Just wanted to pop in here and let everyone know this game works wonderfully on the Steam Deck by using EmuDeck with RetroArch installed! If you have any audio issues with the GBA emulator, make sure your steam deck is set to 60FPS (I typically have mine on 40fps to conserve battery life)
As far as the game goes... it is absolutely incredible. Thoughtfully designed and truly delightful. I am still fairly early on in the game and cant wait to see what else is in store :D
Yea we thought a lot about how best to unlock the creatures. At one point we had a little rhythm game and even a breeding program over there but ultimately we landed on this idle sort of game where you can speed up incubation by participating in it.
We also wanted to balance a few key points that we saw. First and foremost, we wanted to introduce the Knoblins slowly so the game could function as its own tutorial. However we also wanted to ensure that the player would have a full set of Knoblins within the first ten minutes of opening the game. Towards the end of the unlock path, we wanted a long enough time frame that it would take the average player a couple days to unlock all the creatures, however we still wanted the unlocks to be completable within a day for highly engaged players. Finally, it was important to me that the creatures are introduced in a certain order to ensure the first beats you’re making sound especially good. Ultimately, I am pretty happy where this all ended up in terms of idle based gameplay.
I do like your idea of a daily sort of stage playing its own song - I am a big fan of daily content for games. Appreciate your comment and ideas!
First, I should say that we have no plans in the foreseeable future for any additional content. Other projects are currently requiring my time.
However, there are a few (potentially radical) ideas on how to expand Knoblins that I’d personally like to explore when time permits. Not sure if any of these will bear fruit, but it is something I’m kicking around :D
Just beat the second boss and reached The Great Hall. Hands-down this is one the best games on Playdate. Really well done! It is both beautiful and brutal and the boss fights are fantastic. There are so many enemy types and the levels are the perfect length with a good amount of challenge. I love the mechanic of leveling up the spells and the little crank sections throughout, as well. And can't wait to try parrying with the shield. O.o
FYI - I am currently playing on Unlimited Lives and Weakened Enemies. I will likely toggle these off for any future play-throughs but they feel absolutely necessary to even out the difficulty for me. Thanks for including these options! ...I could probably turn off Weakened Enemies even on my first play through now that I have an understanding of the game - but I couldn't stand to watch that intro text anymore and had to make things a little easier on myself lol
My only suggestion is to change "start game" to "continue game" if save data is found. My poor heart skips a beat every time I boot up the game & think my progress has been lost LOL
Really fun! Love simple games like this that take full advantage of the fluidness of the Playdate's crank. Wagging the rocket up and down feels so perfect -- its fun even on the pre-launch screen 😂
What a gem! I never played the original but this is a fantastic game and concept - thank you for bringing it to the PD.
Couple of things... first, why does the tripod say 3210? Second, could you allow the B button to also fire (it is more comfortable in my hands this way)? And finally, I noticed some strangeness when you fire parallel to the bottom of the screen... the ball will come to a stop below the line and allow you to continue playing. You can also shoot balls into other balls this way. Not a big deal but just seemed unintended.
Thanks again & especially for the source as well, very helpful learning tool.
Oh man this is inspiring! Your plans to add additional tracks can really open up some musical potential for this. Reminds me of making tracks of found-sounds while I'm out and about with the PO-33 sampler.
Best of luck with this! It's already pretty fun to mess around with the playback speed
name=JimInTheBox
author=Lurgypai
description=A game to show your friends how much fun the Playdate is!
bundleID=com.lurgypai.jiminthebox
version=1.0
imagePath=images/assets
I was able to get it to side load by making that change.
However when running the game on my device, I see an error message "Update Needed - The game must be updated to run on the current system version"
I'm happy to make the source available to help others learn as I did. I've attached the source to this page. It wasn't intended to be shared (so it may not be the most readable to others), so let me know if you have any questions.
Note to all: the information in the pdxinfo file has been removed, so be sure to fill this out if you happen to use this code for another project.
Small piece of feedback: Using the Dpad feels great but the crank feels a little too sensitive to me. Perhaps if the crank input went by ticks split by 4 (so it would take a full rotation of the crank to move from all the way left to all the way right). Just a thought! Love what you have here though & thank you for porting it over
