{"id":2395,"date":"2022-05-08T19:59:06","date_gmt":"2022-05-08T23:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rexfeng.com\/blog\/?p=2395"},"modified":"2022-05-08T20:07:05","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T00:07:05","slug":"setting-up-your-mac-to-create-a-playdate-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rexfeng.com\/blog\/2022\/05\/setting-up-your-mac-to-create-a-playdate-app\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting up your Mac to create a Playdate app"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This guide is written on macOS Monterey (v12.3).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"playdate

Here are instructions on setting up & running the most barebones<\/strong> app possible on macOS. There are probably better ways to do this, but here’s one way that works for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Download & install the SDK via https:\/\/play.date\/dev\/<\/a>

    <\/li>
  2. Update your ~\/.zshrc<\/strong><\/code> file with the following line:

    export PLAYDATE_SDK_PATH=\/Users\/rex\/Developer\/PlaydateSDK<\/code> <\/strong>

    Obviously you want to replace “rex” with your username.

    <\/li>
  3. Create a new folder for your project (anywhere)
    mkdir playdate_hello_world<\/code>
    cd playdate_hello_world<\/code>
    <\/strong>
    <\/li>
  4. Create a VS Code folder & settings file
    mkdir .vscode
    touch .vscode\/settings.json<\/code>
    <\/strong>
    <\/li>
  5. Put the following into your new settings.json file. Make sure to replace the 2 instances of “rex” with your username

    {
    \"Lua.runtime.version\": \"Lua 5.4\",
    <\/code>\"Lua.diagnostics.disable\": [
    <\/code> \"undefined-global\",
    <\/code><\/code>\"lowercase-global\"
    <\/code>],
    <\/code>\"Lua.diagnostics.globals\": [
    <\/code>\"playdate\",
    <\/code><\/code>\"import\"
    <\/code>],
    <\/code>\"Lua.runtime.nonstandardSymbol\": [
    <\/code>\"+=\",
    <\/code>\"-=\",
    <\/code>\"*=\",
    <\/code>\"\/=\"
    <\/code>],
    <\/code>\"Lua.workspace.library\": [
    <\/code> \"\/Users\/rex\/Developer\/PlaydateSDK\/CoreLibs\"
    <\/code>],
    <\/code>\"Lua.workspace.preloadFileSize\": 1000,
    <\/code>\"playdate.sdkPath\": \"\/Users\/rex\/Developer\/PlaydateSDK\"
    }<\/strong><\/code>

    (Apologies for the formatting. WordPress & code doesn’t mix well). You can copy & paste above (and make sure to replace the 2 “rex”s)

    <\/li>
  6. Create a simple file for your app
    mkdir source
    touch source\/main.lua
    <\/strong><\/code>
    Copy the following into main.lua:

    import \"CoreLibs\/object\"
    import \"CoreLibs\/graphics\"
    import \"CoreLibs\/sprites\"
    import \"CoreLibs\/timer\"

    function playdate.update()
    print \"Hello world\"
    end<\/code>
    <\/strong>
    Obviously this code does not do very much. It’s super, super basic, but it compiles & runs!

    <\/li>
  7. Install the following VS Code extensions (sumneko.lua, jep-a.lua-plus, and Orta.playdate)

    <\/li>
  8. Run your app on the Playdate Simulator with VS Code.

    Press Cmd + Shift + P and select & run [Run app in Playdate simulator]

    <\/li>
  9. That’s it! Your app is now running on the Playdate sim. You can view print statements by using Window > Console.
    <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    For more comprehensive details, refer to the SDK documentation: https:\/\/sdk.play.date\/1.10.0\/<\/a>

    For the sample files discussed here, see repo:     https:\/\/github.com\/xta\/playdate_hello_world<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This guide is written on macOS Monterey (v12.3). Here are instructions on setting up & running the most barebones app possible on macOS. There are probably better ways to do this, but here’s one way that works for me. Download & install the SDK via https:\/\/play.date\/dev\/ Update your ~\/.zshrc file with the following line: export […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1117,1490,1192,1489,1085],"class_list":["post-2395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","tag-dev","tag-gamedev","tag-games-2","tag-playdate","tag-simulator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rexfeng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rexfeng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rexfeng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rexfeng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rexfeng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2395"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.rexfeng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2408,"href":"https:\/\/www.rexfeng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395\/revisions\/2408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rexfeng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rexfeng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rexfeng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}