planitis (Playdate)
A downloadable game
planitis
a game for Panic's handled system: playdate
The universe needs order!
In planitis galaxies are your playground.
Your goal is simple: align all planets!
~~~~~~v1.1.1 is there!~~~~~~
New features:
- Update game to support Playdate OS 2.0 list icons
Read the devlog here !
~~~~~~~~~v1.1.0~~~~~~~~~~
New features:
- Difficulty levels
- High scores menu
- Various quality of life improvements
Read the devlog here !
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Game modes
The game is made of two modes:
- Scoring → does it need any explanations? Survive as long as you can in this time based game. Your highscore and highest streak are saved !
- Relax → This mode is a chill experience where you generate a galaxy by tuning every possible parameter the game engine has to offer.
Upcoming features
This game is not a work in progress, it's considered as finished, but as I'm almost the only playtester, I will tune it based on your comments.
I plan to add the following things to the game:
- More game modes: based on actions to achieve
- Sound design: ambient sound
- Supports for other languages (starting by French), it depends on PlayDate's support for other languages than English and japanese.
release date: when it's done!
Controls
The game works with buttons and crank:
- Select orbit: ← →
- Rotate orbit: ↑ ↓ crank
- Ⓐ confirm / pause
- Ⓑ cancel / return
Since v1.1.0 you can adjust orbit rotation speed via playdate's system menu.
Install guide
- Simulator: Using the Playdate Simulator
- Playdate hardware: Sideloading a game on the Playdate console
Origins
Created by @marc_alx
From drawing galaxies to making a game, there's one step... I start by tinkering with the official Lua playdate's SDK, then the idea of making a game about my drawing quickly became a concept were planet's orbits are controlled by the playdate's crank.
Feel free to ask questions about the making of this game, from design to the tech behind.
I plan to open source the game when it reaches its end of life. If you're interested in this, be sure to follow my GitHub page.
Feedbacks welcome
planitis is my first game to release with this level of quality, feel free to give feedbacks, I'll be happy to hear from you.
what's your highscore ?
Sidenotes
This game runs well on simulator (as most games), it runs smoothly on playdate device and you should be able to enjoy the expected gamefeel. However some part of the game could run slower, if you experience this leave a comment below.
demo version
Feel free to try the demo version, it's a short version locked at 10000 points, without relax mode and score saved.
Download
Install instructions
Development log
- v1.1.1 is there!Nov 02, 2023
- v1.1.0 is there!Jul 28, 2022
Comments
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Echoing Martin’s comment, I’ll just stress that the timer moves way too fast, but I see the makings of a great idea here. I really want to play it when that is updated.
Hi Mike,
I'll give you a sign, when difficulty levels (with slower timer) will be available, wait shouldn't be too long ;)
Hi Mike v1.1.0 is here, thanks for you interest in the game. Check what's new here!
Love the idea of this game, but it is almost unplayable for me. I have several suggestions:
1. The time for each level is way too short! It's definitely somewhere in the range of 2 or 3 seconds. I just lose that first level over and over again. (I think I maybe "beat" one level in the course of 3 or 4 minutes play testing. You should definitely give your players some time to "figure out" the first few levels (at minimum). If it were my game, I'd give them at least a minute, then subtract maybe a second or two for each subsequent level completed until it's down to the timer you've got now.
2. When you "complete" a level, there is no fanfare or acknowledgement, it just moves immediately to the next level. This is extremely jarring, and frustrating! I think you should put some kind of interstitial screen in place, and "pause" on that screen for at least a second before accepting any input to move on to the next level.
3. I think relax mode is neat, but I expected to be able to play those levels. Maybe with a count-up timer instead of count-down? So it could save my "lowest time" for each configuration?
Hi Martin!
Each level last for 5 seconds as in the gif on this page (is it faster than that?). Do you play with device or simulator? I plan to add (in a near future) difficulty levels based on timing, your comment will help me to tune this.
I'll try to think of a celebration for clearing level, great idea :)
Thanks for your feedback and for supporting the game.
Ahhhh, yes, it probably is 5 seconds. It just feels shorter than that. :D
Yes, I'm playing on-device.
Another important piece of feedback: I played again for a few minutes, and a few times I did complete a level or three, but as far as I could tell, the score was not shown anywhere after completion. I think you should definitely add it (and maybe also number of levels completed) to the screen that asks if you want to replay.
Of course additionally it would be nice to save the highest score and display that on the home screen or somewhere.
You are reading my mind ^^, I've start working on difficulty levels after your (and mike) comment and I planned a highscore menu.
I think I'll follow your advice and add a score reminder on the replay prompt.
For the difficulty, I think 1.0.0 level (5s) will be considered as HARD, NORMAL will be something like 7,5s and EASY 10s.
You can expect these features by the end of the week, I'll ping you ;)
Hi Martin, v1.1.0 is here, thanks for you interest in the game.
Check what's new here!