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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

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:

Action roguelite inspired by Vampire Survivors
Sokoban puzzle game
A simple turn-based RPG

Bonus reference chapters are also included to quickly look up examples of how to use Lua and the Playdate SDK.

Based on how the book is received, I'd like to continue to expand the content and explore recording video versions of the chapters.

Book Updates

Actively writing the last chapter, Dungeon Crawler!

A changelog and notes on how progress is going.

Sep 7, 2025 - added Sokoban chapter
Feb 18, 2025 - added Playdate by Example chapter, started adding content to the cheatsheets, added a Style Guide chapter
Dec 16, 2024 - added Soaring chapter
Nov 24, 2024 - added Snake chapter
Nov 17, 2024 - initial Early Access launch

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What you'll learn

Table of contents

Book Updates

Email the author