Make Games for Playdate with Lua
Make Games for Playdate with Lua
A fun introduction to game programming with Lua and the Playdate SDK
About the Book
Have fun learning how to program games from scratch for Playdate!
Written in a fun and accessible style, Make Games for Playdate with Lua is a great way to get started learning game programming. The book is perfect for beginners. And if you've already made some games before, you'll feel right at home as you go through the chapters.
You'll code a bunch of small games from scratch to learn everything to need to bring your game ideas to reality.
One of the joys of making games for Playdate is how simple it is and how quickly you can test your game on your game console. Playdate's limitations in resolution, input, and color make it perfect for someone just getting started making games.
Make Games for Playdate with Lua is actively being written. The earlier you buy it, the cheaper it will be. As the content of the book expands, the price will increase. You'll get updates for the book as they're released.
No worries if you don't have a Playdate yet! You can make games for Playdate without having the console on hand. The Playdate SDK is free and available to download for all major operating systems.
What you'll learn
- Programming basics with Lua—variables, functions, tables, conditionals and more
- Game programming concepts
- Handling user input
- How to build and test your Playdate game
- The most essential Playdate APIs
- How to publish your Playdate game online
Table of contents
What's written:
- Introduction — get yourself and your computer prepared for for making games for Playdate
- Hello, Playdate! — display text and move it around the screen
- Tennis — code a single-player Pong clone
- Clock — make a simple clock using a custom font
- Snake — learn about saving and loading data from Playdate, loops, and adding a menu option
- Soaring — code scene switching and break up your source into multiple files
Ideas for what I'd like to add:
- Sokoban puzzle game
- Action roguelite inspired by Vampire Survivors
- A simple turn-based RPG
Based on how the book is received, I'd like to continue to expand the content and explore recording video versions of the chapters.
About the Author
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Early Access
- What to Expect
- Getting the Most Out the Book
- Getting Started
- Hello, Playdate!
- Counting Frames
- Moving the Text
- Player Input to Change Greeting
- A Gentle Introduction
- Tennis
- Displaying the Paddle
- Moving the Paddle
- Displaying the Ball
- Refactoring
playdate.graphics
- Moving the Ball
- Bounce Off the Wall
- Bounce Off the Paddle
- Refactor into Functions
- Angles
- Speeding Up the Ball
- Score
- Sound Effects
- Final Code
- Bonus Ideas
- What’s Next
- Clock
- Drawing the Time
- Respecting Preferences
- Padding Zeroes
- Lowering the Framerate
- Showing Power Details
- Custom Font
- Finished Source Code
- Bonus Ideas
- What’s Next
- Snake
- Moving on the Grid
- Control the Snake
- Spawning Apples
- Adding Snake Pieces
- Don’t Spawn an Apple on the Snake
- Game Over
- Restart the Game
- High-Score
- Reset High-Score
- Finished Source Code
- Bonus Ideas
- What’s Next
- Soaring
- Controlling the Bird
- Spawning Trees
- Crank Indicator
- Scenes
- Refactoring Gameplay Reset
- Introducing a State Table
- Breaking Our Code Into Multiple Files
- Bonus Ideas
- What’s Next
- Mini Survivors
- Sokoban
- Dungeon Crawler
- Outro
- Start Small
- Releasing Your Playdate Games
- Continue to Learn
- Backing Up Your Games
- Beyond Playdate
- Game Development Tools
- Thanks & Credit
- Playdate Cheatsheet
- Lua Cheatsheet
- Introduction
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