Game Jams

I’m sure there have been/will be more, but here’s every Playdate game from a game jam I could find, in chronological order. Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter @TheGameLlama if you know of any I missed and I’ll get them added!

I’ll keep this list updated so check back later!

Ludum Dare 49 - October 1-4, 2021. Theme: Unstable.

Submission: Bloom - The Playdate didn’t start shipping to the lucky 10,000 people in Group One until April 18, 2022, which means this Playdate game hit Ludum Dare 49 a full SIX MONTHS before the release of the Playdate. I’m not sure the simulator was even available on the Playdate website at this point, which means it was strictly to be played by other Playdate developers that had an early dev console. They knew when submitting that they wouldn’t get many jam ratings, and they really didn’t, but what a cool thing to be first on. The eventual full-game release is one of my favorite Playdate games ever – read about it here and here.

Playdate Minigame Jam - April 2-8, 2022. Theme: use Mobware Minigame Engine from GitHub. Compilation of all jam games in one release here.

This batch of games also came out before the Playdate’s launch, but luckily there was a minigame engine on GitHub that everyone could use. They compiled all the games into one big collection so you can enjoy them one after another, WarioWare-style.

Winner: Catch the Thief

Other submissions: Sleeping Tanuki, Rock-Paper-Scissors, Voyage Phaser, Polar Wave, Dashing Adventurer, Plate Spinning, Labyrinth, Quick Draw, Key to Success, Parachute Grab, Smiling Savage, Gated Castle, Bong, Squasher

PlayJam 1 - June 24-27, 2022. Theme: Something’s Missing.

The PlayJams have been hosted by the delightful PossiblyAxolotl (who I interviewed here!) and are the longest running Playdate jam series to date. Lots of great ideas and eventual Catalog games started here!

Winner: Avava

Other submissions: Herbtales, Shopping Spree, Absence makes…, Nana’s Words, Shrimp Boom, Plunge, Salt in an Open Wound, Redacted, Sail, The Missing Note

PlayJam 2 - December 2-5, 2022. Theme: Crank It Till You Make It.

Winner: Super High School Sports Day Crankathlon

Other submissions: A Deep Dive, Crown of Zephyr, Rocky Stairs, Honest Rod’s Rollback Rally, From Scratch, Idle Surge, BLACKBOX, U.F.O. NO!, Crankin Car, RocketBird, Wheel Runner, Crank Dat, Crank Hero, Can You Make It?, The Money Factory, infshot, Wax On, Wax Off, Vitality Cranker, Clock Game, Squirt the Clown!, Fish Finger, Ice Fishing at the North Pole!, Crank That Soulja Boy

Global Game Jam 2023 - any 48 hours (determined by local organizer) during jam week of January 30 - February 5, 2023. Theme: Roots.

Nearly 40,000 people in 108 countries made around 7,600 games for this jam. A few of those were Playdate games! Learn more about the giant annual event here.

Submissions: Root Bear, Tender Root, Cropbuster, Truffled Times: No Snout About It, Yoga Therapy

PlayJam 3 - May 12-15, 2023. Theme: Just Out of Sight.

Winner: Digscovery

Other submissions: Beat Fish: Prototype, Hidden, Dog Knowse Chapter 1: The Dame, Sonar, Lights Out, Sight Blight, Mornin’ Joe!, Subby V Squid, Stalk the Giant, Bacdex, glasses i ges, 1-BIT Living Being Finder, Beyond the Black, Untitled Bunny Jam, Shot in the dark, Ripple Synth

Yellow Square Jam - October 1-29, 2023. No theme! Win a Playdate!

From what I can tell, this was the first Playdate game jam to offer a prize? That is: a brand new Playdate of your own! The winner eventually got their award-winning game onto Catalog with global leaderboards, so seems like they put it to good use.

Winner: What the Crow?!

Other submissions: Koko & Kebi - Crank Harrier, Palm Reader, War is Hare, ICARUS, Raise the Flag, Angel Pop, Suddenly Bird, Easy Godding, Vacuum, Maki Maker, Piece by Piece, Crystal Daze, Foot Cats (and dogs)

PlayJam 4 - November 10-13, 2023. Theme: Your Time Is Up.

