Review: Mars After Midnight Shows What a Playdate Game Can Do 

Now that Panic’s Playdate is widely accessible and available, it feels like the new Lucas Pope game Mars After Midnight is here to show us what games on the system can do. The design, direction, and charming premise all come together to create what feels like a game that’s less stressful than Papers, Please, but just as artistically appealing as Return of the Obra Dinn.

Things begin with an overview of Mars. There’s the Earth colony, as well as a much larger Off-colony Settlement. After midnight, a standard Air Tight Shipping and Receiving area turns into the Off-colony Community Support Center. Each day, a certain event is held. So on day one, it’s a Cyclops Anger Management meeting. You man the event and make sure people who should be there are.

Much like Lucas Pope’s Papers, Please, Mars After Midnight is a Playdate game about paying attention to people and letting the right folks inside. Then, after they visit, you clean up and reorganize the refreshment table. Each night, a certain quota of people can visit. So on Cyclops Anger Management night, only beings with one eye and a sad expression can get into the event. Anyone who meets the criteria gets in, and you get credits for if they feel refreshed after possibly sampling the food and feel the meeting helped. 

Your goal is to eventually help all Martians with your meetings. After the Cyclops Anger Management tutorial session, you choose a session topic, the level of promotion, and the refreshments. You need to promote in the right areas to help affected people. Also, refreshments can encourage people to tip more, which means you can reach more people with promotional posters. This adds a management simulation element to the game.

Especially since the game builds on who you can help. For example, you can’t run the Gnat Knife Handling meeting unless you pay for a five dollar accessory for it. This is a one-time usage fee, so if you rerun that session, you need to pay that $5 Some meetings require cartridges you don’t own yet, so you need to hold other meetings first, earn money from them, then buy those cartridges if the vendor comes around during a shift. You can also buy other items, if you get enough funds, like recipes for different refreshments or a translator so you can know what the Martians are saying.

The nature of this means that Mars After Midnight can feel a bit tedious. However, I believe much of the reason why I felt this way is because I wasn’t playing the way Pope intended. All Playdate titles are structured in a such a way that you’re probably only supposed to play for 15 minutes or so at a time. For the sake of the review, I was playing for a few hours straight, going through various sessions. I imagine playing it as intended, in shorter bursts and perhaps at a rate of one session per day, would be fantastic.

Especially since Mars After Midnight basically blends elements of Lucas Pope games like of Papers, Please with the artistry of Return of the Obra Dinn in a wonderful way. This is a gorgeous game that does so much with its 1-bit design limitations. It’s an artistic marvel, just like Return of the Obra Dinn, with personable monster designs, fantastic use of audio and sound effects, and such a great job of creating a Mars colony that feels real and full with so little. Likewise, I love how it has this Papers, Please element, only without the same level of stress that makes me worry about if I’m doing the right thing and going to survive. It’s the epitome of charming.

Most importantly, after playing an array of other Playdate games, I feel like Mars After Midnight is the perfect example of what a game for the system should be. It can be played in short bursts or for an extended period lasting an hour or two. It makes use of the crank in an organic way that suits the situations, be it opening the flap to see who’s outside or trigger a broom to clear a table. The audio makes good use of the small speaker. The artistic direction makes the 1-bit restriction feel optimized. The only time I didn’t enjoy it is when I’d need to position my Martian’s tentacles just so to press the A and B buttons to jam a cartridge for a session into the machine.

Honestly, the only downside to Mars After Midnight for me is the knowledge that it won’t reach as many people as past Lucas Pope games due to the fact that this is likely going to be referenced as the signature Playdate game of 2024. This is such a pleasant and entertaining game that makes the most of the platform’s unique features. I love what it does and feel it is probably the signature game for the system now that it is here.

Mars After Midnight is available for the Playdate.