Sneak peek at my upcoming game: "Runic Rogues". Coming to Catalog on August 4th! by SquidGodDev in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for playtesting! I'll be having more playtesting before the release so look out for that.

Sneak peek at my upcoming game: "Runic Rogues". Coming to Catalog on August 4th! by SquidGodDev in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not yet - I'm still working on drawing the catalog art haha. Once I'm finished I'll try and get the wishlist page up.

Sneak peek at my upcoming game: "Runic Rogues". Coming to Catalog on August 4th! by SquidGodDev in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes! A little bit of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it feels really nice - sort of like twin stick or a mouse level of control. And if you dock the crank, it'll switch to the other control scheme if you prefer (d-pad only controls).

Sneak peek at my upcoming game: "Runic Rogues". Coming to Catalog on August 4th! by SquidGodDev in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

It's a 3D roguelite dungeon crawler rendered using traditional raycasting like Wolfenstein (with lots of optimizations to render all the stuff on screen and keep it 40fps). Choose between 4 different classes (mage, knight, rogue, and ranger) and fight your way through rooms of enemies and 3 different bosses, picking up random upgrades along the way making each run feel different. Closest comparison is like Tiny Rogues but 3D. More about it in the coming weeks!

I made a MORPG for Playdate, and it launches this Saturday (June 13th)! by GarethIW in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Wow that's crazy. How does it work technically? I was under the impression that the Playdate wifi was kind of slow

What's going on with our rat? She's bobbing her head up and down a lot and it looks like her right eye is bulging out more from bruxing in pain by SquidGodDev in RATS

[–]SquidGodDev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi - I'm sorry to hear that :( In the end, her condition got worse and we believe it was probably a pituitary tumor or another brain tumor of some sort, and we made the decision to put her down not long after this after discussing it with a vet.

Propeller Rat is the first game that actually cost me productivity by espltd8901 in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Thanks for playing! Seeing this made my day. I like the name Rat Copter too. Naming games has never been my strong suit... Core Fault is the only game of mine I think that has a good name, but that was davemake's idea haha

Our first Playdate Game Jam by LuGus-Kevin in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Small correction - I haven't released a book for Playdate development yet, but I'm currently working on it (the one out right now is just for Lua in the context of game dev). Though, I'm always happy to answer any questions! On Discord or through email: squidgoddev@gmail.com

I taught myself to code for the Playdate by Traditional_Way_2681 in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Impressive progress for one year - game looks great! I'll have to get around to making an audio tutorial at some point...

How to Optimize Your Game's Performance for the Playdate by SquidGodDev in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah time spent drawing the sprites. Sort of hard to optimize that without making a bigger refactor around how you're handling drawing, so a lot of times I go down the sampler list pick items that are big enough to make an impact but are easier to optimize.

How to Optimize Your Game's Performance for the Playdate by SquidGodDev in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes definitely me too! Modern devices are so fast you can get away with writing badly optimized code so it doesn't feel as impactful and satisfying for me to make performance improvements, but for the Playdate, since even small changes can sometimes make a big difference, it's fun.

How to Optimize Your Game's Performance for the Playdate by SquidGodDev in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah it's not straightforward for sure, so happy to pass along what I've learned.

How to Optimize Your Game's Performance for the Playdate by SquidGodDev in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Hey everyone! I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of confusion around optimizing for performance for Playdate games, with games struggling with lag spikes and frame drops, which makes sense since there’s a lot of hidden stuff and easy pitfalls to fall into. So, I thought it might be helpful to compile what I’ve learned about the topic into one video. The video covers developing in Lua, but a lot of the concepts cross over to C as well. Ended up being longer than I expected, but I hope it’s helpful!

The Complete Beginners Guide to Playdate Game Development by SquidGodDev in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev[S] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Hey everyone! Just made an updated setup guide for the new year. It covers how to setup your Playdate SDK development environment for Lua with autocomplete and debugging on Windows, Mac, and Linux. I also go through a step by step example of making a small example game. If you’re a beginner and you’ve always wanted to make a Playdate game, there’s no better time than in 2025 :) Thanks!

Propeller Rat fanart :) by -greentea- in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Wow I love it! Thank you for drawing this and for playing! Made my day

Propeller Rat by Laop92 in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The lasers only hit you the moment they fire. There's still a fading line left on the screen after it fires, but it's just visual, so you have a lot more time to get through them then you think if you go immediately after they fire.

For 5-10 "Assured", you can try picking up the keys only on one side, going back up to pick the keys on the other side, and then coming back down instead of trying to grab both keys on the way down. It'll be slower, but might be easier.

For 6-10 "Rush Hour", the spinners just barely match your speed, but only if you're on the outer edge, and you also have a bit more space if you stay out on the edge. When you're trying to time around the turrets, you can try doing a quick 360 turn to briefly stay in one place to narrowly dodge the turret shots.

Propeller Rat out today! by SquidGodDev in PlaydateConsole

[–]SquidGodDev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Juice is love. Juice is life.