Playdate marketplace Catalog expands to over 100 titles

Panic has added another batch of titles to Playdate marketplace Catalog, meaning there are now over 100 titles on the digital storefront.

It's a notable milestone for Panic's crankable handheld, which earlier this year beat internal sales expectations after selling over 53,000 units in one year.

Catalog launched back in April and is a curated digital storefront overseen by Panic. Although there are other ways to launch Playdate titles (side-loading is possible), Catalog allows developers to make their way onto the device through an official channel.

Developers can submit their titles for Catalog consideration through a developer form, but Panic gets the final say on what ultimately appears on the marketplace. Developers who do make it onto the storefront must be willing to provide long-term support.

The marketplace launched with a mixture of 16 apps and games, including 11 brand new releases. Panic commemorated the occasion by adding two of those titles, Recommendation Dog!!! and Reel Steel, to Playdate's Season One roster for free.

The latest batch of games includes Ursidae-themed pint-pouring simulator, Root Bear; audio reactive vizualiser, ljudbilden; and atmospheric short-form horror title, Nightingale.

The success of Catalog seem to have taken Panic by surprise, with head of special projects Greg Maletic explaining the company was unsure if developers would rally behind the teeny yellow machine.

"When we started Playdate, we were not even sure any other developers would be intrested in making games for our handheld. Hitting 100 titles on Catalog about a year after launch is heartening," said Maletic.

If you're curious to learn more about Playdate, you can check out our review of the console right here. For insights into the world of Playdate development, why not tuck into our extensive interview with Recommendation Dog!!! and Reel Steel co-developer Sweet Baby or pore over our wider collection of Playdate-focused deep dives, postmortems, and interviews.