Crankstone
Crankstone is the most Hogan’s Alley-like game I’ve seen yet on the Playdate. If that sounds like something you’re looking for, just go download it right now. Bad guys pop out and your job is to get them before they get you. It also makes me feel like I’m at Disneyland’s shooting gallery, or Wall Drug. It’s a first-person, Wild West… turret shooter? You aim your gun back and forth at the bottom of the screen, kind of like in Armada, and blast the bad guys ONLY. There are a variety of enemies, some of which need different strategies to defeat, and you need to take care not to shoot wandering waitresses or the sheriff. It uses a combination of the d-pad and crank in interesting ways and it is also VERY HARD. I made it through the Story mode on Easy, but that’s about all I can ask of myself. Great for those looking for a challenge, though!
In each level, you move left and right across the bottom of the screen to get into the correct position (left, right, or center) to blast the bad guys, and you aim your gun with the crank. Press Up on the d-pad to shoot and Down to take cover behind some barrels, and reload with a full turn of the crank. It’s a little disorienting to reload with a full crank rotation because then you’re often aiming in a different direction than when you first ran out of bullets, but I think that’s part of the challenge. You also don’t duck quite as quickly as you might expect, and you might get hit on your way down, so you learn to give yourself a little extra time. You can move to the left and right while ducking to reorient yourself, but there is also a time limit on each stage so you can’t just hang out down there and wait forever for it to be safe. The better you shoot and the faster you clear each stage, the higher your score on the global leaderboards.
The stages and enemies get progressively harder, but your arsenal and skills increase as the game progresses, as well. In between levels, there is a Wild West WarioWare-esque minigame that’ll reward you with additional health if you do well, and a standalone Saloon mode (accessible from the main menu) lets you play ONLY the minigames, each with their own online leaderboard. There are also daily challenges and seasonal battles to aim for, as well as a whole set of Achievements.
The Story mode isn’t particularly long (each stage is set up with a cutscene and then you do the shooting gallery), but the multiple difficulty levels mean that you can lose a lot of time to it, especially if you’re aiming for the top of the leaderboards. You’ll absolutely feel yourself getting better at aiming and reloading and shooting as you replay each level, but there are a few minor drawbacks: the crank dock/undock to change weapons is clunky, there are some spelling/grammar errors in the story segments, the “blow into the microphone” mechanic didn’t activate until I’d opened and closed the game multiple times, and I wasn’t once able to open the Easy mode leaderboard without the game crashing (it works on the Catalog website, though). And the speed at which I died while playing on Normal (so fast!) could turn off some players. My advice: start on Easy, don’t be afraid to duck behind cover to reload, and get in position BEFORE you pop your head out to blast the bad guys. Do this and you’ll have a great lil’ hootin’ and hollerin’ country boy time. Master the shooting? There are some old-timey, increasingly complex card and dice games to check out, too. It’s a well-rounded package great for score chasers looking for a unique challenge, and it’s coming to Steam soon, too!
(Released August 19, 2025, on Catalog and Itch. Coming soon to Steam/Steam Deck. Copy provided by developer.)