TL;DR: This is a bunch of ideas that you can use to get inspiration for building your own games. Feel free to add your own ideas to this thread.
I had a bunch of ideas of things that could be made interesting by using the unique Playdate hardware. I'm not going to implement them myself, and I didn't want to just discard these ideas, so I've decided to share them here. Feel free to use them as inspiration.
What's more, I encourage other people to share their ideas. This thread can be a repository of ideas that may or may not ever see a concrete implementation, as well of inspiration for those days when you're out of ideas.
Without further ado:
- Gear ratio simulator - Edutainment or just a fidget toy.
- Mechanical calculator - You know, before 7-digit display calculators, people used mechanical crank-powered calculators! This can even be edutainment software, as it can show the gears and explain how those calculators work.
- Bicycle pedaling simulator, including:
- multiple gears
- pedal brake AKA coaster brake AKA Terugtraprem
- Racing game where the crank is the driving wheel (either in relative (Pole Position arcade) or absolute modes).
- Jet-ski or motorcycle racing game based on the crank for gas and the accelerometer for steering. What's more: the crank could be extended in 90° angle to better simulate the handlebar-mounted accelerator.
- Cannonball ballistic simulator, like Bang! Bang! and Scorched Earth. After all, real-world mechanical cannons used wheels and cranks for aiming.
- Telescope, crank controls rotation and zoom. It can even use real star maps.
- Microscope, crank controls x, y position and focus (z). Real microscopes are adjusted using several knobs, so this can be a bit edutainment, as it would show how microscopes work.
- Fishing game, using the crank as part of your fishing rod.
- Slot machine.
- Pinball game, crank controls the initial spring, acceleration for tilt/bump.
- Pachinko / Peggle style, crank controls the tube or some devices making up the maze.
- UFO catcher game.
- Ports of existing games:
- Pong/Arkanoid 360 (circular field, paddle moves around).
- Tempest (arcade game).
- Super Hexagon.
- Downwell. The game is already almost black and white. Well, but with that argument there are many other monochromatic games as well: LUFTRAUSERS, Gato Roboto, Minit, Hidden Folks…
- Atari 2600 emulator (as monochrome TV). Atari 2600 is a fairly limited system, and it had a TV mode switch to toggle between color and monochrome TV output. Some games ignored that, others would actually change the palette to monochrome.
- Mini-games in WarioWare style (or office simulator) (or a bunch of small ideas that are likely not enough for a full game):
- Pencil sharpener simulator
- IKEA standing desk simulator (manual crank)
- Awning (sunblind)
- Roller blinds
- Garage-like door (metal rolling up door)
- Car ignition (turn the key = turn the crank); car lights; car wind wipers
- Manual drill
- Manual food mixer
- Changing channels on old TV (also radio)
- Rolling up extension cords
- Medieval torture device (stretching)
- Dasher text input method.
- Shopping list (always-on display, very readable, nice to use inside the supermarket) + QR code or barcode display (for loyalty card)
- Ebook reader (but very simplified). Could be great to read stories before going to bed.
- Also a manga-style or comic-style reader. The 400px horizontal resolution may be too low.
- Random noise games:
- Autostereogram. Random black-white noise that looks 3D.
- Lost in the Static. Random noise that in movement doesn't look so random. (gameplay video, please watch in HD)
- Generating the noise:
- We can generate it through a shader, and then just use LÖVE functions to draw it. Like in Love-Mandelbrot. (Not sure if Playdate supports that.) Or we can just randomly generate it by software.
- Browse (1) - Shadertoy BETA
- https://thebookofshaders.com/
