RetroTime (Playdate)
You can use 'x' for A button and 'c' for B button normally pressing 'f' should put the game in full screen but it might not work in all browsers. Pressing 'f3' with the game activated will switch between playdate and colored graphics. Progress is saved locally in an "indexed db" database from your browser. You can also use an xbox controller to control the games if your browser (like chrome) supports this
RetroTime is a game containing 8 retro based games playable in 3 game modes being Retro Carousel, Time Attack and Lives mode. The game is a port from my SDL2 version of the competition entry for Fuze 4 for Nintendo switch, in collaboration Wireframe magazine.
The games can be played in 3 game modes
In Retro Carousel mode you will play all games for 2 minutes after each other. You can not die by losing lives. Points will be deducted from the score when dying. The aim is to get the highest score, accumulated over all the games.
In Lives mode you play a single game and start with a fixed amount of lives. Dying will lose you one live. The game is over if the lives reaches 0. The aim of the game is to get the highest score possible without dying.
In Time Attack mode you play a single game for 5 minutes. You can not die by losing lives. Points will be deducted from the score when dying. The aim is to get the highest score during these 5 minutes of playing.
There are 8 retro based games implemented in this game
Invaders is a game based on Space Invaders (Arcade). Rows of enemies are closing in you. You have to shoot them down before they reach your mining asteroids. Shooting down enemies gains points, shooting down all enemies gains extra points. You can move with dpad and shoot with (A). If enemies reach your mining asteroids you will lose a life. Avoid being shot or you will also lose a life.
Brick Breaker is a game based on Breakout (Arcade). Rows of blocks have to be destroyed by touching them with the ball. You control the paddle at the bottom of the screen with the dpad. Keeping (A) pressed speeds up the paddle. You have to let the ball bounce of your paddle to send it back in the playfield. Destroying blocks gains points. Fail to bounce back the ball and you lose a life.
Toady is a game based on Frogger (Arcade). You control the pet by the dpad and you have to keep moving up. Each time you move up to a place you had not reached yet, you will gain points. Avoid getting hit by traffic, don't fall into water, don't exceed the edges of the playfield or you will lose a life. Collect different fruit to gain extra score.
Snakey is a game based on well snake (Nokia 3310). You control a snake's head (red block) by the dpad. The snake can move in four directions and wants food (green blocks). Each time you eat food the snake's body will grow. Eat food to gain points, the longer your snake is to more points you will gain. Touching the snake's body or going outside the playfield will lose you a life.
Bubble Buster is a game based on Pang (Arcade). You control a player that needs to pop bubbles. You can control the player using the dpad and shoot at bubbles using (A) button. If you hit a bubble it will split up into smaller bubbles and you gain points. Get hit by a bubble and you will lose a life, making you temporary invincible but you can not shoot during this time. Clearing all bubbles gives you extra points.
Block Stacker is a game of tetris. You control the blocks with the dpad. You need to stack them in such a manner that they form complete rows. Once this is done that row will be removed. Speed increases gradually and having no place at the top to place a block will lose you a life. You can rotate blocks using (A).
Color Invasion is a game based on Ram-It (Atari 2600). You control the cannon with the dpad. You need to shoot the invading colored bars completely of the screen using (A). Points are awarded when the color bar is completely of the screen, the closer a bar had gotten to the cannon the more points you will gain. You also gain extra points for clearing all bars from the screen. When a colored bar reaches the cannon rail you will lose a life.
Faster Dave is a game based on Fast Eddie (Atari 2600). You control Dave with the dpad. You need to avoid or jump over enemies with the (A) button while collecting the magic balls. When you collect 9 balls the end level key is reachable. You are safe on ladders. Points are received for collecting magic balls and getting the end level key. Collecting the 10th magic ball is not required. When you touch an enemy you will a lose life. Every 5 levels, level layout changes.
Leaderboards
The game supports highscore submitting using QR Codes. If you have achieved a new highscore on retrocarousel mode a QR code will appear that you can scan using your phone and then submit it to the leaderboards site
Controls
The game can be played using keyboard and joy/gamepads. You can not however remap any keys or joypad buttons.
| Key / Button | Action |
|---|---|
| D-Pad | Directional movement of the player, making selections in the menu's |
| A button | Confirming in menus, the main game action |
| B button | Back in menus, Pause menu ingame |
The game makes uses of multiple payed and free assets packs, below are the credits for them per game.
