Making a Metroidvania for the Playdate 

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You should definitely add some bubble particles for when you splash in the water and for the waterfall

So cool to see how you re-purposed your level editor to make a "microvania"! I love the idea of bite-sized games that still have progression in them, so this is absolutely going on my list. I hope you can also someday re-purpose your excellent combat system you designed from the rogue-like for a future game as well!

Short comment just to reassure you you're not the only person bothered by that incompletely spillover in text. I think what you were trying to achieve had a much more pleasing aesthetic and even though you didn't get your desired outcome I think the pursuit was a noble one since reading text on a small screen is something that 's so fundamental it's deserving of such effort. I really enjoy your videos, but feel I've very little to add. Thank you for continuing to take the time and put in so much effort to show what you do, how you do it and why. I think many of us really appreciate it. Best wishes!

Editing in this video is really really good, and the game itself is great! 10/10 would watch again

I think when you die the player and particle effect should be the only visible thing so that the room can reset while the screen is black

The portcullis thing was mentioned so briefly, but I think it's really inspired! I don't have a playdate, but it looks really fun to actually raise a gate like that with the crank. I think it showcases an example of something unprecedented, when compared to all these other things like Metroidvanias, platforming, ladders, dashing, wall-climbing, etc. For all of these things you have plenty of references, but for the crank, you have to come up with something totally unique. It's just cool seeing what solutions you come up with that are so specific to the Playdate environment. Anyway, every time you upload I know it's going to be a TIGHT, well-edited, entertaining video where you actually *make* something! I've said it before, but it's very refreshing to see when there are so many devlogs that (while well-intentioned) commonly showcase sort an underestimation of how involved the game-making process can be. And while I respect those who dive headfirst into following their dreams like that, I was getting discouraged seeing so many projects start and fail / drag on so naively, because as I let more and more time pass since I'd made anything of my own, I started to lose confidence in the idea that a project could even be completed or that anything about game development could actually be known. It's encouraging and inspiring to see you try out so many different small ideas, culling some, sticking to others, and completing many. My friend and I have this theory that while we think we can recognize good things when we see them, it really is extraordinarily challenging to come up with something good without a lot of experimentation and challenging of our own preconceptions. And I can just see that exemplified here, where you are allowing yourself to try out new things and continuing to genuinely grow as a developer. I can't wait to see that thing that you really commit to, and then the second and third big thing you make after THAT, because you really will be giving some GDC conference speech someday!

ascent is a technically incredible game. Used pico 8's sprite sheet as the map

I’ve been wanting a playdate for a while and I’m happy that you’ve made a Metroidvania type of game for it. ^___^

looking epic! i love the sounds, and how small it is

This is so cool! I have no idea how you can do this for a playdate

You create the best content. Thank you for the inspiration! 🙌

I knew that playdate existed before a month or so.. and now I'm totally amazed by this! 🤯

I got a playdate, then realized I have ZERO clue how I'd develop games for it. In walks this video into my feed. FANTASTIC RECOS. I'm shocked I knew nothing about both of these tools!!!! You are singlehandedly (re)starting my game creation journey.. I used to do a lot of Flash Aescripting back in the day.

Pure honst work, I really want to get a PlayDate consol just for your games. Please keep it going, much love and respect.

For the word wrapping, I've implemented a thing on esp32 where it types the word out first in the background colour before deciding where it should go, then printing it proper. Since then I've also come up with a better way by reading the width of all the characters in a word (thus knowing the length) so bypassing that print-as-background step.

Also props 4 cheese 😤😤 and those SOUNDS are really nice actually love what the water does to the scene

A simple way to handle word wrapping is have a fixed amount of characters per line. Keep a counter of how many characters drawn in the line. Every space character, check how many characters until the next space. If the amout of characters in the word is less than the amount of characters left in the line, start a new line and reset the character counter. Either don’t have any words longer than a line or have condition that accounts for that.

Didn't know i needed to make a game with a heavy focus on audio atmosphere, but man those waterfall sounds were beautiful.

