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I stayed up way too late tonight hunting and hunting for this.  I remember it becasue I had it, and the internet is omniscient so the info *must* exist.  My Red Bull fueled persistence paid off.  After three hours of hunting, the word "prototoasters" popped to mind.  That's what that 1-Bit toasters saver was called.  Armed with that keyword I soon found an interview with After Dark creator Jack Eastman where he says Prototoasters was a module in After Dark 4.0 based on his original prototype artwork.  Interview is here.

Then I found another page with images of both the prototoasters and the final, more familiar ones.  Both in 1-Bit. Hopefully you can either chase down an old copy of After Dark 4 or use the 1-Bit images to create sprites.  The images show the wings in both the up and down positions.

The prototoasters (and flying toast) in the 1-Bit image look exactly like the Prototoaster screensaver (except in After Dark they were DOS green in keeping with Berkeley Systems' motto "Agressively Stupid."  :)


EDIT: After writing this I noticed that my second link is to ⌘GET INFO, the web site of gingerbeardman, who's developed several Playdate games (Daily Driver, Bender, Sparrow Solitaire, Circular, among others).  He wrote at length about Tomoya Ikeda, the artist who created the 1-bit toaster artwork based onEastman's prototyping.  So it stands to reason gingerbeardman would be on board with making the toasters fly on the Playdate via Stars of the Screen.  Perhaps he could be of assistance.  

Omg, this is so good! I’ll have a free update some time in October. And I hope I’ll be able to capture some magic of Flying Toasters without completely ripping them off :) Also wow, it’s great to find out how people in the playdate community are very cool even beyond their pd apps.

(Sorry for a belated reply, I fell ill with covid right after my last message.)

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Yayy!!! Go toasters!! This makes my day (and I’ve already had an unusually good day)!!!


I’m glad you’re recovering, I know what you just went through. I caught a rough case of it in August and very nearly required hospitalization. Suffering covid is no joke.   

I think you might like today’s update :-) (You need to have the secret levels unlocked.)

(More specific devlog will follow soon.)

It’s completely unrelated, but some of the humor and attention to detail found in Ikeda’s illustrations reminded me of another japanese artist mostly unknown in the West, Tiger Tateishi (I tried to create a Wikipedia page once and it got removed, but since then I got two of his books as a present from my wife… so next time it will be properly sourced :D).

Wholeheartedly recommended — here’s a b&w example https://samim.io/p/2021-01-14-illustrations-by-tiger-tateishi-1941-1998/, but there’s a lot more accessible via google images.

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Just noticed your comment today about Tiger Tateishi.  Fascinating artist.  Did you notice that he bears a strong resemblance to Bruce Lee. Hmm...

And I now get your "Would You Please Provide Attribution Podcast" quip.