Snake to Snak: Indie developer Zach Gage on creating for Playdate

gamedeveloper.com:

Clap eyes on the Playdate and your pupils will dart towards the crank -- that little silver prong nestled to the right of the handheld that whispers "go on, give me a spin." It's one of the most unique things about the ditty console -- to be fair, it's one of the most unique things about any console -- and yet, for indie developer Zach Gage, it melted into the background.

Speaking to Game Developer earlier this year, Gage -- the experimental creator behind titles like Typeshift, SpellTower, Good Sudoku, Tharsis, and Playdate launch title, Snak -- explained it was, perhaps surprisingly, the handheld's two unassuming buttons that set his imagination alight.

Although he's racked up an impressive number of credits throughout his career, Gage rarely makes games with buttons -- so while everyone else was losing their mind over the crank, he became fixated on creating something that could leverage the console's more traditional inputs while still surprising players.

"I started to think about games I played in my past that used buttons and embedded little devices and stuff," recalled Gage. "And I started to think a lot about Snake and playing Snake on my old Nokia. Snake is critically a button game. It's all about button presses, timing, and knowing knowing that you did this thing at the exact right moment."

As you might've guessed from the name and snake-infused header image, Snak aims to build on the core concept of Snake by adding a mysterious new mechanic. At the time of writing, we have no idea what exactly that mechanic is -- no spoilers! -- but Gage suggests it's a twist that'll captivate and delight.

"With Snak, I had an idea for one action that I could add to the game. That's generally my approach to games and game design.