It’s incredibly easy to dismiss Playdate as an irrelevant device, another so-called “walled garden” marketed on the grounds that it’s an intentional anachronism that runs out of games faster than you can say “hipster.” Panic’s unique handheld console, so much like the Game Boy, could end up being a flop, but so far all the evidence points otherwise, as Panic is selling them faster than they can make them, and has even managed to do so, some quite a bit to attract big developers.
Among them is Lucas Pope, who you may know as the man behind Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn: independent games, yes, but high-profile games that undoubtedly attracted the attention of headlines, reviews and advertising from major media outlets have the general gaming community. Their latest game is available directly exclusively from Playdate. It’s called Mars After Midnight and while it’s intentionally simple, as with all Playdate games, it’s definitely worth the hype.
It’s worth reading our analysis of Playdate to understand a little better the limitations of its nature. They’re simple little games, but instead Pope finds a way to introduce the bizarre, the innovative and the charming. In short, you are the organizer and gatekeeper of a number of support groups on Mars. On the one hand there is the posh colony where the rich live, and then there are the slums. Here you help the Martians meet and find common ground by organizing various meetings for the residents. One-Eyed Martians may need to talk and share their experiences (well, you arrange a meeting, serve them a few drinks, and finally make sure that only the One-Eyed Martians come through the door). As the nights progress, it’s just a matter of opening the little peephole on the door, identifying the right guests and continuing to serve them drinks. You’ll earn a little money that you can use to organize new meetings, announce them in the right neighborhoods, and buy new equipment to help you identify the real guests.
It’s a strange but mechanically simple premise, and aside from a few tweaks here and there, the game doesn’t change much over the hours you spend with it. It’s always easy to understand and, like the snake game on Nokia phones years ago, hard to put down.
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There are no colors in Playdate, but Pope gives each environment personality thanks to unusual character models and beautiful choreography and design. Just as Pixar often manages to bring a location to life with relatively few establishing shots, you quickly find yourself in the role of… well, the organizer of these support meetings on a colony on Mars.
It’s certainly a simple gameplay loop. You prepare the meeting the next evening, choose the areas you want to advertise it in to make sure only the right guests come, choose the drinks and then it’s just a matter of letting the right people in, all in Style of Papers, Please. But if Playdate proves anything, it’s that you can invent exciting game structures that are consistently simple, especially if you can learn and put them down easily. This is something Pope does masterfully. Even if the game doesn’t do much more than what it shows you in the first five minutes, it really isn’t necessary.
And yet I wish there was just one more level of interaction. Perhaps it would have been exciting to organize the space specifically depending on which guests are coming that evening, or to include the purchase and maintenance in the regular cycle. I’m not necessarily asking for more content, but let’s just say it’s a little limited.
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I’ll keep playing on my playdate and look forward to it after diving into Mars after midnight. Furthermore, this is a testament to Pope’s skill, because since developing games for Playdate requires creativity within a limited scope, it is very easy to appreciate his talent here.
