Let’s review more Playdate games! At this point we’ve reviewed the Playdate itself, along with its Season 1 collection of games. Then we reviewed a handful of Playdate games available on Catalog and a few that you could sideload onto the device. And finally we reviewed all the games included in Playdate Season 2 (which we posted in two parts). Since some time has passed, and I’ve been acquiring even more titles for Panic’s handheld, it feels like a good time to post another round of reviews.

Like last time, we’ll follow the “small games, small reviews” structure, so this will be a larger post of mini-reviews. Ok, that seems like enough of a preamble; let’s jump right into Round 2.

Terratopia: March of The Demon King

Terratopia: March of The Demon King is narrative adventure game for Playdate. Coming from Kodiak Games, a small group of devs in Central TX—with art by Rebekah Holder and sound/music by Stephen Magee and Eva Belmont—the game sports some genuinely charming audio and visuals. Especially when you consider that it was made in Pulp (Playdate's own development platform), which tends to limit what developers can make, it’s pretty impressive what the team was able to pull off here.

There’s an elaborate fantasy story for players to experience in Terratopia, and I had assumed that the game was an RPG in a similar vein to an early Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, but it’s not really that style of game at all. The catalog page describes it as a, “narrative puzzle game, a choose your own adventure, and a love letter to the RPGs of your childhood”. So just to alleviate any confusion, I must point out that it is not really an RPG, it’s a Choose Your Own Adventure book in game form.

This means that Terratopia does not have any combat, not even turn-based encounters, although this might not be evident when looking at screenshots. Instead, gameplay consists of choosing where to go and what to do each day, with your ultimate success or failure being determined by choosing to complete tasks in the correct order. There is a large cast of characters to meet and plenty of dialogue to read—quite well-written dialogue too—and completing the game will necessitate playing through the same sequence of days multiple times, much like the movie Groundhog Day…or Majora’s Mask, if you’d prefer a video game reference.

Now I've stated on multiple occasions that point-and-click adventures aren’t really my genre of game, so I’m not able to be a good judge of their quality. In this case, since Terratopia is more of a visual novel than even an old-school adventure game, so it’s even further outside of my wheelhouse. I’m not sure what I could say about its quality whatsoever. Basically, I found its story to have surprising depth, and its presentation was genuinely charming. But at the end of the day, it’s not really the style of game I particularly want to play.

So if you enjoy visual novels and/or purely narrative adventure games, be sure to check out Terratopia: March of The Demon King.

Poker Poker Magic

Poker Poker Magic is a competitive falling-block puzzle game with matching mechanics. It is very similar to Panel De Pon, Tetris Attack, or Pokemon Puzzle League (all three of which, incidentally, are actually the same game!—and perhaps even more similar to Puyo Puyo—except instead of simply matching three/four blocks of the same color, this game uses poker rules. See, every block represents a card, each displaying a suit and value. So in Poker Magic you can match three-of-a-kind, straights, or flushes to clear the blocks…or, uh, cards…from the playfield.

The art and presentation of PPM is very charming, using anime artstyle with an almost homemade feel. Character designs are varied and interesting, with some characters being animals wearing human clothes. It’s all good fun, and would fit in well with the wacky characters of the Puyo Puyo series, or Panel De Pon. The opening cinematic appears to reference Street Fighter Alpha 2—which I can appreciate—and some of the animation used is extremely fluid, to the point that it almost looked rotoscoped. Visually there is a lot to like here.

On the audio side, I found myself less impressed though. Music-wise, the game appears to have just a single background track, albeit one that gets played at various tempos/intensities. I could be wrong and there might be multiple tracks, but the fact that I’m not sure about that probably tells you all you need to know. Overall, the music is probably the game’s least impressive element.

As far as gameplay goes, PPM is pretty darn fun. Sure, the card pieces are a bit small screen, diminutive enough that I couldn’t always decipher a card’s suit in the heat of battle. But that didn’t really detract from the Puyo Puyo-esque puzzle combat, which is good fun.

In an odd twist, this game is constantly surprising me with hands of cards I didn’t realize I was playing. This could be due to a lack of poker knowledge on my part, or to a misunderstanding of which game pieces will connect to form a hand—or both! In any case, accidentally playing pieces I hadn’t intended has usually been a welcome surprise, so I won't complain here. The game ends up being more unpredictable than expected, but that might actually be a good thing.

All things considered, I definitely recommend Poker Poker Magic to all the puzzle game fans out there, especially fans of versus puzzle games like Puyo Puyo. The combination of falling-block matching mechanics with poker cards/rules is kind of genius. Personally, I think the game’s title should’ve been “Puyo Poker” or “Panel De Poker”, but I suppose that could have drawn copyright/trademark claims. Whatever the name though, this game is a winner.

Sketch, Share, Solve

Hey, it’s a picross game for Playdate! Of course after thoroughly enjoying Mario’s Super Picross for Super Famicom—and then Mario's Picross for the original Game Boy—I should have known this would be a perfect fit. And Sketch, Share, Solve certainly is.

