What is SOLAR DESCENT?

SOLAR DESCENT is an action-adventure game (demo available below) for the Playdate handheld console in the vein of classic The Legend of Zelda games combined with modern ideas found in e.g. Dark Souls and Hollow Knight.

SOLAR DESCENT is one of the largest and most polished Pulp project to date, maybe even one of the largest Playdate projects period. You can look forward to exploring over 300 handcrafted rooms — seamlessly connected through a rich tapestry of more than half a dozen distinct areas with challenging dungeons, formidable bosses and fun side quests. 

SOLAR DESCENT features real-time combat, two attack buttons, on the fly switching of abilities, clever combat integration of the crank, elaborate menus and map systems.

• Explore the world and dungeons to gain new abilities
• Fight monsters and bosses
• Solve puzzles and navigate through traps and obstacles
• Use abilities to progress and discover new areas
• Find and equip relics to enhance your abilities
  
• Use XP to upgrade your stats

SOLAR DESCENT  is tuned to be challenging. If you find some experimental features to be too fiddly or prefer a more normal or casual experience, there are plenty of accessibility options to tailor the game to your taste. You can e.g. turn off damage or the stamina system, make stamina regenerate passively instead of using the crank or make challenge rooms easier.

Despite being made in Pulp, a simple but heavily limited game engine for uncomplicated adventure games, SOLAR DESCENT manages to squeeze a lot of gamey gameplay into a tiny, yellow package.

What is the Playdate?

The Playdate is a handheld game console made by Panic. It was released in 2022 and features a crisp black and white screen, clicky D-pad and face buttons and a crank. All crammed into a tiny, yellow shell designed by Teenage Engineering.

Find out more about the Playdate here.

State of the Project

Changelog

Changelog v0.99 (Released 250524)

• New: Finished the game.

Known Bugs in v0.99

• Wizard enemy will sometimes freeze in an invulnerable state.
  • Cannot reproduce so hard to pinpoint the issue. Had a fail-safe to kickstart the enemy by entering and exiting the menu, but mixed up a string for a variable. Might still work to enter and exit the menu. Will tie the invulnerability to sprite on screen instead of enemy state variable in the next update. Should be able to do damage even if the enemy is stuck.
• Hitting the third boss so it disappears right as it's about to move can swap in a boss tile when it shouldn't.
  •  Had a fail-safe implemented but accidentally disabled it. Will enable it in the next update.

Demo

The demo contains the first part of the final game, featuring interconnected areas, characters, side quests, music, sound effects and more. There are more areas to visit, characters to meet, mechanics to unlock and different types of enemies and bosses to encounter in the full game.

Source Code

Want to take a look at the code? Pay $11.99 or more to get access to the source code. Import the JSON file into a Pulp project to take a peek under the hood.

DOs and DON’Ts

• Do get inspired.
• Do “borrow” elements to flesh out your project.
• Do laugh at the spaghetti code workarounds.
• Don’t use the source code as a template or starting point for your project.
• Don’t make minor adjustments and call it your game.
• Don’t use the script, characters or level design.
• Don’t use the assets.
• Don’t flip the assets.
• Don’t be a prick.

Controls

 : Move
 : Use sub weapon
 : Use main weapon
 : Dock to enter menu
 : Undock to exit menu
 : Crank one turn to enter a cranking state. While in cranking state:
          - Crank clockwise to refill stamina
          - Crank counter clockwise to use flask charges to restore HP
          - Press  or  to switch sub weapon

Feedback

Doing anything in Pulp that wasn't explicitly intended requires extensive fool proofing and failsafe fallbacks to ensure the game doesn't break, soft lock or worse. If you encounter wonky behaviour or game breaking bugs, please let me know.

Have fun! If you like what you're seeing, leave a few encouraging words to keep me motivated.