Absolutely love the game - the best so far on playdate. As others have mentioned, the asthetic, the simple yet beautiful graphics, the music, the excellent use of the small screen (and fact that I don't need mirror to play it) are all awesome. I know there are disclaimers everywhere but it would be nice to be able to save progress. looking forward to a sequel :)
thank you - and thanks for the comments! one of my main aesthetic "rules" was to be CLEAR -- born out of the combination of that tiny non-backlit screen and my "not as good as they used to be" eyes! :D i'm happy that you appreciated it.
First game to sideload onto my Playdate and boy am i ever glad this was the first! Absolutely charmed!! The artwork, music, cheeky dialog, puzzles, storytelling - i had a smile on my face the whole time! You can really feel how much creativity went into this, truly a work of art! Cannot wait to see what else you have in store! Thank you for this one!
Bug: In the research facility, I entered, spoke to the top robot, spoke to the bottom robot, hit the barrier, top robot said ‘hey’, spoke to him and he said ‘hey’ again. Now stuck in front of him. Screen still animating but no response to inputs. Sad to have to redo so much as I was really enjoying it up to there!
Edit: Pretty quick to redo when you already know the puzzle answers. Lovely little game.
I'm glad you enjoyed it enough to play through a second time! :) THANK YOU for the bug report! I was able to recreate it and It'll be fixed for the next version. My guess is it's a rare occurrence that someone is able to rush up to the top bot between the two "heys" - even when i was able to talk to the bot between hey1 and hey2, I was only able to get it to lock about 20% of the time.
What a great little game. Just played it and it took me about 50 mins or so. Full of personality with great sound and music. Well worth the price and then some. Looking forward to Ron Lent's next game.
I loved this game. It’s so charming, artful, and clever. It’s easily one of the first games I’d put in front of someone with a Playdate. Thanks for making such a wonderful thing.
thank you so much for creating this beautiful game!! I’m so inspired and in awe. The storytelling, the tiny logic puzzles, it was the perfect play date experience. It’s now my favorite game on my console. With gratitude (and hope to see more of your work in the future!!) - YB
Hey, this is a beautiful game and I'm wondering if you'd like to include it in a co-op bundle I'm organizing? I sent you more details on the dev forum if you're interested!
No worries! I just realized you use direct payments instead of itch payment collection (correct me if I'm wrong), which actually makes you ineligible for co-op bundles unless you were to switch :(
I just finished this game in one sitting, and really enjoyed it! The entire time I had a smile on my face either from the funny messages, interesting characters, or clever puzzles. This game is clear and polished, and is so far one of my favorite experiences on Playdate. Its full of atmosphere and mystery while also being compact and polished with a nice dose of humor. I can tell a lot of thought went into this project, and am very grateful I got to play it! Excited for the next one for sure. This is a must have on Playdate. As a fellow game designer (escape rooms) this was very inspiring. Thank you for making it!
Thank you so much! I'm happy that you liked it & that you noticed those little details! — AND thanks for writing this great note, it means a lot to me!
My Playdate arrived a week ago and I've been having a ball with it but I wanted to try something that wasn't included in Season 1 and I came across this little beauty.
This is exactly the kind of game that I want to see on Playdate, and is the reason I bought it. Really like the air of mystery in the game, the puzzles were well thought out and the soundtrack is top notch. Even though I've finished it, I'm pretty sure it's something I will keep coming back to from time to time when I have a bit of time to spare.
On thing - the ending - without spoiling it for anyone, does it just run indefinitely or does something happen? I left it running after your name came up for a few minutes expecting something to happen, not sure it's supposed to?
To say this is your first game, and written in Pulp at that, I actually feel it's really polished and well thought out. I would love to see more from you - or even add multiple endings so that it would give a reason to replay. Perhaps in a sequel maybe?
Also, the lack of crank use doesn't bother me. There's many games that use it, so it's nice to have a game that plays traditionally, rather than to try to shoehorn a control method in where it doesn't need to be :)
Thank you ScootaKuH for this wonderful comment - much more than a comment! I'm really glad you liked it!
You said that it's exactly the kind of game you had hoped to see - ME TOO! No joke, adventure genre is my favorite. I hadn't planned on making a game - I was just checking Pulp out and I got obsessed!
THE ENDING - yup, that is the end. It goes out very quietly. ;)
There IS another game in the works - same type of world but bigger, more varied and with more stuff to do... extra skillz and things to pick up along the way. Maybe it's a... PREquel? I'll probably dive into the meat of the project this winter.
