I'm developing a platforming game, My Friend Ichabod, for the Playdate.
This is my first game as a hobbyist, so just deciding on a game and a platform has been a long time coming. The path here started when I stumbled on Pico-8. Pico-8 is a "virtual console" that's code-first and imposes interesting constraints on the developer, like a 16* color palette and a 128 x 128 screen. These Game Boy Color-ish constraints lined up with the kind of games I would want to make. I learned Lua and started messing around with development for the Pico-8. I made a couple of "getting started" toys, but the process didn't quite feel like I wanted it to. The development tools just didn't really click for me. To stay motivated I would need to enjoy the development process.
When I discovered the Playdate console earlier this year I started enjoying development. Playdate is a handheld console made by Panic Inc., historically a video game publisher and software developer. The console is small, yellow, has a d-pad, 2 buttons, a crank, and a 1-bit screen. It oozes charm. I ordered one, and as soon as I booted it up it clicked for me. It felt like the Game Boy, like it was some handheld frozen in times past, but the games had modern sensibilities. I started looking into developing games for it, and found a great community, intuitive developer tools, and great documentation from Panic.
I went through some tutorials on YouTube to get a feel for development (Squidgod's tutorials), I wrote a design document (PirateSoftware's guide). Then I started writing my first game: My Friend Ichabod.
I will be posting a series of dev logs here on Kevin Builds Things covering the development of My Friend Ichabod. I'm hoping that it will help me organize my thoughts, and maybe even connect to other hobbyists just getting started.