Winner: Snooze or Lose

Other submissions: LiftUp!, List-Runner, 60 seconds barriers, Runaround Reaper, The Art of Clocktower Maintenance, Time Shared, Solo Tower, queue simulator, Stuck Like a Stone, Time Climber, Tic Toc Shoc, Time Flies Like An Arrow, Bubble Catch, Counterglass, Gotcha Number, Supernova, Scythe Shepard, one last sunset, About Time, The King of Alzoria

PlayJam 5 - April 19-22, 2024. Theme: You Forgot Something.

Winner: Discontrolled

Other Submissions: I Forgot The Level!, Lighthouse, First in…Line?, Quiz·zi·cal, Froggotten Recipes, The List, Memory Match, name, Did It, Shred It, FORGOT SOMETHING, Crank Defense Force, DeAndre Says, super sunburnt siesta snoozer, Double Check, Tiles Memory

Uncrank’d Game Jam - May 3-11, 2024. Themes: “reflective” and “float”

This jam is hosted by friend-of-the-site Uncrank’d Magazine, which you can and should buy here (issue #3 is shipping now!). This jam will have two themes and also offer a Playdate as the grand prize. A neat twist on this one is that it’s eight days long and will have a panel of judges, including Panic’s Neven Mrgan, who literally invented Pulp. Try to impress them!

Submissions: Boatload, Cloudly Aware, Masterworks Inc., Safety Diver, House, Obol Trobol, Floaty McFloatFace: Just Keep Floating, Thought Bubble, Montgolfier Brothers’ Test Flight, Rorschach, Dragon Flagon, Pappyshow, Shield Arena, Torpedo Trouble, DUCK GAME, Siege of Syracuse, The Crystal Bay, One Man Threat Ops, Prop of the Class, Jelly Float, Number One Fan, Reflektor Jam, Cooking for CrabTopia!, Lake Hero, Life’s Too Short: On Reflection, Quack Magic, Blown Away

PlayJam 6 - October 11, 2024. (Just announced - link not live yet.)

Interview with PossiblyAxolotl

PossiblyAxolotl is a PILLAR of the Playdate community, whether it’s making award-winning games like Rocket Bytes, maintaining a popular YouTube channel, or hosting a fifth Playdate PlayJam on Itch.io this Friday, April 19, 2024. (I’m making a full article on these but probably won’t be done before PlayJam 5 starts, so mark your calendars!)

What makes someone host PlayJam after PlayJam while doing a bunch of other cool stuff on the side? They were nice enough to answer a few questions for the site, and now I get to bring them to you! Please enjoy what will hopefully be just the first of many Playdate interviews.

PlaydateUnofficial.com: *old-timey television announcer voice* Playdate Unofficial here with PossiblyAxolotl, who this weekend is hosting their FIFTH weekend-long PlayJam on Itch.io. Impressive for the short time the console has been out. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into all of this?

PossiblyAxolotl: Sure. I've been learning to make games for a little while and a lot of my learning process has been experimenting with weird ideas, especially during game jams. Some of the most creative games coming out start as Ludum Dare jam games and I think that's really cool. Ever since I heard of the Playdate I became super interested in it and the community, and after noticing that there weren't many Playdate-specific jams thought it could be fun to try hosting one of my own. That's how a lot of my projects start, I just think "that could be fun," or "that would be kinda funny," and then do it.

PU: You’ve hosted other jams, too, like the just-completed FishFest that got a whopping 567 entries. How does a huge one like that compare to smaller ones like the PlayJams? I had a hard enough time keeping up with Season One on the Playdate and that only had 24 games. Are there differences in how you spread the word about your various jams?

PA: The main thing with hosting a huge jam like FishFest is it's a lot harder to keep up with everything going on. Since a fish-based game jam is a lot less niche than a super specific console based game jam, there were a lot more people to try and keep up with and it gets a little exhausting. (Especially with the amount of late submissions I had to generate links for, solid day total spent on that probably haha.) PlayJam feels like a more casual jam with a smaller group of people; most people in the jam already know each other from the Discord server or some other communications so it's a lot more relaxed and chill than even the most laid back FishFest. Marketing-wise the main difference is I tend to post more about PlayJam in Playdate based communities since it's relevant there, but I just post a bit about most of my jams on socials and that kind of thing.

