The Skeleton Dance (movie for Playdate)

This is a version of the 1929 short film The Skeleton Dance you can watch on the Playdate. It was made to celebrate Public Domain Day 2025, and is a follow up to the Playdate versions of Should Married Men Go Home and The Haunted House. It's also the first in this series to feature audio (the first two were silent films).

It was made with Dave Hayden's excellent 1BitVideo encoder for MacOS. If you don't have MacOS then the online Playdate Video Encoder by HTeuMeuLeu is a good alternative!

CONTROLS:

A or B: Start the film and toggle between paused and playing.

LEFT or RIGHT: Go backward or forward one frame at a time (also pauses the film).

UP or DOWN: Jump back or ahead by a whole minute.

The CRANK: Spin the crank to manually control the playback - the faster you spin, the faster the film plays. Works forwards and backwards.

There's no quit option - just use the Playdate's menu button to return to the home screen when you're done.

INSTALLATION:

Sideload it onto your Playdate with these instructions.