Crank Casino
Crank Casino, the first Catalog release from IrishJiminy, is snappy. This Pulp-made casino simulator has three games: CoinFlip, Cruds, and Hi-Lo. You’re always playing with the casino’s money, and you just keep the winnings. In that way, you’re always growing, almost like a JRPG. You don’t lose levels if you do a bad job in Final Fantasy, and in this game you never lose money, either… you just maybe start with a little less house money to play with if you do really poorly.
But that’s not what sticks with me as I blast through another ten rounds of Hi-Lo and take home another $100,000 to spend in the Winner’s Corner (lucky, or good?). What really separates Crank Casino from one of the dozens of other simulated gambling games is the heart that was put into the characters you meet.
You’re at a spaceship casino run by an alien, but everyone running the various games and tutorial/concierge desks is a human. Not only that, but they are famous humans from history you might’ve heard of: Elvis, Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth, and more (with one character exclusive to the Catalog version!). Each of them has their own problems, and you don’t get the sense that there are actually that many people around to help solve them. You are the ear to lend and the shoulder to cry on, and they need some help. There’s no back-and-forth, really; your responses to their personal stories are mostly just nodding in agreement, spurring them on to tell you more of their trials and tribulations. But each character has their own arc with a clear finale, and seeing them come to personal realizations in between your card and dice games is very satisfying. Also: the story is 100% optional, but skipping it would be a mistake!
Now for the games! There’s CoinFlip, where you bet on whether a coin will be heads or tails. It’s a 50/50 chance each time, and you can see the record of the previous flips to help you decide what to pick next. It surely couldn’t be a seventh tails in a row, right? That’d be silly! Like in a real casino, if you play this one long enough, you’ll go broke. Cruds (the nicer version of “craps,” I’m guessing?) is a dice game, but with rules like roulette. You bet on if the next dice roll will be odd or even, or higher/lower/equal to the last roll, or you can guess a specific number. Like roulette, the more specific your bet, the higher the return. I tend to do smaller bets until the sure things present themselves, like if the last roll was a six? It has to be lower on the next one – bet it all! Sometimes it is a six again and I lose all my money. That’s why they call it gambling.
The last game, and my favorite because it felt the most like the as-fair-as-the-casino-is-going-to-get odds of Blackjack, is Hi-Lo. You get a card dealt to you, and you place your bet to pick if the next card will be higher, lower, or equal to the current card. Got an ace? Put all your money on lower! The only way you lose is if the next card is another ace, which I did get, once. Four times in a row. The payout on this one feels the best, and there’s a reason this game isn’t at real casinos (they’d go broke, and I would be kicked out for winning too much).
All three games are available from the beginning of the game, and you can get new conversation snippets from one of the characters every couple of rounds. Spend your earnings at the store to get permanent boosts to your winnings or give yourself better odds. And there are also robots for sale? It’s a secret what they’re for, but you’re going to want to eventually buy all the robots.
The only problems I really had with anything in Crank Casino is that there were a couple typos in some of the conversations, and the screen during the gambling games can feel a little busy until you know where to look. But it’s a casino – there’s always a lot of lights and sounds. Lock in! That’s how you break the bank.
It’s great to play for just a few minutes or a solid hour. Meeting people, getting into the flow of the games (the controls felt a little strange at first, but just remember it’s “B to bet!”), and trying to buy everything in the gift shop… there’s so much more on offer here than “just a casino game.” And it was made in Pulp! Love seeing the ways that engine can be stretched by someone with a dream, an imagination, and some time to dedicate to it.
(Released November 26, 2024, on Catalog and Itch. Copy provided by developer.)