I've developed a way to control Playdate using your mouse. Open source for anybody to use. Code and example app is included.
It works by having a small piece of code in the game to receive mouse events, and a PC helper to forward the mouse events (this part is Mac-only at the moment, as that's what I use).
For developers this is useful for tools (position items in your in-game level editor more easily and with higher precision).
For players it's a new accessibility option, a new analogue control method (select items more directly, etc)
I'll be supporting it in my own games going forward, when it makes sense to do so.
Because of my recording setup the video shows a lot of lag, but in real life there's no perceptible lag.
Nice!
I have made some tests using the crank for cursor speed, to be able to both have precision and quick movement and thinks it works really good. I had some brief plans to make a vector editor and mouse support would be a nice addition.
I can see that it's a good combination to be able to do things on device only but also extend with mouse support.
Nice! I agree, it should be used to augment the device capabilities.
For example in one of my upcoming games you can use dpad to move a cursor across a grid, or use the mouse to move a pointer and click (at which point the location is converted to a grid position). It's a different vibe playing with mouse.
I've recently had a game accepted into Catalog. No release date as yet. I'm going to let this one be a surprise, suffice to say I'm super happy with it.
I continue to work on my ongoing large project as well as smaller ones to keep my motivation up. I find small, quick projects quite restorative, and useful to keep ones gamedev mojo topped up. A large project can zap it a little. It's a fine balance.
This weekend I've also been posting live-updates on social media, as I (finally) had a successful approach to building my own take on my favourite game of all time: MaBoShi Circle Game.
After the initial breakthrough, and with my usual careful planning of scope and order of implementation, progress has been extremely quick and without any hesitation. Perfect prototyping! Below shows ~3 days work. Currently using Love2D and a modified CGA palette at 400x240@2x, but will eventually be moved to Playdate SDK. ~600 lines of Lua right now.
