Trapdoors - Make them fall into the right pit!

Games
1

Hello there! I'm working on my very first game for Playdate called "Trapdoors"!

Trapdoors is a little puzzle game in which you have to make wandering blobs fall into the right pit by opening and closing trapdoors on a bridge. Each blob that falls into the correct hatch increases the score, whereas an incorrect fall will decrease the score!

Title Screen

Tutorial Screen

Screen1

Screen2

Controls:
:d_down: :d_left: :d_right: :d_up: - Select a trapdoor / change bridge
:a: / :b: - Confirm/cancel (only in some menus)
:crank: - Open/close the selected trapdoor

The game is just in its prototype phase, but I'm planning to make something like 9 levels for it and then release it. Unfortunately I don't possess a Playdate myself, so to anyone who is willing to try it and give me feedback about anything (gameplay, performances etc...) I will be forever grateful!

You can download a (very) little demo that shows one level here:
trapdoors_b010.pdx.zip (569.6 KB)

I will update the project as long as I have time to work on it. In the meantime, thank you all :pray:t2:

*** UPDATE 14/05/2022 ***

Development is proceeding pretty smoothly (I'm loving this SDK seriously), so now I can say that the full game will have 12 progressively challenging levels and also an unlockable endless mode, in which you play without limits but if you fail 3 times then it's game over! When the game is out, I'm really curious about your highest scores :eyes:

Aside from that, I prepared another little demo which has five levels in it. There is a larger difficulty gap between level 2-1 and 3-1 but it is intentional to "stress out" the mechanics. I hope to get feedback from you, tell me about everything that you think about it!

You can download the second demo here:
trapdoors_demo_2.pdx.zip (700.7 KB)

*** UPDATE 29/05/2022 ***
The game is complete!
You can download it for free on itch.io here:

Any feedback is appreciated, I hope you have fun!

1 Like
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This runs super smooth on the physical hardware! A clean 30 fps the whole way :slight_smile: The music sounds nice coming through the Playdate's speaker as well. If I was to give a piece of feedback, it would be somewhat of a nitpick. The grey ball on the playdate sorta phases a little when it first appears on the conveyer. Like, the grey color flickers in and out. The other balls do not do this. It's a little weird, but again, just a nitpick. :slight_smile:

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You could try shading the ball with lines, vertical or horizontal.

1 Like
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Thanks a lot for the feedback @metafish , glad to hear it runs well. I was concerned too about the "shadow" that makes the flickering and you just confirmed it is a bit annoying. I'll try to use line-shading like @matt suggested or directly remove the shadow effect on the doors! :smiling_face:

1 Like
5

The doors might be ok as they're not moving? The flicker on opening might give an organic effect to the animation.

6

I'm sorry I did not understand what you mean. With doors I mean the one at the two ends of the bridge, they have a little transparent dither to create a shadow above the blobs. If you mean the trapdoors they don't have this issue as I understand!

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I see! Carry on and ignore my last comment.

1 Like
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Hey there!
I updated the first post with some more information about the game and another little demo for you to try. If you try it, I'm looking forward your thoughts and feelings about it!
Thank you :pray:t2:

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Hello! Last update of this thread: the game is complete!
You can download it for free on itch.io here:

Any feedback is appreciated, I hope you have fun!