AND... the shoehorned crank issue - Exactly. It just never really made sense as the game came together. There is one place (generator room) that would make perfect sense to use it - and that was the plan, but it felt like it was being tacked-on, like that one instance would scream: LOOK, HERE'S THE CRANK PART... so I ditched it.
Again, thanks so much for this comment, it means a lot to me!
strange ... i haven't heard anyone else having this problem. so it downloaded fine, but when you tried to load it into the device there was nothing there? did you check the sideload instructions here? i'll also do a little research ..
For what it's worth: I just noticed you can't find this game by searching for "eyeland" on itch.io, and it's because of the spaces between the letters in the official title.
Really enjoying this game, the aesthetic is unreal! Is there a space anywhere where you’re happy to field questions about development? I’m intrigued about how you essentially made cutscenes - can’t figure it out!
I'm glad you like it! if you'd like to get into a little more detail about the cutscenes we can discuss in the dev forum (are you registered?) -- the thread for eyeland is here - say hi in the thread and i'll tell you a little bit about how they were done -- thanks for playing.
Found a bug. If you ascend the elevator once completing the puzzles and continually tap A, there will be several characters/elevators going up at once.
Thank you - i'm glad you like it! - saving will be included in version 2, but it's going to be awhile before i can get back to working on it --- if you are following, it will be announced when i put up the update.
I played the version off the forums and really enjoyed my time with it. It's a fun hour or so of gameplay and is well polished. It's a light game, and sometimes that's exactly what I want. The art is charming and well tuned to the black and white platform. I'm glad to see it here now and am happy to buy a copy.
Lent: If you have future ideas for Playdate games, I'll definitely be interested in checking them out!
This is so good! And super impressive that it’s all made in Pulp. I really enjoyed the vibe, and all the little animations and cool/weird characters. Mechanically, it reminded me of For the Frog the Bell tolls – a game that’s more about seeing what there is to offer than anything else.
Really enjoying this so far! Maybe the soundtrack hasn’t fully kicked off yet, but it seems like I need to max out the volume on the playdate to barely hear the music.
EDIT: Yeah the volume could definitely be increased by at least 1.5x. I wandered off to the top right area first and just wanted to give props for the little fire going out animation, it’s polish like that that really gets me into the game! Unfortunately because I went there first I missed out on dialogue from the hotel person.
AwesomeNick! Thanks for for playing AND for the info about the volume - it's now on the list of things for me to check out when i finally get a physical Playdate to test on! (soon, i hope) - my plan is to compare it to a bunch of other games and try to make sure i'm in the same ballpark.
missing some of Basil's dialog - i wanted make sure i had a few places where the story didn't demand you to stay locked-in to a linear experience - so you could feel free to meander a bit - in any single play-through there might be a small handful of things you won't see because of the path you took.
Definitely felt the intent to let the path be a bit more non linear, good stuff! For reference on the volume, Eyeland at max (11) on my playdate speakers matches the volume of crankin’s time travel adventure at 4.
Anyways, just finished the game and had a blast with it! Followed you on itch and am looking forward to any future projects of yours :)
I saw a lot of hubbub around the Playdate subreddit in regards to Eyeland and I thought it looked cool from screenshots but Eyeland blew me away. I absolutely adored the whole playthrough (I won't link the video here because I want people to actually pay for this game but I did link it to you on Facebook, I'm Jordan Thompson from Drop Rate).
The pixel art is stunning, every area has such great puzzle design and the way it shifts from silence to the soundtrack kicking in is perfect. I loved it all the way through and loved the ending. This is absolutely one a killer app that warranted a purchase outside of Season 1. I think I like Eyeland more than Bloom and that's a really high bar to pass.
Seriously this is amazing. Playdate should pick this up for Season 2. I absolutely, positively need more games from you haha.
JORDAN! I'm glad you liked it. And thank you so much for the review / play-through video! I'm going to watch it soon - I'm sure it'll be helpful to see how someone plays/interacts.
As for your question about saving: you don't... not yet. I haven't received my Playdate device & (auto)saving/storing is something I have not been able to implement / test yet. I forget that people expect that to happen with these kinds of games. I'm going to include that as a note in the description. Thank you for bringing this up.
I originally played this from the playdate forums and it's such a little charmer-it sucked me right in. I think I probably got an hour or so's play out of it and very much enjoyed my time with it.
I grabbed this from the playdate forums and loved it. It's well worth $2, and I think it's actually been my favorite adventure-style game on the playdate by far. Some really nice visual moments. Highly recommended!
