Shadowgate PD
It has to be kind of weird to make an officially licensed game (someone else’s!) after making game after game in your own original universe, but that’s what Pixel Ghost of Life’s Too Short fame did. Shadowgate PD is a real, official port of the Mac/NES/Game Boy Color graphic adventure game Shadowgate from 1987. And it is a VERY faithful port, warts and all.
I have beat one (1) graphic adventure in my life, and that was Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom, which was basically baby’s first graphic adventure game on the NES (I played it on WiiWare — remember how many weird old games they had on there?). Graphic adventures are a whole different genre than visual novels, but are often interchanged. They shouldn’t be.
This one is about delving into a dungeon, and it is not nice. The very first puzzle proves how not nice it is. You’re going to die many times, and sometimes your torch will just burn out, or you’ll get flame-blasted by a dragon, or you’ll pick up an item when you were actually supposed to open it and immediately die. There are frequent saves between each room, but that won’t keep you alive. It’s almost meant to be played like a roguelike, where each time you come back with a little more knowledge of exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, enabling you to delve a little deeper.
The game itself was made in Pulp (somehow!), and it is clunky in a charming, old-school way. There were definitely times when making this game that Pixel Ghost had to ask themselves, “Am I sure about that?” And yes! Shadowgate is from a whole different era of game design, and there are things in here that you just don’t do anymore. It also has a touch of sarcasm to the writing? Like you die, then it makes fun of you a little sometimes. There are so many different commands that enable you to interact with the world in a million different ways, and your life depends on whether you hit, open, take, or look at each individual item on the screen.
Luckily, since this is so faithful to the source material, you can use any of the already available guides for this 38-year-old game to help you complete it. Or you can keep bouncing your head against its archaic design as you slowly unravel its mysteries, and feel what it was really like to be a Mac gamer in the late-80’s. What’s next, Shufflepuck Cafe PD?
It truly is a labor of love for Pixel Ghost, though; it has to be. Playdate games already don’t make a ton of money, and with how long this has been in development, plus giving a cut to the license holder and the pixel artist that made it look SO GOOD, quitting your day job to make Playdate ports of decades-old games is not an option. And it’s not even a case of, “Well, someone’s gotta do it.” They don’t! No one had to track down the original Shadowgate developer, explain what the Playdate is, and talk them into letting a new port be made in 2025. But Pixel Ghost did, and I love that. Just the existence of a game like this proves the love, care, and wacky interests that go into Playdate development. What a world we live in where something like this even exists. Thanks, Pixel Ghost!
(Released June 19, 2025, as part of Season Two.)