Yeah, unfortunately I discovered much too late that my Playdate simulator's web output was so slow as to almost be useless. The desktop versions work better I promise! :D
therabidbanana
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Thanks! I think it'd be really fun to try to integrate https://github.com/GamesRightMeow/playbit/tree/main if I'm gonna build another Playdate game so I can cross compile to LÖVE next time!
Ha! You found the pineapple - that's a relic of my initial starter project as I was figuring out a Fennel => Playdate build proces ( how to make art assets that work) https://github.com/therabidbanana/playdate-fennel-starter/tree/main
Interestingly the Playdate SDK seems to compile images to a custom format since it only allows 3 colors (white/black/nil), so they needed to be sitting in assets with everything else. :D
Playtesting note: If you don’t have a Playdate you can download their simulator for your platform of choice at https://play.date/dev (the SDK includes a full simulator)
If you _do_ have a Playdate, note I have only tested sideloading via the simulator not via the website but if that’s broken I can try to work out why.
Over the weekend I started investigating how to easily build a tilemap. There's a pretty nifty tool called LDtk that is freely available (pay what you want) and outputs a documented JSON file for building levels out of tiles. There is an available Playdate library for importing LDtk files into Playdate but I wanted to keep the project light on external dependencies so I decided to start my own!
I wrote two variants, one for loading the files on the fly, and another using a macro to preprocess the JSON and store it in an easier to use format for when the scene loads https://github.com/therabidbanana/playdate-fennel-starter/commit/2eae73419f9c7f7...
My starter repo is now uploaded to Github.
The magic that I spent most of my time on fiddling with is in the require replacement:
https://github.com/therabidbanana/playdate-fennel-starter/blob/main/source/main....
I also set was able to figure out how to handle the import statements Playdate lua used via a macro for pd/import from this comment:
https://github.com/bakpakin/Fennel/issues/421#issuecomment-1103070078
For this game jam I’m planning on building a game for the Playdate console. I ordered these nearly a year ago and finally got them a couple weeks ago. I’ve been itching for a reason to use the free SDK, which is all Lua based (and therefore should be easy to use Fennel with!)
I worked out a bit of a build process to precompile Fennel to Lua before running it through their compiler and I plan to spend the next couple weeks building a small framework with it so I have a decent starting point.
If anyone else is interested in making a 1bit game I’m happy to share the code after doing a bit more cleanup!
The trickiest part to get started has been that Playdate Lua does not have a “require”, so I’ve had to improvise my own runtime require (& preload table) so that the fennel compiler (with require-as-include option) can have access to it. It’s a bit ugly but gets the job done as long as you don’t care too much about relative paths!
Glad you liked it! I kinda accidentally stumbled into the idea when I decided to make everyone paint tiles.
To make the choice to spray and pray more impactful I considered making it so you can’t respawn if you let tile color for the level get too low (the reason I built out the rainbow bar in level) but didn’t have a chance to build that out.
My art directors (daughters) said the princess won after she restored peace. We went back and forth on the exact meaning of that 😂
(“….and after you defeat all the critters you have to gather all the elements of the scepter of power and then gather potion ingredients….” “You know I only have a week on this right?”)
This looks great - some clarifications that should probably be made to make this easier to play:
1. Are you also able "push yourself" on the same roll (effectively paying 3 momentum for 2d6?). I'd lean toward yes but should say one way or the other.
2. Does this prevent you from earning momentum on a roll where you use gear?
Submitted my prototype for the jam in case people are interested. Here's what I'm thinking to keep the game roughly following the original SRD, but to try and make sure all the prompts have a chance to show:
1. Reroll 3d6 for each Act (I'm calling them scenes) - this keeps the probability curve the same for prompts within each act, making them all at least in theory reachable, but moving away from the cool concept of "everything from a single roll".
2. Swinging the initial roll further toward extremes by adding/subtracting more from the thread of destiny each play through. Given #1, this mostly just impacts the closing prompt (I decided to use them as openers - "episode arcs") and the acts.
While procrastinating actually writing the prompts, I've been pondering how likely prompts actually are with a single roll of the dice. I think a large swath of the prompts just aren't reachable with a single roll of 10d6. That might be fine, since you can still use fate to get to them, but as a limited resource that means a lot of the prompts I write just are going to be unlikely to see use. Prompt 12 in Concept / Location 3 is unreachable unless you can spend more than 6 points of fate for example.
I imagine handling this by just rerolling each act after determining the location / concept for the scene. Anyone else thinking about this?
