Um. Hi! What’s up?

OK maybe I should just get right to it.

RowBot Rally 2!!

AAAAAAHH CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?

It’s a sequel to my award-winning Playdate game — the really big one, about rabbits, and robots, and racing boats. Except this time, the stakes are higher, the boats are flyer, and the bunnies are…skyward?

OK, first off, first off. Watch the trailer:

…then go wishlist it, in Playdate Catalog:

Wishlist RowBot Rally 2 in Catalog

…and um, I can’t blame you if you’re a bit confused. Let’s break the topic down a bit.

What’s RowBot Rally?

RowBot Rally is a big game I made for the Playdate. In it, you play as a bunny, eager to anticipate in the Fish Bowl; a yearly boating competition that sparks excitement through the town. However, the nefarious Robo-X has been manufacturing so-called “RowBots”, which have been progressively taking over the entire competition.

Armed with an abandoned scrapyard RowBot of your own, you set out to prove that organic beings can still win the Fish Bowl! …After you get a little sidetracked, though, the goal changes. Have you got what it takes to track down the Shark Boss, stop Robo-X’s plans, and give the Fish Bowl back to the people?! …Well, you’ve gotta play the game to find out! ;P

I started working on the game in April of 2023, and (finally) launched it in December of 2024. Since then, a lot of people have loved it, a lot of people have…less than loved it; it’s won two Playdate Community Awards (and got nominated for a couple more!), and has sold nearly 1,400 copies to date. Thank you to everybody who’s supported the game so far!

Hey, if the game sounds appealing to you (and you’ve got a Playdate of your own), you can buy the game in Catalog right now!:

Buy RowBot Rally in Catalog

(In fact, to celebrate the big announcement today, the game’s currently having its biggest sale yet at the time of writing! Down from an MSRP of $15, you can pick it up for just $8(!) until 09.16.2026. It’s a perfect time to get into the game, ahead of the sequel!)

OK…now, the sequel?

RIGHT! The sequel.

…The sequel!!!

I don’t wanna get into too many specifics right now. But it plays a lot alike, except it feels muuuch nicer. It’s got a brand-new story, which — just like the first game — is told through exceedingly-cute, hand-animated cutscenes. There might also be a few fun surprises and extras sprinkled in along the way?

It’s definitely my biggest game project yet, by far. It’s a story that I’ve been itching to tell from the moment I finished off the first game, and I’m super excited to be able to tell it. This game, just like everything else I do, is 100% human-made (or, moth-made, at least) — there isn’t a single shred of AI in the art, the code, the ideation, or anything else.¹

What of “Project Pesto”?

You might have heard one of my many teasings about a “Project Pesto”² in the last year or so. That’s this! I started working on it in an official capacity last June — and frankly, I’m surprised I was able to keep a secret that long…well, an open secret, at least.

With thanks to everybody reporting from Team PESTO, who I was able to confide in while I had to keep this thing a big surprise. Double-triple-quadruple thanks to everybody at Panic, who’s already been providing immeasurable support to help the game out, and has been doing so since the beginning. The original game, nor this one, would be where it is today without them.

Alright! Got any release info?

I hope — hope! — to release the game some time next year. I’ve been absolutely eviscerating myself with prototypes lately — and MAGFest planning’s probably gonna make a mess of this final quarter LOL — but I’d love to make this game the best that it can possibly be.

It is, of course, planned for release on Playdate. Again, you can wishlist the game in Playdate Catalog, to be notified via e-mail if anything cool happens with it:

Wishlist RowBot Rally 2 in Catalog

I also plan to launch the game on personal computers as well! Full-color, native builds; for your Windows, macOS, or Linux computer. I’ve been slowly perfecting my Playdate/LÖVE2D cross-compilation bindings, and it’s shaping up to be something absolutely magical.

The itch.io page is live right now, and the game will be released over there day-and-date with the Playdate version:

RowBot Rally 2 on Itch.io

…you devoted blog readers will also be the first to know: I plan to put up a Steam page for the game, too, as soon as I can. I hope you look forward to wishlisting it there, as well!

OK!

Whew! That’s all I’ve got to talk about right now. I should do some more call-to-action, huh? Buy RowBot Rally on sale! Wishlist RowBot Rally 2 wherever you get your games! Wish me luck as I enter this death spiral of public development! AAAAHH!!

Seriously! Thank you all so much for stickin’ with me. It’s so surreal for me to be writing all this, publicly showing off this really cool thing that I’ve been keeping a secret for so long, atop all the other stuff I’ve been busy with in the last year. I really appreciate all of you folks who are absolutely amped for every new thing I release, and I don’t plan to stop making cool stuff any time soon.

Bye now! 🌿

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