Warning The Project's code is MIT but the assets are not, they all use different licenses, some are free some are Creative Commons and some i even payed for and can only be used with my project. so you can not re-use those as you wish.
| Asset | Asset Pack | License |
|---|---|---|
| Music.wav | Created and Owned by me on Strofe | |
| back.wav | Game Music Stingers And UI SFX Pack 2 by wowsounds | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| confirm.wav | Game Music Stingers And UI SFX Pack 2 by wowsounds | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| select.wav | Game Music Stingers And UI SFX Pack 2 by wowsounds | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| score.ogg | 8-bit Action Music & SFX by Joel Steudler | HUMBLE SOFTWARE BUNDLE: FRESH START GAME DEV ASSETS BUNDLE License - if you own the bundle |
| medal.png | Kenney medals | Creative Commons CC0 |
| frame.png | Hazy Hills Battle Background ansimuz | Creative Commons Attribution v4.0 International |
| Asset | Asset Pack | License |
|---|---|---|
| Music.wav | Created and Owned by me on Strofe | |
| rotate.wav | Game Music Stingers And UI SFX Pack 2 by wowsounds | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| drop.wav | Pro Sound Collection by gamemasteraudio | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| lineclear.wav | 8-bit Action Music & SFX by Joel Steudler | HUMBLE SOFTWARE BUNDLE: FRESH START GAME DEV ASSETS BUNDLE License - if you own the bundle |
| background.png | Cyberpunk Street Environment by ansimuz | CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) |
| Asset | Asset Pack | License |
|---|---|---|
| Music.ogg | Created and Owned by me on Strofe | |
| bat.wav | Pro Sound Collection by gamemasteraudio | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| brick.wav | VS-01-Cowbell004.wav from Gijs De Mik | Free to use |
| ball.png | Basic breakout asset pack created by me (joyrider3774) | Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) |
| blocks.png | Basic breakout asset pack created by me (joyrider3774) | Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) |
| paddle.png | Basic breakout asset pack created by me (joyrider3774) | Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) |
| Asset | Asset Pack | License |
|---|---|---|
| Music.wav | Created and Owned by me on Strofe | |
| Jump.wav | VS-01-Cowbell004.wav from Gijs De Mik | Free to use |
| background.png | Pixel Art Snowy Forest by edermunizz | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| ladder.png | Pixel Art Snowy Forest by edermunizz | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| floortileset.png | Pixel Art Snowy Forest by edermunizz | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| key.png | 2D Painterly Tiles by Ravenmore | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| Character_character_climb.png | 2D Painterly Tiles by Ravenmore | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| Character_character_idle.png | 2D Painterly Tiles by Ravenmore | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| Character_character_jump_up.png | 2D Painterly Tiles by Ravenmore | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| Character_character_run.png | 2D Painterly Tiles by Ravenmore | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| enemy.png | PIPOYA FREE RPG Character Sprites 32x32 by Pipoya (Enemy 15-3.png) | free For commercial or personal use |
| Asset | Asset Pack | License |
|---|---|---|
| Music.wav | Created and Owned by me on Strofe | |
| shoot.wav | Medieval Fantasy SFX Pack by evil mind entertainment | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| ball.png | Created and Owned by me | Creative Commons Attribution v4.0 International |
| character.png | Master of the Wind Character Sprites by finalbossblues | No Commercial use, assets are based on another games assets for which approvement to redistribute these was gotten |
| background.png | country side platfformer by ansimuz | CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) |
| weapon.png | effect parts by pipoya | free to use |
| Asset | Asset Pack | License |
|---|---|---|
| Music.wav | Created and Owned by me on Strofe | |
| hit.wav | Game Music Stingers And UI SFX Pack 2 by wowsounds | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| shoot.wav | Pro Sound Collection by gamemasteraudio | Gamedev market pro-licence |
| Asset | Asset Pack | License |
|---|---|---|
| Music.wav | Created and Owned by me on Strofe | |
| food.wav | Pro Sound Collection by gamemasteraudio | Gamedev market pro-licence |
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Retrotime Playdate Web version got updatedJan 09, 2024
- Retrotime Playdate V 1.1 ReleasedNov 08, 2023
- RetroTime for playdate releasedOct 21, 2023
Comments
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Hey! This is really cool. I’ve been wanting to target a webplayer for playdate games. How do you do this?