Made by solo developer RDK, Sketch, Share, Solve is a genuinely impressive nonogram puzzle game. Seriously, this is probably the only picross game for Playdate you will ever need. Not only does it come with 250 puzzles for you to solve at your leisure, it allows you to create puzzles of your own in “Sketch” mode.

Any puzzle you create can be exported and shared with friends. And you can import puzzles to add to your collection as well, meaning the picross fun is potentially endless! For instructions on importing and exporting puzzles, check out the game’s itch.io page.

SSS’s music is quite minimal and unobtrusive. It’s mostly just a background rhythm with a sparse melody dropping in here and there. While it isn’t much to talk about, this tune—singular, as there is only one music track—is actually pretty well-suited to the Picross gameplay. After all, this isn’t the kind of puzzle game you focus intensely on, it’s more a chill-out experience. And the light touch of the background music here is a great fit.

A quick story: Last year my wife and I went to this spa hotel resort in Leavenworth, Washington for a rejuvenating weekend of rest and relaxation. This place had a big pool that spanned from indoors to the outside, as well as a couple hot tubs, two ice plunge baths, and a variety of specialized steam rooms. People staying at the hotel would usually spend their whole day—from breakfast (which was provided by the hotel) to dinner (which was not)—just lounging by the pool, occasionally dipping into the hot tub or relaxing in a steam room, and probably reading a book.

Along with an obligatory book, I had also brought my Playdate. I figured I would kick back with a few rounds of Pull Frog or Pick Pack Pup, but the first game I started up was SSS. And I didn’t play anything else for the whole weekend. I don’t think I even cracked open my book! Solving Picross puzzles was so darn relaxing, I must have completed like 50 of them right out of the gate. It was incredibly satisfying.

So yeah, I would definitely recommend this game to anyone. There seems to be a surprisingly large number of Picross (or nonogram-style) puzzle games available for Playdate these days. But with its $3 pricetag and bevy of options, Sketch, Share, Solve is the perfect place to start.

Soliterra

My quest for a classic Klondike-style solitaire game on Playdate has led me to a new contender: Soliterra. And, you know, I think we’re getting closer. Once again, this isn’t your typical Klondike solitaire game. In fact, it feels even further removed from the classic card game than Hermit was.

Soliterra has you building stacks of cards in the recognizable order (K, Q, J, 10, 9…and so on), and that’s maybe the only connection it has to traditional solitaire. Cards will stack up in vertical columns on the board, and once a pile extends beyond the bottom of the screen, it’s game over. Your task is to put cards into that standard solitaire order and then clear the ordered cards for points. The more cards you have in order when you clear them, the more points you’ll receive. Suits don’t matter, so it’s really just a matter of getting the biggest stack of ordered cards possible and clearing them out to boost your score.

Each time you clear any cards, the game will add one card to each stack on the board. This is how you eventually “top out” and lose. Because the piles get taller with each play you make, and if you have multiple stacks of ordered cards, the ones you don’t clear will get covered by the new card appearing on that column. Much like with normal solitaire, luck of draw plays heavily into how well you can do.

Now, I realize that my description of this game probably sounds abstract and hard to follow. Personally, I didn’t really understand how the game worked until I played a few rounds. I assure you it makes sense once you get it in your hands.

While it’s still not quite the Playdate solitaire game I was looking for, it’s actually pretty fun. And I would certainly recommend this for people seeking a chill, solitaire-themed experience on the go.

Gun Trails

Looking for a tough-as-nails bullet hell shooter on the Playdate? If so, you’re in luck, because that’s exactly what you’re getting in Gun Trails from Yoyogi Games. This game will absolutely destroy you. At least I think it will; it certainly destroyed me.

Honestly, I wish I could survive more of this game to give more impressions on the game, but I’m simply unable to do so. This one is rather brutally difficult and I can’t make it past the first section. The gameplay is very fast and frenetic, especially for a Playdate title, and you really need to know what you’re doing to have any success.

Luckily Gun Trails does include a short guide in its menu that gives you tips and tricks. For example, your ship’s hitbox is actually super small—it’s literally limited to only the cockpit window! This means bullets can pass right through your ship’s sprite without issue, as long as they don’t touch the white oval in the center. Also, your ship will be protected by a shield for a brief time after taking a hit, and the guide reveals that you can use this shield to crash directly into enemies and take them out. Just these two tips alone make the game far more manageable to play.

It must be said that Gun Trails looks and sounds fantastic. The developers crafted an arcade shooter with a genuinely cool-looking anime steampunk aesthetic, but also the smooth-scrolling, fast action gameplay to match. Hardcore Shoot’em Up fans will definitely want to have Gun Trails in their collection, but I think more casual players will also want to give it a go. Just be forewarned: the game is very hard.