Such a cool little game! To be completely honest, I had no idea that the playdate was even out right now (though I have heard of it before), but you made the making of this game on it look pretty fun. A while back, I was in a game jam with a friend. My friend (who is admittedly much better than me at pixel art) decided to do that art, while I worked on everything else (a bit unusual, since art and writing are usually the only things I enjoy doing in game dev) We ended up having to scrap the project and drop out of the jam, which broke my heart because I wanted to try and finish the game anyways, but I just wasn't able to replicate his art style to finish what he didn't get to yet so I decided to just let it rest. Watching this does make me wonder if, the game could possibly work on something like the playdate, since the game is relatively simple and the limited color pallet could make up for what I lack in pixel art and coloring skills compared to that friend... Sorry for the tangent, long story short, good and entertaining video friend! Keep it up!

This is so cool keep up the great work

That weird little word wrapping error is actually kind of cool looking especially if you were going for a vibe. It feels analog somehow.

First video I've seen from you and it's gold

I'm not a programmer or a game desinger but this video made me think both should be really fun! Amazing video I just suscribed!

realy good shout on the wor wrapping stuff, that always realy anoyes me in games another awesome video

Wow! I love this video! The editing is so fun and great, the pacing is perfect, and the game you made is awesome too! I wish more people made videos like this! Hope your game does well :D

I think I'm not the only one who did this. But I just ordered one after viewing your videos and doing some research. Console looks very fun to develop games for. Can't wait to dip my toes into game development. Thanks to you man.

amazing work, amazing game

Awesome video !

Oh wow, sharing levels by playing a short melody. I love this very much.

This video gave me the motivation to start working on my game again, so thanks for that ahaha

This is pretty neat!

Somehow, you manage to spend hours on the simplest problems. Smart word wrapping works like this: when you encounter a space character, you check where the next space or newline is. Since you know your dialog window bounds and where you are currently, you can easily calculate if that word has enough space on the current line. If it doesn't - do a newline instead of space. It's literally, like, 6 lines of code.

Patiently waiting for this :)

great video! I’d maybe change the physics a little while under water and it would be amazing if you could somehow randomize all of the elements to create a new experience everytime

Absolutely beautiful

The sound-based level transfer rules, reminds me of Bangai-O Spirits for the DS

I don't have a playdate and I don't think I'll get one, but I like your videos for mentioning stuff like the Arduboy or the Lowres Jam. Thank you

Bro you killed it

Love the content !

I love how the playdate has its own fanbase to keep it alive for years

Hey, I’ve been watching your content for a while now and they’re really great. I really love devlogs because they show the interesting processes of creating a video game. May I suggest trying out the game called Fancade? It is a fantasy console with its own visual scripting language, it uses pixels or voxels too so I thought you might like it.

0:30 I got scared for a sec.

My Playdate needs to hurry up and get here ugh

Really cool, Impressed what people can do to push the limitation of hardware

nice. youre games will make me buy a playdate

Love the portcullis. I'd actually throw out that if you build on this, maybe use the crank for climbing up and down walls and ladders as well. Then you could implement a taller character and a ducking mechanic and you could duck over ladder spots without climbing down since duck could be a down press and climbing down would be a counter-clockwise crank or something. Just a way to use that crank even more and interact more with the uniqueness of the playdate.

That looks amazing! What program did you use to make sound effects?

i would love to see you turn this into a full sized game, if you do i would play it

Awesome to hear that samplay contributed to this!

I love the playdate Such a fun system

Another game to try when mine finally shows up.

Great insights, thanks! Really interested in the Playdate but didn't get my hands on one yet unfortunately. Love the "microvania" approach!

This is dope

you are a playdate master already!.. I think it would be fun if the character could have some kind of temporal facial expression when something happens during the quest

I despreately need to get a playdate just to play this!!!