PU: You also make games, and videos (over 10,000 YouTube subscribers!), and music, and game consoles, and a particle system for the Playdate SDK, and host many game jams, and you have your own wiki, and you’re active on Discord… how do you balance that all? Is there even MORE you want to do if you could squeeze it in?

PA: Haha I don't even know how I balance it all, I'm also a student so there's that, too. I just have fun doing that kind of stuff and somehow make enough time to fit it all in. There's also the whole "doing whatever cause why not" thing. I would someday like to make a webcomic, I have some neat ideas for that, would also be fun to do a bunch of other random things like making a little webring with some other developers and creators. I've got a lot of ideas so my goal is to eventually get to everything I can.

PU: Saw you won the “Best Launch Experience” award at the 2022 Playdate Community Awards for Rocket Bytes, which had to be double fun because rockets… also launch. What was that experience like, and how does the Playdate community differ from other online worlds you’ve been a part of?

PA: It was pretty fun! It was really cool to watch the stream and see my game show up, we all got to learn the winners in real time with the rest of the community. I'm super proud of Rocket Bytes and it's been my most successful game ever so far, so anything to do with it is really exciting to me. I love how dedicated the Playdate community is to creating things and sharing them with each other, I don't think I've seen many communities host an awards show, direct-style showcase, create a zine about it, and create a certain unofficial website dedicated to the console, so it's really cool to see everything coming out of it.

PU: I’ve probably taken enough of your time, gotta get ready for the next jam! Any last things you’d like to share that we could look forward to from you or the rest of the Playdate world?

PA: I'm currently working on an RPG for Playdate slated to come out eventually called Sporestory (https://www.possiblyaxolotl.com/sporestory) and of course hosting PlayJam, I'm always working on stuff which you can find on my socials or sending me a letter via carrier pigeon, and just generally try to keep an eye out on the whole Playdate community cause I can guarantee if I tried to mention everything going on I would still miss something.

PU: Really appreciate you putting on these jams and supporting the best little portable console being made today. Thank you for your time, and good luck with PlayJam 5 and everything else you’ve got cooking!

PA: Thank you! :D

How to Sideload

Don’t try to drag-and-drop a game file here - this is just a picture of where you should do it on the Playdate website.

I know that Panic did their own “Sideloading Playdate games” help article on their official website, but this is the UNOFFICIAL website so I’m going to show you how, too.

First: make sure your Playdate console and your online Play.date account are linked. You should’ve done this while setting up your Playdate on Wi-Fi to download games and do system updates, etc. You can confirm that everything is set up correctly here.

Second: download a super cool game from Itch.io, maybe one that’s not included on the official Playdate Catalog like the tremendous port of Celeste. (There are Playdate games available on other sites, but the Itch.io store games are the most likely to be legitimate and safe to download. Still, part of the beauty of the Playdate is its freedom, so if you find a Playdate .zip file somewhere else on the internet, good luck and have fun! Maybe do a quick virus scan on it first, though.)

Next: drag-and-drop that zipped .pdx file into the box at the top of the Sideload site here. This will add it to your account and enable you do download it from anywhere your Playdate is connected to Wi-Fi, as long as Panic’s servers remain up.

Finally, on your Playdate: push the Menu button, go to Settings, Games, Refresh List (might do this automatically), then download/install your new game, which should show up right at the top of the list.

Now your game is good to play — have fun!

Fair warning: the downloads are SLOW. Most Playdate games are tiny, so spending thirty seconds to download and install a 250kb game isn’t bad. But when the games hit 50mb, you’re going to have to wait for a while. Using the Wi-Fi also eats battery like nobody’s business. Luckily, you can set your Playdate to download new games while it’s charging overnight, then you have a little present to open in the morning. Literally — each new game delivered to your Playdate is gift wrapped and needs to be opened individually. It’s cute but can take a while when you download dozens of games at once.

You can also move games to your Playdate with a USB connection, but I’ve never, ever done that. It’s more for game developers and I’m not there yet. Maybe someday… Pulp makes it super easy. Kind of busy with this website right now, though, you know?

