I’m having a similar issue and also recently installed (but haven’t played) Heavy Drinker. I can still get to data disk mode so I’ll check to see if removing it helps.
Edit: yes, doing the same steps as JimmyPlacid fixed my Playdate. Specifically:
- I used the simulator to get to data disk mode (Device > Boot to data disk), deleted /Games/User/user.6119.pulp.intellikatsgeosbeepsnboopsbitflung.heavydrinker2023426.pdx, and emptied the trash (I hadn’t actually launched the game, so there was nothing in /Data from it. If you’ve actually played it you might need to remove its data from there too)
- Went to the side load page and removed Heavy Drinker
- Ejected and unplugged the Playdate
- Tried to open Settings, it crashed and rebooted to the setup process which had me re-enter my wifi password
- I held Lock+Menu+A+B, then let up on A+B when prompted, to install the recovery firmware
- like JimmyPlacid, my recovery firmware also crashed any time I tried to open Settings (though mine did not show a crash report, just the plain crash screen), so I locked the Playdate and waited for it to check for updates in the background. I think around this point I also tried holding the reset button in the crank slot for 10+ seconds, which didn’t help.
- It eventually did the automatic update check, then crashed on the lock screen, automatically restarted itself without my input, and showed the “system update available” banner
- I opened Settings (it didn’t crash this time) and updated to 1.13.7, which now works fine (it lost the Catalog app, but I could redownload it from Settings > Games).
I’m not actually sure if going back to recovery firmware was necessary. I suspect that it just needed to do another background update check after step 3 to clear out some cached reference to Heavy Drinker.