A few months back I lost my job and since I was in between jobs I thought of finally make a game for myself.
I have a background in webdevelopment but coding a game is something totally different. It did help to have a little javascript experience though. I decided to make it a little family project too, my oldest son (12y) made some of the sprites and my youngest son (8y) helped playtesting a lot.
The main inspiration of the game is an old flash game called Gold Miner, which is a popular, but not really a good game. The main mechanic is addictive though so I took that and made some more modern game mechanics around it.
The levels are procedurally generated and when you pick up a present in the level you can pick from 3 random perks to help with the progressively harder levels. The idea is that it has a similar addictive gameplay loop as something as Tetris.
The playdate crank is used to both aim and reel in the items you catch.
The gameplay is pretty much done now and I submitted a version to the gameplay Catalog to see what Panic thinks about it. Features I still need to implement is global high-scores, achievements and credits screen, but nothing essential for the gameplay.
The game is especially satifying with music and sfx so here's a post to a video with sounds of the game.