New in Catalog: Dead in Splundia and Isolates

Two new games went up in Playdate Catalog on 13 October. Both developers say they made them without generative AI.

Dead in Splundia (Alejandro Burgueño, $8) is a stop-motion RPG adventure. You play HANDS, "a 41-year-old teen struggling to be useful in a dystopian near-future where nobody is". You fight rivals with martial arts in what the page calls a "unique Playdate Combat Engine", using the crank. Otherwise, the page warns, you could lose your next job "to the furniture and those filthy insects". Some enemies are faster, tinier or resistant to certain skills. It uses A, B and the crank, with the Menu button showing your stats and remaining lives. Panic's content note mentions mild violence and references to depression and mental health issues. It's a 47.7 MB download.

Isolates (Ledbetter Games, $6) is described as "a slow math arcade horror game" set on a split-flap display like the ones at airports and train stations. Sequences of numbers drop from the top. You score by firing up their Root or Complement, and stacking 9s builds a score multiplier. It's deliberately slow, but it speeds up as your multiplier grows, and an Endless mode adds screen-clearing bombs. A How To section teaches the number tricks, the crank is optional, and it supports Playdate Achievements. It's a 1.2 MB download, and it's also sold on itch.io at the same price.

Our game pages: games/dead-in-splundia and games/isolates.