2023 Playdate Games of the Year

I don’t have articles for all of these yet, and one technically came out in 2022 but had a massive update in 2023 that basically doubled the size of the game, and like many others I didn’t even get my Playdate until 2023 so these were all “new to me.” But these were my five favorite Playdate games I played in 2023.

I also liked Tchia and Diablo IV last year. But the Playdate is what really made me feel something. Let’s begin.

5. Initial Daydream (Itch.io)

It’s like Dragon Warrior on the NES if it had a weird sense of humor and featured quality-of-life enhancements to make it feel like it wasn’t wasting your time and forcing a grind. You play as “The Choosed One” and get to make deliveries for various kingdoms, before it becomes something more. This is the only Playdate game that has made me cry, in a good way. The turn-based combat makes sense and the level-up method is interesting to fit within the constraints of Pulp. Terrific stuff.

4. Art&.. More (Catalog) (Itch.io)

There are a handful of these 1-bit art galleries by Ledbetter Games available right now, and this one has enough exploration elements and mini-games to make it feel like so much more than just a showcase of unique digital art, which would already be compelling enough reason to check it out. There are submissions from all across the Playdate Cinematic Universe, and you’ll recognize names and art styles from other games as you wander the halls, collect tokens for the mini-games in the arcade, and gander at all sorts of unique takes on what the Playdate screen can do. It always felt like there was more to explore and experience, and while it can be hard to drag myself to a physical art gallery sometimes, this plus some of the things in Dreams really brought the weirdness of digital design into my own home last year.

3. Bloom (Catalog) (Itch.io)

I played this game for maybe 15 minutes a day for a solid month. I’d never played a real-time SMS texting-based game like Mystic Messenger before, and the addition of the gardening plus some of the best characters I’ve ever read in a game meant I was here for the long haul. Originally conceived of as a small game jam game before the Playdate was even released, this is the one with all the post-launch endgame content I mentioned above that kept me coming back for more. The characters in this one are truly something special, in a way that not many games have ever pulled off.

2. Stars of the Screen (Catalog) (Itch.io)

This is… kind of a collection of old Windows screen savers with mini-games inside of them? I know, I’m underselling it. But I don’t really want to spoil it. This is one of those games that you let someone play on your Playdate for an hour without telling them anything about it. Go in blind and remember what video games can be when they’re not shackled by publisher demands. Truly original in a way I’ve not seen in a long time, Stars of the Screen is a big reason that I made this website, to tell people about games like Stars of the Screen. Please buy it so they make more games.

1. Resonant Tale (Catalog) (Itch.io)

Whereas Stars of the Screen shows what games could be in the future, Resonant Tale perfects the past, paying homage to Game Boy classic The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and doing things with Pulp that no one could’ve imagined (including the people that created Pulp). It’s like playing the old Game Boy Zelda for the first time, with all the secrets and areas to explore and enemies to slay and townspeople to trade with. Feels… so great. Did I find every secret? I hope not. I’m going to play this game once a year forever. Resonant Tale isn’t just the best game of 2023; it’s a strong contender for Best Game of the Decade. It’ll take a lot to top this, but I’d love to see everyone try.

Snake Games

There are a ton of Snake games on the Playdate. Why? Not really sure yet. Here’s a list of the ones I’ve found SO FAR:

Snekris: Snekris for playdate by dmrschmidt (itch.io)

Ikaruga Snake: Ikaruga Snake (for Playdate) by omoikane (itch.io)

Snakes: Snakes (Playdate Pulp) by raspberrybrain (itch.io)

Pizza Snake: Pizza Snake for Playdate! by RUMBLEBOX_ (itch.io)

Simple Snake: Simple Snake [PlayDate] - Open Source by TauchMe (itch.io)

Tapeworm Disco Puzzle (technically a worm but still with many snake attributes): Tapeworm Disco Puzzle Playdate by LowtekGames (itch.io)

Slitherlink PD (more snake-esque, but only one creature truly SLITHERS and that is the majestic snake): Slitherlink PD for Playdate by Sp*ecial Games (itch.io)

Snak (Season One game)

Which ones are good? I don’t know yet, but I will try them all someday. I have a snake named Daisy in real life and she’s amazing, so I have high expectations for at least one of these.