Two Playdate games about cheese, and spooky campfire stories with a twist

37 minutes ago7 min read

After a bit of a hiatus from my Playdate—I took a breather following Season Two and the gloriously bizarre trip that was *Blippo+*—I finally dusted off that little yellow rectangle this week and jumped back into its wonderfully weird ecosystem. And honestly, what better way to re-acclimate than with a double feature of games about cheese? I’m not even kidding.*Cheese 'n Crackers* and *Say When!* both recently dropped on the Playdate Catalog, and while they share a dairy-centric theme, they play like they’re from entirely different universes. As a bonus, completely unrelated to fromage, I also snagged *Ware-wolf Campfire Stories*, a free gem on itch.io that’s less a single game and more a curated bundle of over a dozen bite-sized spooky experiences. Let’s crank this thing up.First, *Cheese 'n Crackers* from Scenic Route Software. This is the ultimate chill-out game, the kind of experience you fire up with a podcast in the background.It’s essentially an infinite, digital charcuterie board. You’ve got a sprawling selection of meats, cheeses, spreads, spices, veggies, fruits, and every cracker or bread base you could possibly imagine.Your job is to assemble the perfect little bites for a rotating cast of customers, each with their own specific—and sometimes finicky—preferences. You’ve got groups like the Speed Daters or Grandma’s Bridge Club, and they’ll come with a list of guidelines: favorite flavors, dietary restrictions, or straight-up aversions to certain tastes.The core loop is super intuitive—drag and drop toppings onto a base—but there’s a surprising depth for the min-maxers out there. Specific ingredient combos net you more points, and you really have to read the descriptions of each food item to figure out the meta.Or, you can do what I did and just pull up the legendary *Cheese 'n Crackers* Compatibility Spreadsheet. Yes, someone actually made a full-blown, intimidatingly detailed Google Sheet that maps out every optimal pairing.It’s a beautiful, slightly unhinged monument to gaming obsession. The game isn't a frantic race against the clock, though; toppings will eventually go bad if left out, but the pressure is low, letting you experiment at your own pace.Of course, for the leaderboard grinders, there are global scores to chase, turning this peaceful picnic into a competitive sport. Then we have *Say When!* from Smashtoad Studios, which is basically the chaotic, high-stress flip side of the cheese coin.If *Cheese 'n Crackers* is a relaxing afternoon, *Say When!* is a frantic Friday night shift at a packed restaurant where everyone is inexplicably obsessed with grated cheese. The structure will feel familiar to fans of *Root Bear*; you're dealing with a non-stop parade of patrons, but your sole task is to grate the perfect amount of cheese onto their dishes using the Playdate's iconic crank.The twist, and the source of all the beautiful frustration, is right there in the title. They will *not* say 'when.' Your customers just sit there, staring at you with their weird little faces, and you have to decipher their unique, subtle tells to know when to stop cranking. A twitch of a mustache, a slight eyebrow raise, a subtle shift in posture—these are your only guides.There's a customer satisfaction meter at the top that plummets if you under-serve, over-serve, or just move too slowly. Let it hit zero, and you're fired.After each shift, you get to pick a modifier to help you out, like making the boss less of a pain or giving the satisfaction meter a bit more leeway. And just when you think you've got the rhythm down, a mini-game will shatter the flow—like suddenly having to perform the Heimlich maneuver on a choking diner.It’s fast, it’s silly, it’s incredibly moreish, and it perfectly leverages the Playdate's unique hardware in a way that feels both novel and punishingly fun. Now, for our non-cheesy palate cleanser: *Ware-wolf Campfire Stories*.This is a fantastic reminder that some of the coolest Playdate experiences live outside the official Catalog. It’s a collaborative project from 15 developer teams—including the minds behind stuff like *Off-Planet Dreams* and *Voidblazers*—and it’s free on itch.io. The premise is genius: five kids are sitting around a campfire with their counselor telling spooky stories, and each story launches a separate, self-contained mini-game.You win or lose these tiny adventures, and your performance has consequences within the overarching narrative frame. It’s a killer format that offers a rapid-fire tour of different genres and art styles on the platform.You’ll jump from a game about dodging ghosts to another about fending off skeletal hordes, each lasting just a few minutes. It’s a perfect sampler platter, a way to discover new developers and get a quick hit of that distinctive Playdate charm without a major time commitment.Diving back into this ecosystem with these three titles was a blast. It reaffirms why the Playdate is such a special device; it’s a haven for quirky, creative, and deeply personal game design that you just don’t find elsewhere. Whether you're meticulously crafting the perfect snack, sweating through a cheese-grating crisis, or bouncing between spooky campfire tales, the experience is always uniquely tactile and wonderfully human.

#Playdate

#gaming

#video games

#indie games

#cheese

#campfire stories

#editorial picks news

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