I'm Not Allowed In That Store Anymore
A downloadable game
I’m Not Allowed in that Store Anymore is a short game for the Playdate gaming device which tasks you with helping strangers who were banned from various stores by making them disguises which allow them to sneak back in and do what they need to do.
This game is currently in development with an expected release date sometime before the end of 2025. Check out the demo and feel free to drop some feedback in the comments if you feel like it.
Credits
Art, Coding, Sound, and Design by Zach Hazard Vaupen
Clara-T Medium font by Ron Lent
How To Play
For Playdate installation instructions, please read Panic's official Playdate website.
For PC , Linux, and Mac, you will first need to install the Playdate Simulator software, which is free on the Playdate website.
Download
Comments
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This is a great proof of concept! I loved the art and the tone of it was really fun - half gross and grimy and half absurdist fun. I especially liked the shift in style to the very happy-go-lucky "Let's Make A Disguise!" screen play after all the visuals before and after, like playing Style Savvy in the middle of a Fallout game or something. Excited for the full release!
So glad you’re enjoying it so far! Maybe I should play Style Savvy for more inspiration lol. This definitely isn’t the last game based around character creator aesthetics that I’ll be making anyway.
I was wondering, am I'm sure more of this will come out in the full game: are there any mechanics behind the disguise choices? I succeeded but is it/will it be possible to fail? What determines it's chance of success? Some of the options seemed pretty wild if you were just trying to go into a store normally (like a guy coming in with a blindfold and ball gag might just get kicked out preemptively, lol) but with the others I wasn't sure if it was just vibes or something more (unless you want that to be hidden than don't feel like you have to explain it to me)!
Yeah! Since the demo is the first level I wanted it to be pretty easy and straightforward. There are currently 2 ways to fail in this first level (not including refusing to help), which I can spoil for you if you want (privately), but you practically have to go out of your way to get those endings. But for this first level I’ll just say as long as you make any disguise you will succeed.
I’m also planning on having some more obstacles walking through the parking lots for each progressive level.
I originally had some bigger ideas for the game that I’ve discovered are just not really possible with the engine I’m using. I’ll go into it more soon when I write up my first devlog about what I’ve learned so far, but I’ve had to scale back a lot of my ideas because I’m already not really using the engine for the types of games it’s designed for, but Pulp has otherwise been a really good engine for teaching me game programming and design concepts.
Heck yea! Looking forward to it. I've been considering doing something with the Playdate engine myself since I'd love a way to get my feet wet in video game design while keeping it do-able and bite size as a non-coder type.
Definitely give pulp a shot! It’s not hard to learn even with no coding experience, and there are a good amount of resources to help you learn quickly.
Cool.