Episode 9: CatchaDiablos
Why hunt one demon when you can catch 'em all? Mario and JP of Amano Games talk about forming a game studio, the challenge of developing two games at once, and how theyâre always on a quest to learn new things!
Listen NowWhy hunt one demon when you can catch 'em all? Mario and JP of Amano Games talk about forming a game studio, the challenge of developing two games at once, and how theyâre always on a quest to learn new things!
Listen NowA LEAP OF FAITH â Your audio Electronic Program Guide summary of whatâs on this week, only on Blippo+
Listen NowEat, stretch, and fetch with Long Puppy designer and developer Indiana-Jonas, who walks us through the inspiration for his game, the challenges of translating his comic art style to 1-bit, and play-testing and iterating a LOT in order to figure out the gameplay loop.
Listen NowYOU CAN COUNT ON ME â Your audio Electronic Program Guide summary of whatâs on this week, only on Blippo+
Listen NowWhat makes a great rhythm game? The creators of Ottoâs Galactic Groove join us to talk about combining classic rhythm elements, a fun narrative, and great artâplus getting the feel and timing just right on Playdate. Get ready to crank your way through the cosmos, meeting funky characters, and playing even funkier tunes!
Listen NowYouâll flip for Wheelsprung, a platformer with nutty physics! Award-winning Playdate developers Nino van Hooff and Julie Bjørnskov have teamed up to create 34 levels of spring-loaded fun, where you play as a squirrel on a dirt bike. The duo discuss their collaboration on a game full of fun mechanics and detailed, hand-drawn artâand how they approached development challenges like difficulty balancing and sound design.
Listen NowSteve Chipman, whose Playdate games have been featured on Engadgetâs âBest Ofâ lists and nominated for Playdate Community Awards, talks about his love of adventure games, their unique design challenges, and how he wanted to create something unlike anything heâd done before with his dark and brooding narrative adventure, The Whiteout.
Listen NowHow long will you last in Fulcrum Defender? Find your optimal build and perfect your aiming skills to survive in this crank-powered, arcade action game! Jay Ma of Subset Games talks about what makes a great action game, getting back into game development after years of struggling with Long Covid, and how her game became part of Playdate Season Two!
Listen NowJoin a crew of paleontologists and dig up some mysteries in action-puzzle game Dig! Dig! Dino!, part of Playdate Season Two! Creators Antonio Uribe (aka FĂĄyer) and Dominique Ferland (aka Dom2D) talk about creating a gameplay loop that feels good, weighting and balancing to make sessions feel light and finish-able, and adding poop to the game!
Listen NowâOomâ and âPullfrogâ launched simultaneously on Playdateâs Catalog last year,offering differentâyet surprisingly complementaryâgaming experiences. This special-format episode of the Playdate Podcast features a fun conversation between the creators of these two standout games, Gregory Kogos (creator of Oom), and JP Riebling and Mario Carballo (creators of Pullfrog), where they discuss their gamesâ journeys, and the development magic that happens once a gameâs systems are in place.
Listen NowEarlier this year, our Financial Controller, Jen, realized our Playdate inventory was 2,000 units short. How did that eventually lead us to a Circle K in North Las Vegas, and just how much should you tip for a roofing consultation, anyway? Buckle up, because we are going for a rideâin Magnum P.I.'s cool car.
Listen NowFaraway Fairway is a procedurally-generated mental health golf gameâbut what does that mean? Hedgehog Dreams Studio Head Rokashi talks about their journey to create a relaxing golf adventure thatâs all about persistence and taking care of yourself.
Listen NowLucas Pope on how he builds games, what inspired him to create one for a younger audience, and what drew him to design that game especially for Playdate!
Listen NowFor this final episode of the first season of the Playdate Podcast, Christa wanted to do something a little different. So she asked the Playdate team and the Season One developers one question: âWhat do you love about video games?â
Listen NowPanic wants everyone to make games for Playdate, and creating better, more empathic storiesâwhile diversifying the games industryâis key to the mission of narrative development company Sweet Baby Inc. So Panic and Sweet Baby, along with Strange Scaffold, teamed up to pair industry veterans with first-time developers from diverse backgrounds to create and ship two Playdate games in just six months. Hear how the mentors and mentees approached these projects, and then download and play Reel Steal and Recommendation Dog!! for free, via Catalog for Playdate!
