This game was written in Playdate Pulp as Pulp itself was being developed. I began with the simple idea of a house-exploring game where you discover things just by walking around. As Shaun Inman, the principal developer of Pulp, added more features--including PulpScript, Pulp's programming language--the game also grew in scope.
When it shipped in April of 2023, Hidey Spot included the following features:
- Multiple rooms, many with different states (light/dark)
- Interactive objects
- Changeable environments
- Basic dialog trees
- An inventory of items that can be collected, viewed, equipped, and used
- Game saving and restoration on launch
- Scripted cutscenes
- Puzzles that gate your progress until solved
- HUD UI
My hope is that if you're looking to implement any of these in your Pulp game, you can learn from the way they're implemented in Hidey Spot.
The game is "old" by Pulp standards; others have figured out better ways to do more impressive things in Pulp. I'm a novice programmer, and I relied heavily on Shaun Inman's help in scripting this. Thanks, Shaun!
- Create a Playdate Pulp account
- Use the Import feature and load in the JSON files
- This should load the whole game, with all its graphics and code
- Start with the
gamescript and see if it makes sense :)