Edit: this was more of a review than a comment, so I pasted it there. I don't know if I've ever written a review on itch before. I liked this that much!
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Absolutely loved it! Every frame is gorgeous, and a great soundtrack. Loved the attention to detail too :) Looking forward to more games from you.
thanks! i'm glad you enjoyed it!
Absolutely love the game - the best so far on playdate. As others have mentioned, the asthetic, the simple yet beautiful graphics, the music, the excellent use of the small screen (and fact that I don't need mirror to play it) are all awesome. I know there are disclaimers everywhere but it would be nice to be able to save progress. looking forward to a sequel :)
thank you - and thanks for the comments! one of my main aesthetic "rules" was to be CLEAR -- born out of the combination of that tiny non-backlit screen and my "not as good as they used to be" eyes! :D i'm happy that you appreciated it.
This is a really cute little game. I love the aesthetic. The main character reminds me of Horace from the old ZX Spectrum game series.
haha yes! I don't know that game, but I looked it up -- totally!
First game to sideload onto my Playdate and boy am i ever glad this was the first! Absolutely charmed!! The artwork, music, cheeky dialog, puzzles, storytelling - i had a smile on my face the whole time! You can really feel how much creativity went into this, truly a work of art! Cannot wait to see what else you have in store! Thank you for this one!
thank you so much for playing ! I'm glad you enjoyed it - it means a lot to me!
[╹‿╹].꜒
Bug: In the research facility, I entered, spoke to the top robot, spoke to the bottom robot, hit the barrier, top robot said ‘hey’, spoke to him and he said ‘hey’ again. Now stuck in front of him. Screen still animating but no response to inputs. Sad to have to redo so much as I was really enjoying it up to there!Edit: Pretty quick to redo when you already know the puzzle answers. Lovely little game.
I'm glad you enjoyed it enough to play through a second time! :) THANK YOU for the bug report! I was able to recreate it and It'll be fixed for the next version. My guess is it's a rare occurrence that someone is able to rush up to the top bot between the two "heys" - even when i was able to talk to the bot between hey1 and hey2, I was only able to get it to lock about 20% of the time.
What a great little game. Just played it and it took me about 50 mins or so. Full of personality with great sound and music. Well worth the price and then some. Looking forward to Ron Lent's next game.
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it! (there is another game coming — this winter-ish)
Loved the game! Some many nice ideas in there. Exactly the kind of game I hoped to find on the playdate.
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!
I loved this game. It’s so charming, artful, and clever. It’s easily one of the first games I’d put in front of someone with a Playdate. Thanks for making such a wonderful thing.
Thank You! I'm glad you liked it!
(◉ ‿ ◉)
thank you so much for creating this beautiful game!! I’m so inspired and in awe. The storytelling, the tiny logic puzzles, it was the perfect play date experience. It’s now my favorite game on my console. With gratitude (and hope to see more of your work in the future!!) - YB
Thank you! Thanks for playing AND for these great comments. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I have to say I am in awe…This will go down as one of my GOTY, let alone just on Playdate. Incredible.
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Brilliant game, with absolutely gorgeous art. I can't wait to play whatever you release next!
thank you! i'm glad you liked it!
Hey, this is a beautiful game and I'm wondering if you'd like to include it in a co-op bundle I'm organizing? I sent you more details on the dev forum if you're interested!
thank you ! - i'll check it out - (vacationing this week / a little off the grid)
No worries! I just realized you use direct payments instead of itch payment collection (correct me if I'm wrong), which actually makes you ineligible for co-op bundles unless you were to switch :(
I thought this was great across the board. Would definitely recommend.
- t h a n k - y o u - ! -
I've been spreading the word on a few forums too and I hope it generates you some extra sales.
thanks for spreading the word!
this game is simply amazing, truly! Should be in the next season of shipped games or it will be a shame, EVERYONE PLEASE PLAY THIS! : D
Thank you! Thanks for playing / I'm so glad you liked it! (YES, EVERYONE, PLAY IT NOW! haha)
I just finished this game in one sitting, and really enjoyed it! The entire time I had a smile on my face either from the funny messages, interesting characters, or clever puzzles. This game is clear and polished, and is so far one of my favorite experiences on Playdate. Its full of atmosphere and mystery while also being compact and polished with a nice dose of humor. I can tell a lot of thought went into this project, and am very grateful I got to play it! Excited for the next one for sure. This is a must have on Playdate. As a fellow game designer (escape rooms) this was very inspiring. Thank you for making it!
