itch.io

oh my bad, I've added one now :)

Hey folks 👋

I've been tinkering on this one for a while and finally got it to a place I'm happy to share.

OVER : MAZE is a Pac-Man x Snake mashup. You know Snake. You know Pac-Man. I wanted to see what happens when you smash them together and then build a scoring system around how you eat the pellets, not just whether you do.

The core twist is cluster chains. Pellets cluster into groups, and clearing a whole 3+ cluster without interruption fires a multiplier. Break the chain by eating the wrong pellet and you watch your combo shatter. It turns the maze into a routing puzzle: which cluster do I commit to, which do I leave for later, can I get there before the enemies close in?

Stuff that's in there:

• 🌀 Endless mode with two flavors: Casual for a chill high-score run, Arcade when you want the maze to bite back
• 🗺️ 99 levels for a full campaign if you'd rather have structure
• 📅 Daily challenge, same seed for everyone, compete on the leaderboard exactly once per day
• 💥 12 different pickups and hazards (boosters, magnets, break-mode walls, and more)
• 🎵 A fully synth soundtrack that never loops identically
• 📱 Scales cleanly to any device. Phone, tablet, laptop, ultrawide, it all just works. Touch controls on mobile, keyboard on desktop
• 📲 Installable as a PWA, works offline, no app store

Tech notes for the curious: it's a single HTML file. No framework, no build step, no package.json. Vanilla JS, Canvas 2D, Web Audio. I wanted to see if you could still ship a real game that way in 2026. Turns out you can.

Play it in your browser (or install it): https://dmrschmidt.itch.io/overmaze or from the website https://overmaze.onrender.com

Would genuinely love feedback. What feels good, what doesn't, whether the chain system clicks for you or feels punishing. First few days after release is the best time to tune this stuff.

Cheers, Dennis

It's a progress measure. Simple EXP. The higher your level the more satisfied you can be with your skills :D

Thank you! Makes me so happy to hear! It’ll be coming to Catalog soon, which means Snekris will also get access to their leaderboard APIs for some global scoring competition :)

Hey there, just wanted to say thanks for the amazing YouTube content you’re making. Very inspiring and super useful! I’m a developer myself and only got into making games a few months ago. Exploring what I could make as a next game after my first playdate release and was thinking about some kind of platformer.

God damn I didn’t appreciate how complex even a simple ladder can be before watching your video about how you made this game 😂

Anyway, love this game and really appreciate the time and effort you put into creating all that educational content! Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback! It’s really such a shame only catalog games get to implement global leaderboards :

I’m considering adding an external page where people could „submit“ their scores via QR code.

😃 thank you so much! Yeah when I explained the concept to my play testers I realized it’s not that easy to explain all the mechanics in just one sentence. But I hope that everything slowly reveals itself and maybe even adds a little to the replay factor if players gradually understand how the different mechanics interact. Always open to suggestions of course if something could be done differently.

Hey everyone,

I'm super excited to share something I've been working on: a little game called Snekris for the Playdate. It's a quirky twist on the classic snake game we all know, but with some fun tweaks and challenges that I hope you'll enjoy.

In Snekris, you'll help Snekkie, our adventurous little serpent, navigate through a world filled with stuff to eat and obstacles to avoid. The aim? To rack up as high a score as you can, not just by growing longer but by getting clever with the gameplay. We've thrown in some cool types of food and special items to keep things interesting.

It's available here https://dmrschmidt.itch.io/snekris with a special release discount :)

Here's a bit of what you'll find in the game:

• Chain Frenzy: For scoring like crazy - eat long chains of the same food.
• Magic Marbles: Yep, they're as odd as they sound, but they make all the food turn into Snekkie's favorites.
• Multipliers: To help you boost those scores. Dropped when you clear a frenzy.
• Thunderstorm : Fight against strong winds using the Crank. Because a little challenge never hurt anyone, right?
• Food Poisoning and Food Coma: Snekkie's tummy troubles can slow you down or mix things up.
• Tail Bite: Watch out, or you'll lose some of that length you worked hard for.
• Bombs: To clear away parts of the wall again that slowly builds up (actually multipliers you don't consume)

It's all about strategy, agility, and a bit of luck. I've had a blast creating Snekris and experimenting with these ideas. I really hope it brings you as much fun playing as it did for me making it. Can't wait to hear what you think!

Hellooooo dear community 👋

I‘m really excited to share 🐍 Snekris with you and I would love, love, looove to hear your feedback!

Do you find it easy to understand the different scoring mechanics? Is the difficulty well balanced? What do you love about it? What do you think could be improved? I’m always open to constructive feedback 😊

But most importantly, can you beat my own current Highscore of 403.020? 😄

Thank you so much for supporting my playdate game debut 👾