The Playdate is a small handheld console with a dedicated fanbase. Among them is [Cristina Ramos], who recently decided to try and push the limits of the hardware by implementing a 3D renderer for the platform.
[Cristina] began by implementing a raycaster. This is a very simple way to do 3D on limited hardware, and this technique was used by some early games like Wolfenstein 3D. However, for [Cristina], it was more a test to get an idea of the performance limitations of the Playdate. After getting her feet wet with that, she stepped up to implementing a renderer that relied on binary space partitioning, which could load map files in the same format used by the classic Quake engine. There was naturally plenty of work to do to handle things like texture mapping and lighting, too, particularly given the vagaries of working with the Playdate’s 1-bit monochrome screen. Using a simplistic, cel-shaded like approach for textures gave things a good look while preserving visual readability on the low-resolution screen.
The 3D engine and associated game remain a work in progress for [Cristina] — we look forward to seeing where the project goes next. We’ve seen similar projects on resource-limited platforms before, too.
I was told you couldn't do 3D on the Playdate, so I did it.Then I was told there was no way I could create exterior levels like those in Mirror's Edge, so I proved them wrong again.
— Cristina Ramos (@saffroncr.bsky.social) 2026-07-22T08:57:09.594Z
Next up voxels.
168MHz CPU with FPU and 16 MB of RAM. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t able to run Doom.
thats more horsepower than i had when quake came out.
It does indeed run doom.
https://playdate-wiki.com/wiki/PlayDOOM
Yeah and the swivel fires the chain gun.
😑
Reminds me of the awesome Return of the Obra Dinn, by Lucas Pope. The author did an impressive job investigating many dithering approaches and implemented several interesting tricks in the engine, like being able to apply a different dithering technique to different types of objects. There’s a lot of work in there you might not notice on a playthrough!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILolesm8kFY
Too bad there’s no native port to Atari ST, IBM PC with Hercules graphics, IBM PS/2 with MCGA or Olivetti M24 (AT&T 6300).
They had hi-res monochrome graphics that were rarely being fully utilized.
the drawing is beautiful tbh…
That kind of dithering (ordered/bayer etc) works better on a CRT.
If the dithering was hi-res (very fine dots), it would also be usable on print media (such as mangas).
i see were deleting comments again.
You can never be sure, deleting comments or blown database index.
Stop writing comments that are off topic and targeting minorities and they won’t be.
Don’t hate sodomites….
Release your anger and turn them into speedbumps 😛
It’s not off topic when the literal mission statement of the comapny MAKES it front and center. If you don’t want people talking about something, don’t make it your whole identity. And don’t expect people to alk away when you care more about “representation” than quality. People want entertainment from their games. They don’t from where it comes unless/until you shove it in their face.
*walk away
*care from where it comes
Thsi site REALLY needs an edit function.
This is an article about an implementation of 3D on an otherwise non-3D handheld console. Unless I’m missing something and Cristina Ramos made a 3D game for the express purpose of empowering women, complaining about whatever it is you’re complaining about makes as much sense as getting upset at Clive Sinclair’s politics when someone writes a cool program for the ZX Spectrum.
First of all, Cristina’s politics – as per her own posts elsewhere – line up perfectly with that of the hardware developer, but that is neither here nor there. My issue here wasn’t with her. The article is about the hardware as much as it is the software, therefore I am well within my Rights to criticize the hardware and it’s developers. If you don’t like it, so what? None of us are required to approve of everything that everybody says. And removing comments that criticize the hardware about which the article is about only serves to show how thin skinned TodayPeople really are.
Been watching Cristinas work for a while now, its genuinely super impressive!
I thought the engine was using a Quake-like system with actual polygons and not raycasting though? All the stuff that was shown on twitter used one of the quake editors to make maps!
Just because you use a quake map editor doesn’t mean you’re forced to use a quake-style renderer, much like a text editor doesn’t really care what language you’re writing in it.
(Of course that’s not entirely true, but it’s far easier to ingest the quake map format and convert it to whatever it is you actually need than it is to write a whole custom editor from scratch.)