Publishing your game in Catalog

Any Playdate developer is welcome to submit their finished Playdate game to Catalog, our curated selection of games. If your game is accepted for inclusion in Catalog, here are some tips for making sure it’s presented well to our players.

Art Assets

Once you have access to the Catalog tools for developers, you can edit assets using the Catalog Assets page for your game. This is where you upload art for the Catalog website, and for the Catalog app on Playdate.

The following graphic assets are needed for your Catalog listing:

Asset	Used in	Format
Catalog, billboard size	Largest game card in Catalog layout	380 × 180px, 1-bit PNG, no alpha
Catalog, wide size	Wide game card in Catalog layout	380 × 90px, 1-bit PNG, no alpha
Catalog, small size	Small, half-a-screen wide card in Catalog layout	185 × 90px, 1-bit PNG, no alpha
Catalog, header	Header of game page in Catalog app	400 × 208px, 1-bit PNG, no alpha
Website, feature size	Header of your game’s webpage; also the largest size of promotional card on group webpages. You may include the game’s name in the image or not; the name or title will also be shown below your feature art.	1600 × 960 px, PNG, alpha OK
Website, wide size	Wide, banner-like image for group webpages	1600 × 480px, PNG, alpha OK
Website, small size	Half-a-column wide image	800 × 480px PNG, alpha OK
Website, header	Wordmark or title treatment. Make sure the image is legible as this will replace the game’s name on the webpage.	1200 × 400px PNG, alpha OK

It’s up to you how you put together these assets, but here’s what we’ve found to work well:

Playdate Website Assets

You can use full-color images on our website, and doing so might make your game stand out better. Think of these assets as “box art” for games; it’s ok for them to be fantastical or aspirational, rather than reflecting the actual look of your game on Playdate.

Website art for the game Sparrow Solitaire

It’s often a good idea to include your game’s name in the assets. If you think your game’s branding is strong enough, or you prefer a more mysterious mood, you can leave the title out—we will usually show it under your game’s art.

Games with and without their title in the art assets

We ask for several asset formats (large, small, wide) because we find that an interesting, varied layout for Catalog is more fun to browse. It’s best to provide all these formats, since we might change the layout and feature your game in a different way.

Catalog App Assets

The Catalog app will, for obvious reasons, show 1-bit art, just like your game.

Double-check that your game’s art looks good on the Catalog app background. The template files we provide on the Catalog Assets form will help with this. For instance, some dither-pattern backgrounds will interact oddly with the app’s own background, so they should be avoided.
In the smaller asset sizes here, you won’t have a lot of pixels to work with, so think about how to distill your game’s idea to its essence. Find an image that will be compelling and descriptive, even when tiny.

Screenshots

Static screenshots and animated GIFs are a great way to show off your game and for people to get a better idea on what the gameplay is like.

We require at least one static PNG/GIF file and one animated GIF screenshot uploaded for your page, but we recommend having around 4 screenshots total.

Your game screenshots should be Playdate-native: 400 x 240 px, 1-bit, black and white.
It’s best to capture these in the Playdate Simulator, with the Simulate Device Appearance option turned off. Having this option enabled would generate gray-colored screenshots and GIFs. If you already have gray-colored screenshots, please convert them to pure black and white before uploading.

Animated GIFs

Try to keep these under ten seconds in length; larger files will take longer to download on Playdate.
Playdate Mirror captures video, which is handy for sharing on social media. However, it’s not ideal for creating screenshots for your Catalog page; even if you convert these to GIF, it will be done lossily, with a noticeable drop in quality.

Primary and Secondary Category

You will need to select a Primary category that most accurately describes your title, from the provided list of categories or genres. You may also choose an additional category. This information will be used as a way to categorize your title on Catalog and include it in one of the category/genre pages.

Colors

You can specify a few custom colors to match the page to your game’s branding. Please make sure that your color combinations are legible; especially the color of text on buttons, and the color of links against the page background.

Previewing Your Game

The Catalog Asset form will let you preview your game on our website. It’s a good idea to check that things look the way you expected them to.