Hi everybody. I'm Hunter, the developer of the game. I saw an uptick in sales over the past few hours and managed to trace it back here.<p>So pleasantly surprised to see Zero Zero on HN! Thank you so much for the support and I hope all you Playdate owners out there enjoy the game!!
Many, many years ago (20+ eek) I worked on a 3D simulator for the New York Subway (even though we were based near London, UK). They were upgrading it from the legacy video based system to an interactive 3D sim.<p>There was something deeply fulfilling about having the legacy videos running side by side with the realtime 3D view and having them almost perfectly in sync.<p>We were running on inhouse designed and built, industrialised graphics cards, using 3DFX chips. It was a magical time to be involved with the cutting edge of 3D graphics as the industry tipped from Silicon Graphics and Evans & Sutherland "big iron" to consumer hardware.
Development log here:<p><a href="https://devforum.play.date/t/zero-zero-perfect-stop-train-sim/6669" rel="nofollow">https://devforum.play.date/t/zero-zero-perfect-stop-train-si...</a><p>Looks like the game was pseudo-3D up until 2023, but sometime before 2024-05-19 they switched to a video-based approach.
I've been following development of a 3D racing game for the Playdate - <a href="https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@2DArray/113070310047102734" rel="nofollow">https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@2DArray/113070310047102734</a>. The console is presented as being 2D-centric, but I'm curious to see what cream-of-the-crop graphical titles come out for the system within the next few years, it feels like it's really gaining steam.
Don't have a Playdate, but I'm really enjoying the soundtrack (<a href="https://hunty.bandcamp.com/album/zero-zero-perfect-stop-original-soundtrack" rel="nofollow">https://hunty.bandcamp.com/album/zero-zero-perfect-stop-orig...</a>). The instruments for the departure melodies are perfect -- they sound just like the Tokyo metro!
This immediately reminded of Cab Ride for Pico-8 which was shared here on HN once <a href="https://powersaurus.itch.io/cab-ride" rel="nofollow">https://powersaurus.itch.io/cab-ride</a>
Aw.<p>Check out BVE and OpenBVE, the train simulators. Exactly the same problem - stop precisely at the stations and keep to schedule. Subways and railroads in Japan, the US, and Korea are modeled in great detail.
Techmoan has made some videos on similar games on dedicated consoles, really enjoyed those.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do-ZBPWhhbQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do-ZBPWhhbQ</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VzT2e8rvY0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VzT2e8rvY0</a>
Sega CD used this technique a lot to fake 3D environments. Silo here is a great example of a game that looks like it could be a real time 3D game, but it cleverly interweaves FMV with sprites.