Celeste
Image: Maddy Makes Games

A Playdate developer named hteumeuleu has ported over Maddy Makes Games' critically acclaimed platformer Celeste to Panic's crank-based handheld. This unofficial version of the game is based on "Celeste Classic" for the PICO-8 and is a faithful recreation, except for three notable changes.

First off, the game is only available in black and white, per the console's limitations, so elements in the scenery have an added outline to make them more readable. The game is also rendered at 256x240 as opposed to 128x128, though it's possible to play at the original resolution by disabling fullscreen mode. Perhaps the most interesting change, however, is the addition of an assist mode. This lets players tailor the difficulty of the gameplay, with invincibility and speed options, level skips, and the ability to enable infinite dashing.

The PR/Marketing manager at Popagenda.co (the company that handles the PR for the Playdate device) shared the below video of the port in action:

You can download the game on itch.io or GitHub. The game is free, but you can voluntarily donate to hteumeuleu if you want to support their future work. In order to play the game, you will either need to sideload it to your device or use the Playdate Simulator on Windows, macOS, or Linux.

On itch.io, hteumeuleu also has two other interesting programs you can check out too, including a video player called Playorama, and a port of the popular puzzle game 2048.

[source hteumeuleu.itch.io]