Mars After Midnight

It's so infinitely easy to write off the Playdate as an irrelevant gadget, another so-called "walled garden" marketed on the basis of being an intentional anachronism that runs out of games faster than you can say "hipster". It may well be that Panic's unique Game Boy-like handheld console will ultimately fail, but so far the signs are pointing in a different direction, as Panic is selling them faster than they can make them, and they've even managed to attract some pretty big developers into the fold.

Amongst these is Lucas Pope, who you may know as the man behind Papers, Please and Return of the Obrah Dinn - indie games, yes, but high-profile ones that have undoubtedly grabbed headlines, reviews and publicity from key media outlets and the wider gaming population. His latest game is a direct exclusive to Playdate. It's called Mars after Midnight, and while it's intentionally simple, as all Playdate games are, it's certainly worth the hype.

It's worth reading our Playdate review to become a little more aware of the limitations of the form itself. These are simple little games, but Pope still finds a way to introduce the bizarre, the innovative and the charming. The long and short of it is; you're the organiser and doorman of a series of support groups on Mars. There's the posh colony where the rich live, and then there's the slums, and this is where you'll help Martians come together and find common ground by organising various meetings for the inhabitants. One-eyed Martians may need to talk and share experiences - well, you'll organise a meeting, set out refreshments and ultimately ensure that only those with one eye really do get through the door. As each evening progresses, it's then simply a matter of opening the little peephole on the door, identifying the right guests and maintaining the refreshments provided. You'll make a bit of money that can be used to host new meetings, advertise them in the right neighbourhoods and buy new gadgets to help you separate the real guests.

It's a bizarre but mechanically simple premise, and apart from a few upgrades here and there, the game doesn't change much over the hours you spend with it. It's always easy to pick up, and in the same way that Snake was on Nokia mobiles so many years ago, it's also hard to put down.

Playdate has no colours, but Pope makes every environment ooze personality thanks to bizarre character models and magnificent choreography and design. In the same way that Pixar often manages to bring a location to life with relatively few establishing shots, you'll quickly find yourself in the role of... well, the organiser of those support group meetings on a colony on Mars.

It's a simple gameplay loop though, no doubt about it. You set up the next night's meeting, choose the zones you want to advertise it to ensure the right guests turn up, choose the refreshments, and then it's simply a case of letting the right people in, Papers, Please style. But if Playdate proves anything, it's that you can come up with exciting gameplay structures that are reliably simple, especially if they're easy to pick up and easy to put down. Pope pulls it off here with finesse, so even though the game doesn't really do much more than you're shown in the first five minutes, it's not really necessary.

And then again. I might have wished for a single more layer of interaction. Maybe it would have been exciting to have to organise the room in a certain way depending on which guests were coming that night, or maybe it could also be part of the regular loop to purchase and maintain. I'm not necessarily asking for more content for content's sake, but it's a bit of a stretch.

I'll be playing more on my Playdate, and I'm looking forward to it after sinking my teeth into Mars after Midnight. Even more than that, this is a testament to Pope's skill, because while Playdate development is all about creativity within a limited framework, his talent is so easy to see here.