Thank you so much! I'm happy that you liked it & that you noticed those little details! — AND thanks for writing this great note, it means a lot to me!
got my playdate a week ago but got around to playing it today, this was the first game I sideloaded; amazing experience!
Thank you! I'm honored to be the first - and glad you liked it!
( ° ± ° )
My Playdate arrived a week ago and I've been having a ball with it but I wanted to try something that wasn't included in Season 1 and I came across this little beauty.
This is exactly the kind of game that I want to see on Playdate, and is the reason I bought it. Really like the air of mystery in the game, the puzzles were well thought out and the soundtrack is top notch. Even though I've finished it, I'm pretty sure it's something I will keep coming back to from time to time when I have a bit of time to spare.
On thing - the ending - without spoiling it for anyone, does it just run indefinitely or does something happen? I left it running after your name came up for a few minutes expecting something to happen, not sure it's supposed to?
To say this is your first game, and written in Pulp at that, I actually feel it's really polished and well thought out. I would love to see more from you - or even add multiple endings so that it would give a reason to replay. Perhaps in a sequel maybe?
Also, the lack of crank use doesn't bother me. There's many games that use it, so it's nice to have a game that plays traditionally, rather than to try to shoehorn a control method in where it doesn't need to be :)
Thank you ScootaKuH for this wonderful comment - much more than a comment! I'm really glad you liked it!
You said that it's exactly the kind of game you had hoped to see - ME TOO! No joke, adventure genre is my favorite. I hadn't planned on making a game - I was just checking Pulp out and I got obsessed!
THE ENDING - yup, that is the end. It goes out very quietly. ;)
There IS another game in the works - same type of world but bigger, more varied and with more stuff to do... extra skillz and things to pick up along the way. Maybe it's a... PREquel? I'll probably dive into the meat of the project this winter.
AND... the shoehorned crank issue - Exactly. It just never really made sense as the game came together. There is one place (generator room) that would make perfect sense to use it - and that was the plan, but it felt like it was being tacked-on, like that one instance would scream: LOOK, HERE'S THE CRANK PART... so I ditched it.
Again, thanks so much for this comment, it means a lot to me!
Easily the best indie Playdate title I've played so far. Lovely music, great visuals, and a total inspiration in terms of what's possible with Pulp.
Thanks JEZ!
This game is absolutely fantastic. I would absolutely LOVE to see more from you! If you make another Playdate adventure it's an instabuy for me.
thank you GLORKBOT! I'm glad you like it.
(there IS something in the works, but it might be awhile - i'm trying to avoid being indoors too much this summer!)
can you add credit payment ? I don’t have PayPal :(
Just came to get this, same situation for me. A regular CC payment option would be great!
Ah - I’ll look in to it! Thanks for the suggestion
@Stockston / @rumblerumble
Done! I think that should work - thank you for your interest in the game! i hope you like (also: if you wait a day, a newer version is about to post)
That worked, thank you!
great! and thank YOU!
This game is beautiful! I love it!
Thank you!
My download is saying it did not include anything when I try to sideload it :( Any ideas?
strange ... i haven't heard anyone else having this problem. so it downloaded fine, but when you tried to load it into the device there was nothing there? did you check the sideload instructions here? i'll also do a little research ..
were you able to get it to work?
I deleted it, downloaded a fresh copy, and tried again, and that worked! Not sure what did the trick but glad to play.
Enjoying the game so far! :)
oh good, I'm glad it worked - i'm glad you are liking it too!
For what it's worth: I just noticed you can't find this game by searching for "eyeland" on itch.io, and it's because of the spaces between the letters in the official title.
oh wow -thanks for pointing that out!
That worked! I can find it now. I haven't yet made time to give this game a try, but it's on my short list. The art looks great
thank you! hope you like it!
Really enjoying this game, the aesthetic is unreal! Is there a space anywhere where you’re happy to field questions about development? I’m intrigued about how you essentially made cutscenes - can’t figure it out!
I'm glad you like it! if you'd like to get into a little more detail about the cutscenes we can discuss in the dev forum (are you registered?) -- the thread for eyeland is here - say hi in the thread and i'll tell you a little bit about how they were done -- thanks for playing.
Oh nice, thank you! Should have some time to do that tomorrow.
Found a bug. If you ascend the elevator once completing the puzzles and continually tap A, there will be several characters/elevators going up at once.
whoa, that's an odd one! - nice find, thank you , i'll add it to the list of fixes ...
i have a question: were you able to continue playing, or did it break at that point?
I like it, but I really need to be able to save please! I started twice before I realized I cannot save progress.
