CatchaDiablos
From Pullfrog (and upcoming Devils on the Moon Pinball) developer Amano comes CatchaDiablos, an arcade-y roguelike about catching monsters. It’s kind of… Vampire Survivors-esque? But it’s got a unique control scheme that feels like it was MADE for the Playdate. Which, of course, it was, but really made for the Playdate, you know?
You can only move in circles. You rotate the crank to aim your circle around your immobile body, then hold down one of the face buttons to start moving/drawing. If you make a complete circle, it does a trap activation, and anything inside the circle is captured. You circle-strafe around this large rectangular arena as monsters (Diablos) approach, you circle-strafe to get near them without touching them and while avoiding their projectile attacks, then you draw a circle around them to capture them and add them to your Diablory. Each one captured fills a bar on the side of the screen (capture multiple creatures at once to fill it faster), and a full bar drops a useful item onto the field for you to collect. These items give you faster movement speed, or more health, or other upgrades that will help you get farther. Die and you start completely over, with none of your upgrades. You do get to keep what was captured in your Diablory, though, as well as any pictures you collect to slowly unlock more of the game's lore.
And that’s the loop! It’s a roguelike so you start from scratch each time, but you will constantly feel yourself getting better. New monsters appear each time, and I think there is an ending, but I’m not good enough to see it yet. Definitely get a Comfort Grip (like the one Ledbetter sent me!) if you’re going to be playing this for any length of time. As the monsters move faster, and the fireballs come more frequently, and you’re just a little guy in the middle of the screen trying to circle around everything, it gets really intense. Not quite Angel Pop intense, but nearly!
Amano pushed back their much-anticipated pinball game to make this in time for Season Two, and they share some similar occult themes, so this is a great teaser for what’s coming next. Someone on the Playdate Squad Discord has already solved the mystery of what the mysterious symbols in the Diablory mean, too, but if you’re into cryptography, that’s one more thing you’ll love here! (Or just use their ready-made translation chart to decipher the secret messages yourself, I won’t judge.)
(Released June 19, 2025, part of Season Two.)