CranKest

Crank the rim. Zap the swarm. Ride the warp.

CranKest is a crank-powered tube shooter built for Playdate. Creatures climb the walls of a wireframe well toward your claw -- spin the crank to whip around the rim, fire down the lanes, and flick one lane aside when a flipper cartwheels up to grab you. Clear the well and you ride the warp down through it, threading the spikes you left behind, into the next of sixteen twisting shapes. The arcade's spinner was made for a crank. How deep can you ride?

Features

• Crank-driven rim running -- one 55-degree flick is exactly one lane, the way Playdate was meant to be played
• Sixteen wells -- circles, squares, stars, staircases and open ribbons, each fought differently, looping harder each cycle
• A bestiary that escalates -- flippers that cartwheel along the rim, tankers that split, spikers that mine the lanes, and worse from level 11
• The superzapper -- two charges per level: one clears the screen, the second picks off your nearest regret
• Ride the warp -- level clears are flown, not watched: steer down the tube past the spikes, shooting as you go
• High score tracking -- your deepest run is saved between sessions
• Clean 1-bit vector aesthetic designed for Playdate's crisp black-and-white screen

Controls

• Crank: Move around the rim
• D-pad Left/Right: Move (alternative)
• A button: Fire
• B button: Superzapper

Credits

CranKest is an original Playdate game, made as an homage to Dave Theurer's arcade classic Tempest (Atari, 1981) -- the game whose rotary spinner the Playdate crank was born to reincarnate. Designed from public documentation; all code and art original.

How to Install on Playdate

1. Download the .pdx.zip file from this page
2. Go to play.date/account/sideload in your browser
3. Sign in with your Playdate account
4. Upload the .pdx.zip file
5. The game will appear on your Playdate!

Requires a Playdate console to play.