Playdate Shmups

[Nnnn]

Hey all!!



I recently finished making ANGEL POP., and it will be coming out in just a few days.

Trailer: (1080p60 helps fix dithering issues)
https://youtu.be/6mKVIj-t09c?si=T8-ZqGPQFLpwQA3W

It's a multidirectional bullet hell shmup for the Playdate. I'm not sure how many people here have one, but I'm obsessed with the system and I want it to become another handheld shmup machine like the wonderswan. So this is my contribution.

Current shmups on the system tend to be on the short side (<10 minutes), so I wanted to make something weird and with a lot of volume. Would love to hear what you guys think!!

[Some-Mist]

I admittedly haven't touched the playdate in awhile and this will get me to dust it off. looks slick.
I'm going to charge my device in hopes to snag it when it releases!

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I see the slick Playdate stg title of Gun Trails that pushes the PD handheld to the limit with it's capped 50fps framerate spec + online leaderboard support from the get-go. The PD handheld only has 16mb of ram but the GT dev team managed to keep it under that limit with a custom loader which is impressive. The GT dev said that there's a whopping 2,900 frames of animation throughout the entire GT game itself.

It seems that GT is the only danmaku based stg for the PD as of right now and Angel Pop will be the second one indeed.

Speaking of the PD handheld itself, are there any other colored variant models besides the yellow one?

That's awesome to see another stg made for the PD, Nnnn.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Nnnn]

Thanks PC Engine Fan X and Some-Mist!

Gun Trails is indeed very impressive; the animation and music are top-notch, and the game itself is a lot of fun. Not very bullet hell, but I hear the Gun Trails team's next shmup might be increasing the bullet density a lot.

Having 16mb to work with makes programming for the Playdate really fun, since you can offload things that would normally be too intensive for the CPU (like sprite rotations) to pre-baked images in RAM. Angel Pop also abuses the hell out of this for 50fps (max fullscreen refresh rate on the Playdate).

So far, there's only yellow, but I would love some additional colors too.

As an aside, other playdate shmups at the moment include:
Escapepion : Exerion style shmup with pretty graphics. ~5 minutes? 1 life only.
Kuro Obi: Like a shmup, but your only means of attack are the grappling hook from Triggerheart Exelica. 3 minutes, but fun and very replayable.
Made In Wired: A port of a P/ECE shmup by Jumpei Isshiki (former Compile dev, also worked on Illvelo and Rolling Gunner). It's like a warioware style shmup with 40 different minigame puzzle stage types. I ported this game because the original version seems to be lost media.

Really hoping more traditional (danmaku or not) shmups appear for the system, too.

EDIT: Changed the title to be a bit more general, since I don't think there's a playdate shmups thread yet

[m.sniffles.esq]

Really hoping more traditional (danmaku or not) shmups appear for the system, too.

Unfortunately, the hardware (with it's notoriously difficult to see display) isn't exactly befitted to the genre. That said, you certainly have my respect for trying anyway

[Nnnn]

First of all, ANGEL POP is out!!
https://play.date/games/angel-pop/

It got this amazing writeup over at resetera, and people seem to be really enjoying it!!
https://www.resetera.com/threads/playda ... ed.890124/

Unfortunately, the hardware (with it's notoriously difficult to see display) isn't exactly befitted to the genre.

Gonna have to disagree with this! The screen isn't really hard to see at all; if anything, that's my favorite thing about it. Super crisp, looks amazing in daylight, no ghosting whatsoever, and because there's no backlight you can actually play it after a day of work without straining your eyes. And man, it's just beautiful.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Gonna have to disagree with this! The screen isn't really hard to see at all; if anything, that's my favorite thing about it.

Well, you'll have to disagree with my niece about it, as I bought it for her.

I ended up giving it to her as a "going to the beach" present (since the delayed shipping missed two birthdays and Christmas in-between). Anyway, she reported that she couldn't see the screen in the sun or the shade, and really the only time you could use it was at night using a direct light source (but not too bright). My sister reported the same thing. I shuddered at the thought of it being defective (would I have to wait two years to get a replacement?). But the support boards had about 300 people saying the same thing. It's working correctly, and it has nothing to do with the resolution or anything, more the fact it has no backlight (at least that seemed to be the consensus). So a form vs function flaw, I suppose.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

That'd be cool if the Playdate handheld were to get a backlit lcd screen upgrade.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[m.sniffles.esq]

A heads up: So I guess Playdate finally announced a season two. Predictably, they're charging this time around ($40), but unpredictably, they're keeping with the whole 'mystery' gimmick even though they're asking you to buy something they won't tell you anything about (other than there will be 12 titles @ $3.33 per)

HOWEVER, like the first season, they are giving info about the first few games released. One of which is a spinner shooter (using the crank) named Fulcrum Defender. Hopefully, the crank will be better utilized than in the season one games, now that devs have a unit to playtest on

[Jonpachi]

$40 is a f***ing joke considering the terrible quality bar they've set thus far. I really wanted to support them, but the vast majority of games available are barely above "game jam" level of polish.

[m.sniffles.esq]

$40 is a f***ing joke considering the terrible quality bar they've set thus far.

I was attempting to be somewhat objective in my reporting, but yeah... I did a bit of a spit take once I got to the price section of the press release (ESPECIALLY since you'll have no idea what you'd be getting, and as you state, their offerings haven't exactly been of the highest quality thus far)

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Here's a transcript of two pallets of 2,000 brand new Playdates worth $400k usd that were mistakenly dropped off at a construction site by Fedex (when they, originally, were supposed to be going to a distribution warehouse instead): https://podcast.play.date/episodes/s01e31/transcript/

Fascinating read as how it all happened/went down -- bizarre but true.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~