Location / Concept | Possible dice combinations (unordered) | Possible Prompts (without fate) |
3 | [[1, 1, 1]] | [1, 2] |
4 | [[1, 1, 2]] | [1, 2, 3] |
5 | [[1, 1, 3], [1, 2, 2]] | [1, 2, 3, 4] |
6 | [[1, 1, 4], [1, 2, 3], [2, 2, 2]] | [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] |
7 | [[1, 1, 5], [1, 2, 4], [1, 3, 3], [2, 2, 3]] | [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] |
8 | [[1, 1, 6], [1, 2, 5], [1, 3, 4], [2, 2, 4], [2, 3, 3]] | [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] |
9 | [[1, 2, 6], [1, 3, 5], [1, 4, 4], [2, 2, 5], [2, 3, 4], [3, 3, 3]] | [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] |
10 | [[1, 3, 6], [1, 4, 5], [2, 2, 6], [2, 3, 5], [2, 4, 4], [3, 3, 4]] | [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] |
11 | [[1, 4, 6], [1, 5, 5], [2, 3, 6], [2, 4, 5], [3, 3, 5], [3, 4, 4]] | [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] |
12 | [[1, 5, 6], [2, 4, 6], [2, 5, 5], [3, 3, 6], [3, 4, 5], [4, 4, 4]] | [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11] |
13 | [[1, 6, 6], [2, 5, 6], [3, 4, 6], [3, 5, 5], [4, 4, 5]] | [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] |
14 | [[2, 6, 6], [3, 5, 6], [4, 4, 6], [4, 5, 5]] | [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] |
15 | [[3, 6, 6], [4, 5, 6], [5, 5, 5]] | [3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12] |
16 | [[4, 6, 6], [5, 5, 6]] | [4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12] |
17 | [[5, 6, 6]] | [5, 6, 11, 12] |
18 | [[6, 6, 6]] | [6, 12] |
The github PR for this Extra, if that's easier for people to review - https://github.com/fariapp/fari-games/pull/31
One nitpick comment I've noticed with my own Extra - does it make sense to say " 1 position"? I think everyone would know what you meant, but the current Charge rules when converting position to a number give higher numeric scores to _bad_ positions, rather than good ones so it's kinda ambiguous https://fari.games/en/srds/fari-games/charge-rpg/consequences#consequence-rating
This is still a bit of a work in progress, but as mentioned in Discord yesterday, I'm getting far enough along to share this out a bit. (Edit: Ready for review now)
The goal is a set of rules that emulates the factions as well as "Crew" or "Ship" rules from other Forged in the Dark games. Since Charge is generic and those rules generally thrive on giving players _specifics_, the goal of these rules is to lean into details to let the play group write their own specifics and give those structure to change and grow as well as some mechanical benefits.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z5b0PA8Qa5BHH3aYGFnsPdHra8muZJjktLAn1JMXZMg/...
I know I still need to write up a lot of examples and do some more clarifying text, but specific stuff I'd love to get feedback is more high level:
- Naming - "Key concepts" (previously "Key details") still feels a bit weird. "Disposition" was previously position but that was an overloaded term with Charge naming and they act slightly differently.
- Does it make sense to group into some "negative" key concepts and some "positive"? (Will it result in players pooling all the consequences over in the "adversary" corner, since there's not really any downside? Maybe that's fine if the GM wants to allow it?)
- What would appropriate pace for changes be? (Gonna be a while before I get to playtest this over many sessions, but I'm imagining not changing too quickly?)
- What mechanical benefits would make enough sense to make this feel useful to the players? Is shared momentum and place to absorb a few extra consequences sufficient? Adding effects? Should there be other talent-like things?
For players looking to hack on the rules used in Culinary Contest, the following Google Sheet is a good starting point
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wUGsz0ZSkTaxHTcpFGO8LbgSLFQRuP7PagD-7xvR...
I got far enough along in my Descended from the Queen ECB mashup to give it a try last weekend. It's still pretty rough around the edges but workable enough we were able to come up with a fun story, put together the clues and make our "theory roll". I think it would probably benefit from a few player-facing options to control the clock / position, but I'm not sure how to build those in yet.
I also want to write a few more prompts and missions to mix it up a bit.
Game can be played here: https://therabidbanana.itch.io/tenkiwi
Click into "More", use unlock code of "redacted"
I'm hoping to create a hybrid with ECB as the setting but with gameplay more inspired by Descended from the Queen (no GM, make up the scenario as we go based on card prompts). Still really fuzzy on the details of actually making that work though - might start lazy just reskinning an existing mashup and expanding from there?
Copied the "For the Captain" template so that I can use it as an example. Games that follow the "For The Queen" template can be pretty easily recreated based on this format:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12GSzK8CmjC5CXHtiqFn39Vk2s94NFa8Mzqxibv3-...
Have a game you want added to Tenkiwi? You can submit it here.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScmKrw1TDr-OaYrGjmBLCWQj6aex9XCCvdRI-og...