Thank you - i'm glad you like it! - saving will be included in version 2, but it's going to be awhile before i can get back to working on it --- if you are following, it will be announced when i put up the update.
Any idea of when the save feature will come out?
Played the forum beta and loved it. Instant buy for the itch release.
THANK YOU!
This game was so fun! Hope you make more, Ron!
thank you!
I played the version off the forums and really enjoyed my time with it. It's a fun hour or so of gameplay and is well polished. It's a light game, and sometimes that's exactly what I want. The art is charming and well tuned to the black and white platform. I'm glad to see it here now and am happy to buy a copy.
Lent: If you have future ideas for Playdate games, I'll definitely be interested in checking them out!
thank you for playing it, Alan - i'm glad you liked!
A short, enjoyable, well-made little puzzle game. Nice work!
t h a n k s !
This is so good! And super impressive that it’s all made in Pulp. I really enjoyed the vibe, and all the little animations and cool/weird characters. Mechanically, it reminded me of For the Frog the Bell tolls – a game that’s more about seeing what there is to offer than anything else.
I checked this out from the Playdate dev forums and absolutely loved it. You crushed it!
thank you!
Really enjoying this so far! Maybe the soundtrack hasn’t fully kicked off yet, but it seems like I need to max out the volume on the playdate to barely hear the music.
EDIT:
Yeah the volume could definitely be increased by at least 1.5x. I wandered off to the top right area first and just wanted to give props for the little fire going out animation, it’s polish like that that really gets me into the game! Unfortunately because I went there first I missed out on dialogue from the hotel person.
AwesomeNick! Thanks for for playing AND for the info about the volume - it's now on the list of things for me to check out when i finally get a physical Playdate to test on! (soon, i hope) - my plan is to compare it to a bunch of other games and try to make sure i'm in the same ballpark.
missing some of Basil's dialog - i wanted make sure i had a few places where the story didn't demand you to stay locked-in to a linear experience - so you could feel free to meander a bit - in any single play-through there might be a small handful of things you won't see because of the path you took.
Definitely felt the intent to let the path be a bit more non linear, good stuff! For reference on the volume, Eyeland at max (11) on my playdate speakers matches the volume of crankin’s time travel adventure at 4.
Anyways, just finished the game and had a blast with it! Followed you on itch and am looking forward to any future projects of yours :)
I'm glad you liked it! ...and that IS a big difference in volume, thanks.
wander around and figure it out game?
sounds like my kinda game...
myst is cool :)
I saw a lot of hubbub around the Playdate subreddit in regards to Eyeland and I thought it looked cool from screenshots but Eyeland blew me away. I absolutely adored the whole playthrough (I won't link the video here because I want people to actually pay for this game but I did link it to you on Facebook, I'm Jordan Thompson from Drop Rate).
The pixel art is stunning, every area has such great puzzle design and the way it shifts from silence to the soundtrack kicking in is perfect. I loved it all the way through and loved the ending. This is absolutely one a killer app that warranted a purchase outside of Season 1. I think I like Eyeland more than Bloom and that's a really high bar to pass.
Seriously this is amazing. Playdate should pick this up for Season 2. I absolutely, positively need more games from you haha.
JORDAN! I'm glad you liked it. And thank you so much for the review / play-through video! I'm going to watch it soon - I'm sure it'll be helpful to see how someone plays/interacts.
Very charming so far!! Question - how do you save?
thank you! -
As for your question about saving: you don't... not yet. I haven't received my Playdate device & (auto)saving/storing is something I have not been able to implement / test yet. I forget that people expect that to happen with these kinds of games. I'm going to include that as a note in the description. Thank you for bringing this up.
I originally played this from the playdate forums and it's such a little charmer-it sucked me right in. I think I probably got an hour or so's play out of it and very much enjoyed my time with it.
I'm glad you liked - thanks for playing!
I loved this! Really impressive use of Pulp and has a few really nice little puzzles.
Thank you, Raygan!
god, how did you make this with pulp, it looks awesome just from the screenshots
carpal tunnel and LOTS - OF - TILES. ;)
are you okay
oh yeah, i'm fine - exaggerating a bit about burying myself in the project for months! :D
I grabbed this from the playdate forums and loved it. It's well worth $2, and I think it's actually been my favorite adventure-style game on the playdate by far. Some really nice visual moments. Highly recommended!
Edit: this was more of a review than a comment, so I pasted it there. I don't know if I've ever written a review on itch before. I liked this that much!
Thank you, Martin, and thanks for the recommendation - I'm glad you liked it!