My foray into making a Pulp game - The Case of the Missing Playdates

[eisnerguy1]

Figured I'd create one of these to help keep track of what I've done so far and what I still would like to implement.

So, I initially took the sample "Pulp Game" and began editing that. I was stuck thinking of a compelling idea and then, not sure why, I remembered the news story, and the Playdate Podcast episode, about the $400,000 in missing playdates.

And with that "The Case of the Missing Playdates" was born:

It already has a partially implemented Save/Load system (thanks so much to the "Simple Save Point Example" Save/Load system example by Orkin/Scott:

In the game, Panic has tasked the player to help locate the missing Playdates. You'll need to open presents, break apart rocks, crush Trash Bins and look in holes.

Not all of those will contain Playdates however. Some don't contain anything and are just duds. What else would they contain though? That's a bit of a secret for now

As of now, the game is more or less a playground to test out ideas/animations, etc:

The rooms are definitely basic at this point:

Throughout most rooms/areas, there's a Save Orb that keeps track of the following as of now:

• Player location
• Number of Playdates found
   

My ultimate goal is for the Save/Load system to keep track of the following:

• What items (presents, rocks, Trash Bins and holes) have already been interacted with and for the game to swap out to a white tile if that's true
• If any hidden areas/items have been found/interacted with
   

So, that's where I am right now with this little game

Special thanks list (will help me keep track of who to thank in game, or in a separate Read Me doc later):

• "Simple Save Point Example" Save/Load system example by orknScott:
• Some sound effects credited to JGBVictor from their "Goo Game":
  • Specifically the following sound effects:
    * Well In
    * Well Out
    * Talk Fairy
• How to specify Bump to Interact or A to Interact for different Sprites example from orknScott.
• Pulp Enemy AI/Attack System Demo from SquidGod.
• Pulp Pirate - A little pulp adventure game with pirates! from orknScott. Helped me to figure out how to change the player's sprite when interacting with an object.

[eisnerguy1]

Game play updates 10/4/25:

• Began the process of updating the various instances "on interact do" to detect and use the A button vs. just using the D-Pad and bumping into things. Mainly for interacting with the Presents, Rocks, Trash Bins, Holes, Save Kiosks and various Signs throughout the game. Helps to make it feel like a more interactive game.

Thanks so much for the example in this topic: How to specify Bump to Interact or A to Interact for different Sprites example from orknScott.
 

• Began to create basic sprites for the 4 directions:
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  

The sprites are definitely basic. I'm using this as an exercise to see if I can get back into creating again. I used to enjoy drawing as a kid so, this should be a fun experience to get back in touch with that part of myself again

• Got player movement and sprite directions working thanks to the Pulp Enemy AI/Attack System Demo from SquidGod & the "Goo Game" code.
• Created some simple sound effects for when saving & loading a game.
• Tweaked the Playdate animation on the title screen & save/load screen. Added a few more frames to make the animation a bit smoother.
• Figured out how to include something kinda cool thanks to orknScott's Pulp Pirate code.

Game play additions ideas:

• Need to set up code to have static directional sprites work when movement ends, vs. looping a directional animation. Hopefully it's possible.
• Have on-screen counter of Playdates found?

[eisnerguy1]

Game play updates 10/5/25:

• Thanks to the super helpful Can i animate a game card in pulp?, Article on editing Pulp game metadata using the Playdate SDK & Editing Pulp game metadata using the Playdate SDK guides, I was able to set images for:
  • card-highlighted
  • icon-highlighted
  • card & card-pressed
  • icon & icon-pressed
  • launchImage
  • wrapping-pattern

May need to tweak the animation speed for the "highlighted" images, and update them with better art in the future but, it will work for now

Edit:
Managed to create a much more dynamic/interesting list view sprite:

May end up tweaking the sprite design a bit or adding another frame to make it smoother. Definitely an improvement over the old one though

[eisnerguy1]

Game play updates 10/5/25:

• Thanks to the "Level 1-1" sample code, I was able to make a much more dynamic transition from the card images to the game's actual title screen:
  

Can't seem to figure out why I'm Seeing a single black frame before my game actually starts though

[eisnerguy1]

Game play updates 10/7/25:

• Began to update/fix the 4 walking directional sprites. Still looks kinda off but, it's an improvement over the older sprites.

[eisnerguy1]

Game play updates 10/8/25:

• Modified the wait command length on the Title Screen Menu to shorten the animation length a bit. May still tweak this a bit in the future.
• To avoid any confusion at all, I Included a notice/warning saying this is not an official Panic product, etc
  

[eisnerguy1]

Game play updates 10/10/25:
Worked with Panic/Playdate support and found a possible solution to the black frame bug that I kept seeing :

 

Game play addition ideas:

• Need to modify the animation frames of the launchImages to better loop with the title screen animation.

[eisnerguy1]

Game play updates 10/11/25:

• Working on some Elevator/ladder animations and some sprites for stairs. Also trying to refine the box opening animation too.
  

[eisnerguy1]

Need to get back to this. Been dealing with some IRL stuff.