Tom White
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tomwhite.bsky.social
Tom White
@tomwhite.bsky.social
Software Engineer, Dad and Playdate developer when I get time (not often).

https://play.date/games/flinger/
Reposted by Tom White
Truly smart devices would choose not to connect to the internet.
November 18, 2025 at 7:54 AM
Reposted by Tom White
Even with advancements granted by Ruhetek, planetfall is still rather risky.

Better have a good Cloning Contract before venturing forth.

#playdate #indiedev #gamedev
October 23, 2025 at 9:46 AM
Added a log-overdue feature to Hyper Vector: an explorable map.

#gamedev #playdate #indiedev #solodev
October 19, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Reposted by Tom White
Playdate game developer Keith Baker has created a super handy, unofficial Mac app for managing a Playdate device. Easy access to screenshots, achievements, logs, and lots more. Check out pdmanager!

🍎 apps.apple.com/us/app/pdman...
October 15, 2025 at 9:37 PM
I've made a few improvements to trade in Hyper Vector, completely overhauling the Market to provide much more information, which should make profitable trading much easier. There's also more information in the Manifest on good routes!

#playdate #gamedev #indiedev #solodev
October 15, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Reposted by Tom White
In a long ago place, in a far away time,
The villagers cast out one whose song didn't rhyme...

Defeat the Mysterious Monsters! Retrieve the four Mysterious Musical Notes and collect the Mysterious Gems!

sing-song ding-dong coming to @play.date Catalog on the 9th of December!

#playdate #gaming
October 13, 2025 at 8:32 PM
A playtesting build is available for Hyper Vector! If you'd like to give this rather rough version a go I'd appreciate any feedback!

#gamedev #playdate #indiedev #solodev

discord.com/channels/675...
October 5, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Reposted by Tom White
The Sunken Bell is an unpleasant pub. Grim men, salt-scarred and edging mania, hold to its tables as if to let go would cast them adrift in some terrible storm. Even the local farm perries cannot compensate for what can only be called an atmosphere of doom. - Hookland Fruit Cider Pub Guide, 1980
September 26, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Hyper Vector is nearing public playtesting! I'm working my way through the game end-to-end personally first, and finding/fixing a lot of bugs and performance issues.

Device Info is my new friend!

#playdate #gamedev #indiedev #solodev
September 21, 2025 at 10:02 PM
Reposted by Tom White
September 21, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Reposted by Tom White
Things were better when computer was in room. Now everywhere is computer. This is bad. Computer should never have escaped room.
i don't want to hear your most boomer complaint. what's your most millennial complaint?
September 20, 2025 at 1:14 AM
Fewer updates on Hyper Vector recently, but that's because it's getting close to something play-testable and I've been head-down!

I'm down to a handful of blockers, I've invested a bit of time sorting out perf issues and it now runs smoothly on-device too!

#playdate #indiedev #solodev #gamedev
September 7, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Tom White
I will never apologize for a post
September 4, 2025 at 2:24 AM
Refactoring how the starmap is rendered. Previously it was one sprite with everything drawn onto it - which was eating fps as any kind of update involved a lot of work to run the draw method of the whole thing.

#playdate #gamedate #indiedev #solodev
September 2, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Hyper Vector is gradually filling out with more sound effects, the latest is for when you jump between systems. I added a new animation for it too, it feels a bit more like an event now!

#playdate #gamedev #indiedev #solodev
August 31, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Working on better hitboxes for long thin ships in combat, a proper bounding box is now computed which should make for more satisfying combat.

#playdate #gamedev #indiedev #solodev
August 20, 2025 at 7:39 AM
When you've completed combat training with either faction, you get to visit the simulator as many times as you like to practice combat scenarios.

#playdate #gamedev #indiedev #solodev
August 17, 2025 at 9:40 PM
The good: Hyper Vector has some music, just a couple of tracks so far but it adds so much to the feeling that it's heading towards something releasable!

#playdate #gamedev #indiedev #solodev
August 16, 2025 at 10:04 PM
This every day. Always have to interrupt my inner critic and just get on with creating stuff.

#solodev
ust make it exist first, you can make it good later
August 15, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Not many updates recently, I've been working on the Archonate quest. It's now largely written - at least a first draft. Now I'm playtesting and finding all the things that have broken along the way!

#gamedev #playdate #indiedev #solodev
August 11, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Just spent an hour refactoring how I reference things, now it's all with keys rather than names. This makes save files a lot more robust to minor changes in the game, and has helped procrastinate writing more quests for another night.
August 2, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Playing around with some portraits. I think I've got a style that I like that works with the feel of the game. There's a lot to do but this feels like a good direction.

#playdate #gamedev #indiedev #solodev
August 1, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Added stats to the game over screen, a nice thing to have - although it turns out adding it was 99% tedious text formatting!

#playdate #indiedev #solodev #gamedev
July 26, 2025 at 9:15 PM
First stab at a main menu for the game, and a logotype. Couldn't resisit throwing in a 'high res' spinning planet for good measure.

#playdate #gamedev #indiedev #solodev
July 25, 2025 at 9:26 PM
A big moment, the game has an ending, a credits screen and... a name!

#gamedev #playdate #indiedev #solodev
July 23, 2025 at 8:20 PM