Hi,
My games make use of the playdate C API SDK, and what i did was copy the header files from panic (so no implementations) and tried to implement every single function from the Playdate C API SDK on my own using SDL2 or stub them. It's gotten in such a state that it works for my games and i can just take unmodified playdate C API games source code and recompile for other targets using my api reimplementation. And because i've used SDL2 i can also let it compile using emscripten which will produce webassembly code and run my playdate games in a browser. You can find this api reimplementation here https://github.com/joyrider3774/Playdate_Api_SDL2 but as said does not work for every game, some things will never work (framebuffer modifications), and some things not implemented (but stubbed). If your using the lua SDK someone else might have done something similar.
That’s awesome! Thanks for sharing.
There is a fatal crash bug in "Snakey" which sometimes occurs when you eat an apple. It may have to do with the next apple somehow spawning inside the snake, per the output of the RNG.
Hi,
I'll try to reproduce this and see if i can fix it and bring out an update
Hi,
I just uploaded a new version that should fix this, the problem was not the food entering the body of the snake, but my checking for a new position for the food that prevented the new food position to be in the snake's body. The condition checking was wrong and it could lead the game into an endless loop if you for example eat the current food while having traversed the whole screen vertically with the rest of your snake's body. It could also be reproduced in some other ways but this was the easiest way to reproduce it.
Thanks again for reporting this.
Enjoyed this. Made a quick review video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GCmNIqyALc Hope you don't mind me posting it here?
Hi, it is fine, thanks for the review. Btw i'm not sure you are aware but in the breakout type game, you can hold the A Button to speed up your paddle while moving, i noticed in the video you did not make use of that at times when you could
Ah! Good tip, I thought I was just sucking as per usual :)
I played it throught the switch version and i loved it. So of course, i downloaded it. But then... my A button on the playdate got stiffed due to your game :(
But i found a fix for the button! So you could say you are directly involved into how the button problem with the playdate got fixed, xD
(Great game, great port, i love it. I love the concept of a game like a Nintendo World Championship type of game)
i don't think my game can be blaimed for failing hardware, but i did notice recently on the discord multiple people mentioning problems with their A Button on numerous games not specifically mine. Like it was not registering button presses good enough anymore. From what i had read on discord some people applied a bit of hot glue somewhere when opening it up. Was that your fix as well ? I wonder if there is some kind of defect or a bad batch of playdates recently, because there have been more people mentioning such issues and maybe it's something panic should look at.
Btw i was not aware your played the fuze version as well, are you in the fuze discord ? At the time of the contest for fuze 4 with wireframe, i also found it a nice idea to have a bunch of games and needing to play them all after each other to get a "global" score looked like a nice way for some score competitions. Its a bit a of shame there is no wifi or scoreboards for none catalog games as i had to revert to using qr codes and not many people seem to have submitted a score for their retro carousel run yet :)
Thanks for playing the game, and i hope your A Button problem remains fixed (also hope i don't run into it :))
I think I have started to notice this - thanks for mentioning it, I'm not going crazy :)
just in case you did not see this, apparantly oppyz found out the issue, a plastic piece inside the playdate below the button got off center and was causing this, he made a reddit thread and a video about a fix for this. here's the reddit link just in case https://www.reddit.com/r/PlaydateConsole/comments/17eia3q/i_just_found_a_fix_to_...
"Elegant games, from a more pixelated age." This tempts me to make a Rasberry-pi "e-ink" console so I can play classics instead of ad-filled phone games.
Hi, thanks for the comment.
If you like the little black and white old style games over phone games maybe arduboy is something for you ? A lot of people also create their own arduboy's its fully open source both hardware as software if i remember correctly. See https://www.arduboy.com/