Turning very basic things into upgrades or purchasable items in metroidvanias: Map pins, position on the map, walking faster, homing coins. They can be neatly used as yet another reward for the player, but how far is too far? Sometimes I'm surprised that they even let me walk left and right.

Devils on the Moon Pinball is out!!!! What a time to be alive!! get it here: play.date/games/devils... Only on @play.date #pinball #indiegames #pixelart #playdate

A slower paced section to change things up. Testing the limits of the grappling hook a bit (and apparantly the amount of relevant space I can fit into view, too)

A staple of the #metroidvania genre!

JOMO - Joy of missing out

Lovely blog post. Just messing around with my own computer back then was so important to me in hindsight. Learning to learn, and figuring out what I wanted to do in the future in the first place. No, not consuming, but mostly creating: Trying tools, making bad art, making bad programs, finding out.

Devils on the Moon is finally coming out! Yes, we may have gone a bit over scope. But after 2 years the game is releasing March 26! Wish it here! play.date/games/devils... Only on @play.date catalog. #pinball #indegames #Pixelart #playdate

New Free Game for the Playdate! Original horizontal shooter TWYK SHOT. Five whole stages! Power Ups! Bosses! Interactive Menus! Free! digikerot.itch.io/twyk-shot

Yup, we're working on a new Castlevania game. Thanks to KONAMI, & with Motion Twin's friendly advice, the franchise will be going back to its roots with what we hope to be the best whip traversal & combat ever seen in a 2D action-adventure game! Noooo pressure... www.konami.com/games/castle...

Take me down to the Parallax city where the far moves slow and the near moves quickly

I'm tired of 2FA becoming mandatory for a lot of services. Why can't my password simply log me in like it used to?

Played some diablo 2 with friends (non-resurrected). Something about that game is just right. It's an evergreen for a reason. I especially love the crunchy sound effects, guaranteed to be burned into your memory forever.

Trains! (and menu system logic) StarBento! #playdate #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #trains

Having a lot of fun building rooms lately. I certainly have to keep my own "playtesting" time in check!

I'm putting a lot of care into the boss fights of Owlet's Embrace. Here's a preview of what's to come. Will you take on the challenge? #playdate #metroidvania #gamedev

The feeling of finding a whole new interesting podcast and refilling the listen-on-commute backlog with hours of content again.

Going into 2026, a reminder for everyone who's fallen off the creative wagon, game dev, writing, art, music, whatever, no matter how long:

We all like to call ourselves perfectionists. However, I consider it a bad trait. It shows that you care, but time to create approaches infinity. Because you won't need to prioritize you won't reflect on what about your craft actually matters. Consider leaving an edge, it makes your craft special.

If you stream your game's development, working on the game is your channel's content. After aquiring enough regular viewers some people seemingly decided to never finish their game to keep the content going and just became YouTubers instead.

Showed and demoed Owlet's Embrace in Hamburg. Had a lot of fun watching other people play the game and chat about their experience, a really eye-opening perspective shift.

A Link to the Past

Got hit by an idea for a graph-based level logic flow software. You could assign keys to nodes and (complex) conditions to edges. You would be able to logically and visually step through the world, and the program would derive all kinds of metrics for for any given state. This gotta exist already?

With almost laughably low power, a monochrome screen, and unique controls, niche-micro console Playdate shouldn't make any sense in a world of modern gaming. Yet, it's near impossible not to love it. www.wired.com/story/three-...

Equally excited and TERRIFIED to finally do this. Games journalism is in a rough state, so we've decided to get involved to highlight games that we think pave a positive future for the industry. And we named the outlet the best/dumbest thing possible. welcome to noclip_2

And... they’ve done it again. Setting a price lower than most titles of comparable quality, complexity, and scope. While it’s certainly generous for players, which is honestly nice, it also raises the bar in a way that can be truly challenging for other indie devs to match.

silksong, honey...... a 80 hour game does not belong in the $20 price category...... us indies with 20 hour games really need that space for healthy expectations...

I’d like to talk a little bit about my process of creating the key art for Herdling (thread: 1/10)

Exclusively working with 1-bit pixel art for over two years now. The duality of black and white is fascinating: the lack of color makes it seem a bit dull at first but at the same time it's a neutral canvas for your mind to interpret and fill in the gaps i.e. color, tone and emotions.

You can just do stuff, you know?

