Have fun everyone!

Please feel free to join us on the community Discord server, or use the Community feature to ask your questions!

What is the theme?

The theme will be revealed when the jam will start. (btw the official Playdate team helped selecting it!)

Who can enter?

You can! Whoever you are, we are excited to see what you will  do!

How long does the jam last?

Although submissions will technically be open for 7 days, we ask you to only work on your game for 72 hours (doesn't have to be 72 consecutive hours). The larger timeframe is simply to make it convenient for more people to participate.

Will it be ranked?

Yes, anyone will be able to play and rate the games against the following criteria: fun, originality and aesthetics. The rating period will last 4 days as of the end of the jam.

What assets can I use? 

The vast majority of the code must be written during the jam, but you can use whatever art and audio assets you have the legal right to use.

Where is the conversation happening? 

The Playdate team has set up an official Discord server to talk about anything Playdate-related. To talk about things more specific to the jam, we have opened the Community section here on Itch.io, click on that tab and create a conversation!

I have more question... 

Awesome! If the few additional explanations provided below don't answer them, please hit us up on Twitter (@crankmebaby) or via email (crankmebaby@tuta.io)

Why this jam? Because we love the Playdate, and we know you do too. And we want to be able to play lots of games on it as soon as it comes out. This jam is the opportunity to spark creative game designs and ideas, and to inspire each other within this unique little community.

Why the LÖVE framework? The official Playdate team stated on numerous occasions that this framework is a really good approximation of the yet-unreleased Playdate SDK. They have even seen games being easily ported from LÖVE to Playdate, so your work will not be wasted and by using it you'll be able to get up to speed quicker when the Playdate ships! If you don't know this framework, don't panic! It's super easy to get started with, take a look at this tutorial.

1-bit graphics and 400x240 resolution. The Playdate's screen is a 1-bit, black and white LCD. Instead of pure black and white which can be hard on the eyes, we recommend you use #B1AEA8 (light grey) and #322F29 (dark grey) which are the colours used on the Playdate simulator, more accurately representing what the game will look like on final hardware.

Limit yourself to the Playdate's input. The Playdate has a directional pad, A and B buttons, a crank, an accelerometer and a microphone. We suggest you map the crank to the mouse scroll-wheel, and the accelerometer to mouse movements. Design your game using any or all of these inputs!