Hi! I'm new here, but I was really excited to get my Playdate and start developing for it - I've been wanting to make some 2-player games for the Playdate where one person uses the D-pad and B-button, and the other person uses the A-button and crank. Well, I just put out my first such game - Two Swords!
On the itch page is also linked a devlog with details about the concept and design decisions, but in summary, it's a top-down Zelda-style game where 2 characters fight enemies - one of the characters moves around using the crank, which sounds so weird but it really works! The crank also makes swinging the sword around your character feel really good.
I've been playing this game with friends sharing halves of the Playdate, and it's a REALLY wild time, but for a more ideal playing experience, hook the Playdate up to Mirror, and use an external controller for one of the characters! It feels really natural (IMO).
I'm working on 2 other games with this concept - a space shooter, and a platformer. I really want to polish these games, and maybe apply to release them as a pack to some season or something (I don't know how the process works, but I know only really polished experiences would make the cut!). I also have ideas for how to make much longer games out of these arcade-style demos - ultimately, a full adventure game like Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (except... here... Two Swords Adventures) is something that I /realllllly/ want to do. I'd want to commission original art for that kind of a bigger game though for sure.
Anyways, I hope some find this of interest, I really wanted to share the concept 