Embracing my inner nerd and going for a Thinkpad T/X 2-in-1 as my new portable machine. Read great things about the durability/repairability of these models which became important to me after the poor quality of MS - keyboard and pen died after 2, battery and thus full device died after 3.5 years.

Hey! check out this article written by Ricardo Gallegos at @butwhytho.net about us! and our game CatchaDiablos! :D

I'm going to present my current Playdate-project next Monday at @indietreff.bsky.social in Hamburg. It's called 🛡️G l o o m G a t e⚔️ and it's an action RPG with reaction based fights, a node based overworld, Souls-Like elements and still looooots of missing features. But I'm getting there😅

Birds - casual. Runner - present. Playdate - crank?! Join @zerocounts.bsky.social as he winds through Casual Birder🐦 #SGDQ2025

Our next chat is with @play.date and Panic Studios co-creator, @cabel.panic.com. Cabel is a designer, developer, and co-founder involved with publishing standout indie games such as Firewatch and Untitled Goose Game, and the Playdate handheld. Subscribe to stay in the loop: bit.ly/43RMgx9

Excited to release a demo of Owlet's Embrace! If you own a Playdate, download it over here: strupf.itch.io/owlets-embrace I'm also moving the full release into 2026. This is allows me to realize my full vision of the game - nonlinear world, replayability, multiple bosses, fleshed out narrative!

Swapping between (B) to grapple and (B) to attack. The companion's position indicates which mode is active. What initially started as a workaround for the Playdate's constraints became a natural, intentional and smoothly integrated part of the gameplay.

Mockup for the snow area including subtle parallax foreground elements. The "bad part" about getting better at making assets is that eventually you redo them not only once but sometimes twice just because you improve so much and the old assets don't hold up against the new ones anymore...

I’m gonna allow myself a moment of pride in my workplace here and note that we are currently on the front page of The Verge with a game we’re publishing (Big Walk) and a handheld console we make (Playdate). Panic is a company of 30. We don’t have investors. We’ve been around for 28 years 🙂

"The Playdate might be more of a Nintendo console than Nintendo’s own console. …and at half the price 😉 www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/play...

My favourite picture I took this year in spring so far.

Making sound effects from scratch for the first time is humbling. What should that action sound like? I mean, exactly, in detail? And how to arrive there? Slowly getting the hang of it. But the only thing I can focus on in daily life is how all the stuff sounds like.

Usually it makes me think it's like a lesser version of the game being referenced! I prefer genre descriptions, ie "Roguelike-Puzzle Game W/ an Architectural Twist! - Blue Prince" or something like that

Hello!! 👋 Join us for our next Playdate Update, diving deep into everything you need to know about Season Two! 📅 Premieres Thurs., April 17 @ 10 AM PT ➡️ live.panic.com

WIP main menu. Design goals: - playful and fun - intuitive - seamless transition into gameplay In the future the owlet will be asleep in the save room. The companion will fly through the "4th wall" from menu into the gameplay scene upon starting and gently wake up the owl to continue the game.

Owlet's Embrace is my take on handcrafting a unique metroidvania to a high standard, aiming to create one of the best 2D experiences on the #playdate. - Multiple careful boss designs - 16-bit era inspired OST - high FPS through a 100% custom engine - speedrun mode - ... 🪶 play.date/games/owlets...

Put down pins to remind your future-self of important places in Owlet's Embrace! A quality map is important to me so I'm trying to get the most out of the #playdate here. play.date/games/owlets-embrace/ More news to come in spring 🪶 #indiegame

Nominees for Most Anticipated Game 🏅Comet by Team Comet @guv-bubbs.bsky.social, @drew-lo.bsky.social, @flipdock.bsky.social, Maria, @xmenekai.bsky.social & @mouflon.cloud 🏅Devils on the Moon Pinball by @amanogames.bsky.social 🏅Midnight Raider by Lumi Creative 🏅Owlet's Embrace by Lukas Wolski

Owlet getting support from a little companion! The spear grants access to weapon attacks but you can't double jump or wall climb anymore. Swap back to the grappling hook for more mobility and your companion will carry the spear while also giving its best to attack nearby enemies. #playdate

Jump Truck is out on the #playdate! play.date/games/jump-t... media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2l...

Visual polish! Spikes and obsidian now show a dynamic glare effect to make them more visible. Obsidian is different from other terrain because you can neither climb it nor use the grapple hook on it. A clear visual indicator helps with readibility. #playdate #gamedev