Hey man, I'm loving everything you've been doing and I'm trying to become a gamedev as well, could you please tell me which tools you're using other than LDtk, Aseprite and Pixel FX designer to make your stuff? I'd love to have more input on great tools that I can use to make my life easier as an aspiring gamedev. Thanks a lot, much love!

You should make a powerup where you can use the crank to control your running speed

I will forever be the one to remember just "Squid"

The game looks great

11:58 actually it's pizza If you want "cheese", then you need to invert the colors :)

I've been working on a metroidvania for about half a year now, and this game is already more polished than mine 😅

Leaving 4 likes for the word wrapping. Great job. (I hate as well when characters pop in and reflow the text)

Freaking cool man

I liked your approach a lot. And the end game looked amazing. It made me wonder. I did read stuff about the playdate from the panic inc blog and podcast, but I did not have seen the SDK yet. But would anything prevent anybody of try to make a 30-hour-long game if they wish? I mean I think it may have a size limit or something about how it loads a game that might not let you partially load/unload parts of the map or game state but I'm not sure. Did you think about it or try to hit its limit?

Man I don’t really comment much, but your videos inspired me to start working on my own rhythm game for playdate. Love this game you made though

Hey man! Hello from Brazil here. Congrats by your game, is awesome! I saw your devlog, but i had one doubt... did you animated in ldtk or in your game engine?? If you did in ldtk, so how did u do that? Im making a game using ldtk but i dont know how to animate in this tool. Thanks a lot, man!

Wait, you made ascend?? Fantastic job, it's a really cool one!

I love metroid and your Game looks awesome. I'm working on a top down exploration game in the backrooms and you motivated me to keep working on my game and I'm only 15. Thank you so much!

I'm currently working with a small team on a Metroidvania with an Anime visual style (HLSL and custom shading models in Unreal are hard) in 2.5D

i had a little bit of bug in the kings dungeon but it was fine

spider looks like parasite from adventure time movie)

yes!!!

I did not know the Playdate existed until today Jan 10 909PM

Not bad. I am studying the playdate simulator to develop. THAT thing you did is something good. How you use Godot for playdate? Hoy did you export that. Playdate support Apk? I mean it's Android or something like that

please somebody give an award for this guy for naming and classifying a whole new game genre

it (needlesly) bothers me that the water line is a thinner pixel than the rest

Whoa

Whats the programming language for playdate? It is pretty fun to make simple games without a game engine

you should combine the last app you where programing with this one

You should make a roguelike next

how do you buy a playdate? i know about there website but its not shipping out yet?

Cool

Nice.

it's more performance intensive to simulate simple particles, than it is to animate an idk 40+ frame puff? That is just bizarre.

Metroidvanias are cool but, now you got to do a Zeldroidvania.

Does anyone know if I can register a pre owned Playdate. I'm receiving mine tomorrow and would love to be able to start factory fresh.

Well.. Now I really want a Playdate..

Are you using Python to develop for Play date? The syntax looked the same

How do you get the play date? I really want it but when I go onto the website all it says is pre order it even though I see loads of people have it?

I have an idea how about making a sonic game on the playdate that would be cool

Okay, I'm gonna try to tell what I want without using google translate or something like that. I love watching videogame development videos mostly from indies. I like seeing all the process, the explanations of how to solve a problem, etc I also studied digital animation so I know the basics of coding but I'd never like the teachers from my country 'cause they never teach a thing and I also get sick of my career...so I left it...yep What I'm trying to say is that this video inspires to keep working on my projects. I don't want to be a professional, I just want to have fun making video games Just thanks and keep making your stuff

The water doesnt seem to fit well with the look of the waterfalls. The line for the water is too thin, I think. The game overall looks great though!

can you make an tutorial on how to do a basic game?

Warning @ 1:50 We have spaghetti code that only consists of if, else and elseif

Hey dude, can you make a mario land 3 style game for the playdate?

make a sprite for the dialogue box =p

Hmmm yes as a wise man once said wow that was really cool (Dani)

your "pick up Cheese" looks kinda like a slice of Pizza :D

Love iiiiiiiit