I've patched up the gimmicks and whatnot. Let me know if any bugs show up!
You can find the source here
I tried to download this and it will not let me put it on my side loads on panics website.
Hm. What error are you getting? I personally don't have a playdate so I can't check
I tried it and get this error when trying to upload. " pdxinfo is missing"
Alright. Can you please try this build?
ninelives.pdx.zip (294.3 KB)
Basically butler (the tool responsible for uploading games to Itch) ZIPs the ninelives.pdx folder's files directly, instead of under a ninelives.pdx folder.
I'll try and get a Playdate soon so I can test on real hardware
Update: I've updated the Itch page to use this new ZIP.
I just tried this file and got this error " The bundleID field is missing from pdxinfo."
Same error. " The bundleID field is missing from pdxinfo."
That's weird. Are you sure you are sideloading the right ZIP?
Yes, I downloaded the file again and saved it to a different location just to make sure.
Hmm. I don't know why this would be happening. I'll try and debug in the morning.
Cool, keep uploading when you can and I'll keep testing 
Hey. Can you try unzipping the PDX and then sideloading?
Edit: Additionally, if that doesn't work, can you see if using the one from Itch makes a difference? Nine Lives (Playdate) by zurgeg
Same error. It tried to unzip it too.
@MeridianOne can you try this one? Apparently zips made with 7zip work better.
ninelives.pdx.zip (300.4 KB)
Edit: FYI, this is a build of Beta 4, but we're still testing for the same problem
I ran into this same issue when publishing my own game last week, and I had to manually upload my PDX to get sideloading to work, but that means I lost automatic versioning and other advantages of using butler. I noticed that your downloads still appear to be versioned, so I was wondering if you got butler working for the Playdate or if you found a different solution?