Cover of the book Make Games for Playdate with Lua featuring a photo of a Playdate console

Make Games for Playdate with Lua

A fun introduction to game programming with Lua and the Playdate SDK

by Brett Chalupa

About the Book

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 you 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.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction — get yourself and your computer prepared 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 — code scene switching and break up your source into multiple files
  • Sokoban — make small puzzles with tile-based movement
  • Dungeon Crawler — build a turn-based role-playing game

Bonus reference chapters are also included to quickly look up examples of how to use Lua and the Playdate SDK.

Player engaged in turn-based combat
A look a what you'll be building: turn-based combat in the Dungeon Crawler chapter.

Book Details

  • 200 pages (PDF)
  • Available as DRM-free PDF and ePub
  • Status: 100% complete
  • Published on: May 7, 2026

Read the Sample

The Tennis chapter is free to read so you can see if you like the writing style.

Buy the Book

You can read the e-book on your computer, phone, tablet, or e-reader.

Leanpub and itch.io are preferred, as they support me the most. You'll get a DRM-free PDF and ePub version with your purchase.

Project Source Code

The source code for each project, broken down by chapter section, is available for free on GitHub.

About the Author

Photo of Brett Chalupa eating a slice of vegan pizza

Brett started making games as a teenager and hasn't stopped in the decades since. He likes making free and open source games, developer tools, and educational resources.

Connect

Questions, feedback, or just want to say hi? You can reach me here: