Crankette’s impatience does mean you have a limited amount of time in a stage to overcome such obstacles and while at first, turning up around 4 o’clock is going to be a loss, later longer stages thankfully allow for more time despite it then becoming less clear how fast you need to be. As such, the way to avoid lethal collisions is by maneuvering the crank so that Crankin is in the optimal pose to avoid contact, and things like stopping to smell the flowers will cause him to bend down and allow threats like the birds to pass over harmlessly.Ĭrankin’s movement is the only thing impacted by the crank, the player needing to react to dangers that move in real time by finding where Crankin needs to be or how he needs to be positioned to keep him alive. However, by spinning the crank backwards, Crankin’s own movements will reverse like you were rewinding him, and if you stop spinning entirely, Crankin will stay in place even if that might leave him floating in midair. His path to Crankette often has aggressive wildlife like birds, pigs, and butterflies as well as dangers like lightning he’ll need to watch out for, but you lack any way to control Crankin besides the crank. You can’t stop him from doing these things, but in this side-scroller, such actions are not just distractions but also Crankin’s key to survival.
However, Crankin is easily distracted by things in his path, stopping to smell flowers, sitting down for quick drinks, and leaping up to hang onto metal bars. When you spin the Playdate’s crank forward, Crankin will begin his sprint, the speed of your turning determining how quickly he runs. Your part in supporting Crankin’s masochistic tendencies comes in the form of the titular time travel. While it can seem a little rough that Crankin constantly suffers at the hands of his date, the game’s official site does say that Crankin enjoys Crankette’s violent overreactions, although each stage does have a point where even Crankette won’t abide how tardy her date is if you don’t make it to her within a reasonable time frame. Despite her reactions though, she does seem to be willing to give him many more chances, the game’s 50 levels all contextualized as a new attempt at a date only for Crankin to sleep in until 3 once again. Crankette unfortunately is none too pleased with his tardiness, which she expresses in a few different, sometimes extreme ways like suplexing him or kicking him in the groin.
However, Crankin can’t help but sleep in, waking up at 3 on the dot and quickly sprinting out of his home to try and make it to Crankette to see if the date can be salvaged. Crankin appears to be a man made of toy blocks, but luckily he’s found a similarly composed lady named Crankette and managed to set up a date with her for 3 o’clock sharp. The title Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure does not refer to an adventure through time but instead a poor fellow’s unique method of movement. Keita Takahashi, designer of the delightful Katamari Damacy, created a game that is included with the Playdate’s first season of included titles, but while Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure definitely puts forth a creative way to utilize the crank, it can feel like the actual game design isn’t a great fit for it. At the time of writing, Pope’s game is still unreleased, but he wasn’t the only auteur who seemed excited by the specific style and control method the Playdate put forward. While the quirky little console that is the Playdate was on my radar for a while, what made me sit up and take notice of it was the confirmation that Lucas Pope, creator of such imaginative games as Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, was developing a game for it.
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