While making this game for the Yellow Square Jam, I had to reply on libraries created by Playdate community leaders, code examples, and open-license assets. I also had some awesome play testers that really helped iron out the ideas. I want to outline these areas and give credit where credit is due! Without them, I wouldn't have been able to complete this project, especially with the jam deadline.

Playdate Libraries

pp-lib by RobertCurry0216

This really is the beating heart of what allowed this project to get off the ground. It allowed me to more focus on making the game vs reinventing the wheel of designing a platformer engine. 

PlaydateLDtkImporter by NicMagnier

If you haven't heard of LDtk, what an amazing tile/level design tool this is! Bless NicMagnier for doing the work to allow us to import these into Playdate games.

NobleEngine by NobleRobot

NobleEngine brought in scene management, transitions, main menu, and save states. Can't stress the amount of value this brought to the project.

pdDialogue by PizzaFuel & GammaGames

After a few play tests, I realized I needed to communicate the story behind why the main character is turning into a bird, and how to play the game. pdDialogue made it easy to show dialogue and make "cut scenes".

Code Examples

Playdate SDK Development Tutorials! by SquidGod

The video series by SquidGod helped when I was struggling to understand something from the SDK. Sometimes just hearing someone explain it with some example code is what makes things click.

User Interfaces by GammaGames

When working with imageWithText, I was having major struggles getting it to respect ignoring the draw offset. My UI would move off the screen when my character went too far. With this user interface example from Gamma, I was able to get that particular issue sorted.

Assets

Random Images & Sounds - Pixabay

Pixel Art Bird by ma9ici4n

8-Bit Music Anthology: NES Edition by bbunker

1-bit Explorerby Purple Dragoon / © BlueLynx 2020

Poké-like 1bitTileset by Yelta

Play Testers

Big thanks to 8_bit_BEAR and RobertCurry0216 who gave their time to play test in the early stages and gave invaluable feedback that directed the design of the game.

Also want to thank NobleRobot and the IGDA Twin Cities play testers. While I didn't make it in time to be one of the spotlight tests, I got to see a video feed of folks other than myself trying the earliest version for the first time. This is what made me realize I needed a tutorial :).

Update: Another thank you to NobleRobot and the IGDA Twin Cities play testers. In their November 2023 play test, Suddenly Bird got a moment in the spotlight! Since this was after the jam, they got to play a fuller version of the game and I think it went pretty well!