Listen NowEverything is a remix, but how do you ensure youâre paying homage to the things you love, rather than just rehashing them? Designer/Developer Shaun Inman and Composer/Sound Designer Matthew Grimm talk about drawing inspiration while creating something new and original, with their Linkâs Awakening-inspired game, Ratcheteerââwhich won âGame of the Yearâ in the 2022 Playdate Community Awards!
Listen NowHow would Panic approach making a game store? Designer Neven Mrgan, Playdate Developer Relations Head Arisa Sudangnoi, and Panic Co-Founder Steven Frank talk about creating a curated selection of games where itâs fun to browse and to buy! Plus: hear from some of the developers whose games are part of Catalogâs debut!
Listen NowNot a lot of people know that Panic made video games in the late '70s! Cabel Sasser fills us in on b360âs decades-long history, designer Neven Mrgan remains committed to the bit as he talks about his contributions to the Playdate version of the game, and Dan Messing reveals what he learned from developing b360 simultaneously with the Playdate SDK. Plus: Panicâs own Jesus Diaz and Aaron Bell talk about their musical and sound design collaboration.
Listen NowCreator TPMCO shares his game development philosophy and insights gleaned over decades of working on MSX systems. Inspired by side- and vertical-scrolling shooters, plus the rebounding block destruction of âBreakout,â Battleship Godios is an action game requiring skill and precision, with all-new twists on some arcade classics.
Listen NowWhat if the in-world fire prevention mascot from Firewatch had his own licensed platformer back in the late '80s or early '90s? And what if in making that concept game, developer Nels Anderson and artist Christina-Antoinette Neofotistou actually re-skinned an older Japanese gameâthat had already been half re-skinned as a game about fire prevention!âthat Nels had found on some random internet ROM forum? Itâs the story of Forrest Byrnes: Up In Smoke!
Listen NowSince thereâs no new episode of the Playdate Podcast this week, we thought youâd enjoy this episode of the Panic Podcast, which is all about Australian indie game developers House House, Untitled Goose Game, and what any of this had to do with a little company known for making Mac and iOS software in Portland, OR.
Listen NowIn this weekâs special format episode of the Playdate Podcast, Nick Suttner joins Christa Mrgan as host, while the two teams behind Season 1, Week 9 get together over zoom to ask each other about their games! Jada Gibbs, Nick Splendorr, and Ryan Splendorr weigh in on who they think the player in Inventory Hero really is, while Panicâs Steven Frank, Neven Mrgan, and James Moore ask about Spellcorkedâs development, game design, and incredible animation.
Listen NowChuck Jordan felt his âAdvance Warsâ-inspired tactics game was missing somethingâthen he remembered the joy of âPokĂŠmon Snap.â Find out how the adventure game veteran ended up mixing turn-based tactics with cryptid group photography in âSasquatchersâ for Playdate.
Listen NowGame Designer Zach Gage on his love of editing existing gamesââwhere he plays with expectations within a well-established rule setââand how making a few small tweaks to the cellphone classic âSnakeâ led to surprising gameplay in his game âSnakâ for Playdate. Plus: Panic Designer Neven Mrgan talks about the inspirations behind the art he created for both the in-game graphics and the launcher card, an homage to over-the-top game box art of the '80s and '90s.
Listen NowWhether itâs composing music for your game or designing your own sound effects, challenging yourself to expand your game dev toolset can lead to unexpectedly satisfying results! This week, Chris Makris, creator of Saturday Edition, and Greg Maletic, Playdate Project Manager and developer of Star Sled, interview each other about their Season 1, Week 8 games in this special format episode of the Playdate Podcast!
Listen NowDesigner, developer, composer, and newly-minted foley expert Dave Hoffman on how they made a tongue-in-cheek game about golfing and corporate cultureâtwo topics they confess to know nothing about! Putt your way to the top of the tower and become Chief Executive Golfer, in Executive Golf DX!
Listen NowHow Dadako founder Hawken King fused his interests in role-playing games and chess into a minimalist, atmospheric puzzle game, with help from artist Dan Clarke and musician-turned-sound designer Justin DiCenzo. As the sole surviving pawn from an outmoded chess program, trapped in an ominous machine, can you use an old rule set in new ways to stave off the oblivion of being overwritten?
Listen NowHost Christa Mrgan answers listener questions from Twitter, Reddit, and the Playdate Squad Discord. Did Panic ever consider a left-handed model for Playdate? What games or apps surprised us by doing something we didnât think was possible? And whatâs up with Bluetooth? Listen now to find out!
