Introduction
I’ve decided to relaunch Rowboat Digital, which is a brand I built during COVID which tried to build games. I already built one game back in 2020 called “NeonDodge” using the Godot game engine.
I retired this after the first release as I always had a dream when I was younger about making a game from start to finish. I managed to accomplish this during this phase. Fast forward a few years and I’ve been itching to start a new game project.
Platform
After previously using Godot to build a game I’ve been quite impressed with what it offers and how lightweight it was over other game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine.
However I did fancy learning a new programming language, throughout my career I’ve always been focused on languages that utilise Web based technologies and the LAMP stack. I therefore wanted to challenge myself to learn something new. When I looked at options out there I fell in love with the Playdate ecosystem and have been on the fence about getting one for a few months. The Playdate is well built but quite expensive, especially when shipping it to the UK.
Crank Clash
With that in mind I’m starting to build a new game called “Crank Clash”, a turn based 2D fighting game.
The goal in mind, during building the game is to release it to the Playdate store and have it make enough money to just cover the cost of the Playdate device. It then gives me the freedom to continue building/testing more games on the platform in future. The recommendation when building for Playdate is that you have a device to hand so that you can accurately test performance on real hardware, though they do offer a simulator.
Artwork
While I waited for the device to arrive, I started out this project with some pens and Graph Paper doing some 1-bit pixel art to try and get used to drawing it pixel art while I wait for the device to arrive.
Doodles on Graph Paper of the Crank Clash logo to experiment with 1-bit pixel art
Development
I’ve been looking at the Playdate SDK and have been impressed with what it offers. If I have to make some critisms about it, the documentation would benefit from more examples to really draw out the capabilities of the SDK and what to use for what situation.
Like many others though I have benefitted from SquidGodDevs tutorial series on YouTube which I’d recommend anyone looking to build for Playdate to check out.
Conclusion
I’m really excited to be building this game and I can’t wait to see it come to life. I’m really looking forward to the challenge of building a game for the Playdate and I’m sure it will be a fun experience.
If you want to follow along with my progress, you can find more details on the Rowboat Digital website. For more in depth updates, consider subscribing to the newsletter. You can find the signup form in the footer of the website.
