Make Games for Playdate with Lua

Whether you've never coded a game before or have years of experience under your belt, you'll learn the fundamentals of how to make games for Playdate using the Lua programming language. Make Games for Playdate with Lua covers how to program with Lua and the essential Playdate APIs. You'll make a handful of games to get you kickstarted on making your dream game for Playdate.

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.

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.

Check out the free sample of the first three chapters to get a preview of the book.

Early access

Make Games for Playdate with Lua is actively being written. The book is in Early Access. It has not been edited or proofread yet. 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.

The book is currently about 60% complete.

I try to released a new version of the book every month. I'll send an email via itch.io when I've updated the book. You'll always be able to come back to this page and download the book as well.

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

Table of contents

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 — an infinite flier controlled with crank

Ideas for what I'd like to add:

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

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

Release log

• Feb 18, 2025 - added initial Playdate by Example chapter
• Dec 16, 2025 - added Soaring chapter
• Nov 24, 2025 - added Snake chapter
• Nov 17, 2025 - initial Early Access launch 

Source code & related projects

The source code for the games from each chapter can be viewed online: https://github.com/brettchalupa/playdatebook Each chapter has its own folder, which contains a separate folder for each section to make it easier to follow along.

I also polished up the Snake chapter into its own game called PDSnake, which you can play https://brettchalupa.itch.io/pdsnake and view the source of https://sr.ht/~bcodes/pdsnake/.