Ex-Sea of Thieves developer uses Playdate to curate charming marriage proposal

eurogamer.net:

Here is something to warm the soul on a rather chilly April afternoon (at least, where I am). One creative game developer has used Playdate — the palm-sized, crank-operated console — to propose to his girlfriend.

The developer in question is game designer Aaron Nielsen, who has previously worked on the likes of Sea of Thieves and Warcraft 3: Reforged.

Sharing his story on X, Nielsen said he wanted to do something special for the «love of his life», so set about making his girlfriend her own game on Playdate called Love Letter.

Nielsen used the Pulp editor for his proposal project, which he said was «a great experience for a coding novice». Over the development period, Love Letter went through a number of changes, with Nielsen stating it began life as more of a platformer.

«But after some playtests I decided to pivot toward a more hi-score-based arcade experience,» he said, in which the player would «need to try and deliver the correct 'letters' to their desired letterbox before time ran out».

But this scoreboard and timer combo was mostly there to serve as a distraction. «At the end of the game all the collected letters would spell „Will you marry me?“ — that was my cue to drop to one knee,» he shared. «Oh and don't worry, if she had selected 'no' it would have asked 'are you sure' and looped around! Haha.»

Thankfully, however, Nielsen's girlfriend said yes. «Her reaction was worth the months of #gamedev,» Nielsen said.

Hope your soul feels warmed, now?

The game went through many iterations over the six months. It started as a series of simple platforming levels. But after some playtests I decided to pivot toward a more hi-score-based arcade experience. Here's a snippet of the near-final version. pic.twitter.com/TwOKkWouGr— Aaron (Pikaaroon) (@TheAaronLeigh) <a href=«https://twitter.com/TheAaronLeigh/status/1779498047594209378?ref_src=» https:>April 14, 2024