. The adventure game, which is available on and the official , sees the player searching for the many different keys needed to unlock areas of the mysterious Winchester 21 building after taking over the role of caretaker. The person who formerly held the job is gone, leaving…
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Someone made a Flappy Bird tribute for the Playdate that lets you use the crank to fly
26 May

Someone made a Flappy Bird tribute for the Playdate that lets you use the crank to fly

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Ah, Flappy Bird. It’s been a long time since I last gave any thought to the game-turned-cultural-phenomenon that briefly had us all in a chokehold a decade ago. At least, that was the case until this morning, when I stumbled upon a Reddit post announcing a Flappy Bird tribute for the Playdate and, without a moment’s hesitation, sideloaded it onto my device. Now here I am, absolutely hooked on this maddening little game once again. And, using the crank to control that silly looking bird, it's even harder this time around. FlappyBird by Chibisuke is free and available to download…
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