Thanks to BBlack Studio for sending us a review copy!

Cranked Up is a silly little platformer from BBlack Studio that offers up a neat slice of challenge. It’s not quite a precision platformer, and it’s not quite a physics platformer, but it’s something in between the two that offers up a neat set of levels.

An alien pineapple has fired pizzas at some nondescript town, knocking out the lone police officer, and kidnapping a mug of coffee. It’s up to a lone animal-themed donut to roll its way through 50 levels with the power of fireworks-turned-rocket-boosters. The most important thing you need to know about the story here is that pineapple on pizza is an abomination, and Hawaiian pizza is finally getting the villain treatment it deserves.

The standard control scheme has you moving left, right, or jumping. It’s very simple and very straightforward. Thematically, movement is done by firing one of the two rockets strapped to your donut to make it roll or jump. Using the left and right movement simultaneously results in braking, bringing your donut to an immediate stop. There is also a physics aspect to moving about. Outside of braking, your donut will continue to roll about once you release the controls, and its momentum is also affected by the angles of surfaces. Bumping, crashing, and colliding into environmental objects will impact your donut much like you’d expect it to in real life. Timing your jumps just after you start to roll off an edge results in a bit of extra distance and height. Jumping at the moment you land also rewards you with extra height and speed, a mechanic that mimics the triple jump from the New Super Mario games. The only issues I took with the controls was the lack of camera controls. The default camera is fairly close in, making it hard to see to the bottom of a lot of pits or to see the other side of a long jump, and this problem is amplified whenever you change direction. The main saving grace is that each level is so short that it becomes easy to memorize the layout.

The 50 levels in Cranked Up are all fairly short, and can all be completed in a minute or two each. In Adventure mode, each level has three sugar bags that can be collected for use in unlocking new skins for your donut. Chrono mode challenges you to finish faster and comes with a leaderboard to compete on, although I was not able to see anything on the leaderboard. Once you finish the all the levels, you’ll unlock The Floor is Lava mode, which is exactly what it says on the tin, with some minor level changes to accommodate the twist. Much of the level design is fairly generic, and the difficulty curve is quite reasonable over the three or four hours you’ll need to complete the game. If you’re looking for truly original designs, you won’t find them here. Don’t let that apparent lack of creativity turn you off however, because Challenge Mode necessitates simple designs.

In Challenge Mode, the controls themselves become an obstacle. Do you enjoy games such as QWOP or Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy? Are you aware that walking – a “simple” action we take for granted – is actually an amazingly complicated ballet of physics and calculus equations that our brains <i>just lazily solve</i> without a second thought? If you answered yes to either question, this is where you belong. In this mode, instead of moving left and right, each input is tied to one of the rocket boosters attached to your donut and always fires downward. As your donut rotates, you’ll have to account for the physics involved, or you’ll end up going backwards. It’s a real struggle to keep track of the rockets as they constantly invert themselves. It’s a simple and intuitive change that transforms everything you know about the game. After failing to wrap your head around the new controls, it starts to make sense why the levels are all so simple.

The charmingly offbeat aesthetics keep things light as you roll and bounce your way through Cranked Up. Objects bounce and react, and the visual effects of jumping around lend weight to the physics of the game. The textures are quite plain in a good way, meaning that everything is easy to see. Gruff voices hum and haw to the soundtrack, lending to the random quirkiness of going to all this effort just to save a coffee mug.

Morally, the game is almost perfectly clean. The only semblance of violence is that touching electrical hazards or lava floors knocks your donut into the camera in a cartoonish manner. The game is devoid of any foul language, sexual content, or occult theme. There are billboards that utilise the “policemen eating donuts” stereotype, but given the game’s light-hearted take, it seems fair to assume no malicious intent.

Cranked Up is a compact platforming experience that keeps things simple. With its minimal moral issues, it’s also a suitable pick for children. There’s a lot more fun to be had if you like wrestling with frustrating control schemes, but for everyone else, it wisely bows out before the novelty wears off. At $10, it’s a perfectly fair price for what it offers.