This here is the second part of our list of developers we’d love to see on Panic’s upcoming Playdate console. Our first two picks were West of Loathing developer Asymmetric and Flow, Flower, and Journey developer thatgamecompany. These next two are slightly, well, stranger, though still totally suited to the Playdate’s niche appeal.

Lucas Pope

So far, both the Playdate’s actual line-up and my proposed line-up have been full of developers who specialise mostly in funny, family-friendly games. I figure we need to level that out a bit by throwing in someone like Lucas Pope, the man behind Papers, Please and last year’s Return of the Obra Dinn.

His games are enjoyable puzzlers that almost always pack an emotional punch. They’re grim, more often than not, and somehow make playing as an insurance assessor or an immigration officer absolutely enthralling. For sure, he’s the guy to get if you want to agonise over every turn of that cute little crank.

SWERY65 (White Owls Inc.)

Continuing the trend of creatives who don’t exactly make kid-friendly games, I’d be interested to see cult developer SWERY65 and his team at White Owls Inc. bring their unique brand of touching storytelling and macabre humour to the Playdate.

SWERY has already shown his prowess at dealing with strange tech with the Kinect title D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die, so I’m sure he’d be able to work wonders with the Playdate’s stripped-back design and, again, that wonderful crank.