Listen NowMo Fikreeâdesigner, developer, and CEO of Vertex Popâtalks about why he loves arcade-style games, and the ups and downs of creating the âAsteroidsâ homage âHyper Meteorâ, including one of the hardest parts of programming: naming things!
Listen NowWith Zipper for Playdate, game designer, developer, and philosopher Bennett Foddy wanted to share his love of the particular style of isometric tactics games he grew up playing on the ZX Spectrumâgames that may be unfamiliar to people from the United States. Drawing on the influences of Akira Kurosawa, the anime and manga series âBleachâ, and the British game âLast Ninja 2,â Zipper is a beautifully-crafted homage to classic samurai films and 8-bit black and white games.
Listen NowWriter and game designer Duncan Fyfe tells the story of Demon Quest â85âfrom the small but mighty team, to an ill-advised management system for branching narrative paths, and how they ended up eschewing Playdateâs crank in favor of a visual novel that pits the likes of the Marquis Shax of Hell against Beth from your high school Physics class.
Listen NowWhen custom-hardware game maker Gregory Kogos tried to copy his award-winning circular puzzle platformer RotoRing directly to the Playdate, it didnât quite pan out. Find out how he persevered to turn the gameâs core concepts into the delightfully addictive spin-off, Omaze!
Listen NowWhat does it mean to remember? As Samantha Kalman, Carol Mertz, Rachelle Viola, and Everest Pipkin created their innovative Playdate game blending procedural narrative and a musical memory puzzle, their ideas of memories evolved, along with their understanding of how most people hear, recognize, and recall music. What memories might be restored to the ECM1010 smart speaker devices when you play as a technician tasked with repairing them? And how does Playdate remember where you left off when you leave a game?
Listen NowA small team from game development and publishing company Serenity Forge started out with a great idea for a Playdate-specific game, but soon realized its characters were kind of⌠boring. One arctic facelift and a lot of QA and play-testing later, and Flipper Lifter was a fun and fast-paced penguin-moving game (with a few key voiceover cameos and a great soundtrack)!
Listen NowHow narrative development company Sweet Baby branched out from client work to create their first in-house game: the quirky marble labyrinth/narrative adventure, Lost Your Marbles! Kim Belair and David Bedard discuss Sweet Babyâs mission to help marginalized people bring their talents to the games industry, and the teamâs next projects for Playdate! Plus: Will Herringâs approach to creating characters, one-bit art, and sprites, and Neha Patel talks sound design and composing a hum-able soundtrack.
Listen NowGame-jamming friends Nic Magnier and Arthur Hamer were so captivated by the announcement of Playdate that Nic built his own device (using parts found online and an old NES controller) and Arthur scrapped his fish processing plant designs for an adorable dog and an e-commerce warehouse. Hereâs how the duo created their narrative match three puzzle game, Pick Pack Pup, featuring music by Logan Gabriel!
Listen NowInterdisciplinary artist, designer, technologist, and DJ May-Li Khoe teamed up with friend and independent researcher Andy Matuschak to make what they thought would be a fun project on a short timeline. While Playdateâs schedule extended a bit, and then a bit more, the pair had a great time creating a whimsical music and dance maker that is a joy to use. Lay down your drum and bass tracks, add a melody, and tell your pizza to twerk with this sparkly composer thatâs full of fun details!
Listen NowHow Katamari Damacy designer Keita Takahashi teamed up with animator Ryan Mohler, sound designer Matthew Grimm, and developer Shaun Inman to create âCrankinâs Time Travel Adventure,â the very first game ever developed for Playdate by someone outside of Panic, the company that makes the device. Keitaâs seemingly simple idea led to deep gameplay, but was, at times, a challenge for the team to crank out!
Listen NowWhen designer-turned-developer Diego Garcia first came up with the idea for Casual Birder, he never expected to fall in love with birdwatching himself. Hereâs how he overcame some technical challenges (plus a bit of imposter syndrome!) and joined forces with composer and sound designer Max Coburn to create a Playdate game thatâs funny, relaxing, and a good reminder that itâs ok to be into things without learning absolutely everything about them first.
Listen NowHow Chuhai Labs got their hands on a Playdate, their epic Pitch Jam, and how the team came together to create a zen-like homage to a classic. This episode contains spiders, and mild spoilers for Whitewater Wipeout.
Listen NowHow an offhand idea to mark the 15th anniversary of a software company launched a decade-long saga of twists, turns, and mini-boss battles that led to a handheld gaming console as surprising and unique as its creators. Itâs dangerous to go alone. Take this adorable yellow box, and letâs get crankinâ⌠on the story of Playdate.
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