Cranked up is a cute, short, and fun game. The game starts off with a well-done cut scene to briefly explain what is going on in the game. You are a donut, whose coffee cup was rudely taken away by a pineapple slice that is invading the earth on a pizza shooting mother ship. For some reason, the pineapple has it out for you and wants to keep your relaxing cup of coffee away from you. To save it you strap some fireworks on and roll into action.
The animations and soundtrack are silly and will put you in a good mood. The feel of the game is innocently fun, and there is plenty to do once you beat the game the first time around.
I was excited to play the “floor is lava” mode with my daughter, who is currently obsessed with playing the floor is lava any time she can. My excitement was extinguished when I attempted to play the game mode, as I was left with a short, repetitive loop playing over and over in my head. I turned the game off after only a few stages of the mode because I was so annoyed.
This is a simple 3D side scroller with the only movement being rolling left or right, stopping, and jumping. The gameplay, while cute and entertaining, is fairly easy and fosters map exploration to find secrets. The background always has interesting things going on which can entertain on its own.
The most appealing thing about this game for me is its very kid-friendly; there are no innuendos, gore, or scary creatures so I don’t have to worry about this game exposing my toddler, who watches me play video games, to anything I don’t want her to see.
Overall:
Cranked Up is worth the price of $9.99. As an indie game, it has a feeling of creative passion that went into creating it that you just don’t get from triple-A titles anymore. The game has a lot of levels, but because they are beaten so quickly it doesn’t feel like there is. To remedy this, I would like to see steam workshop compatibility and more levels added AFTER they change the music on the “floor is lava” mode.
Cranked Up is available on Steam for $9.99.
