I have to admit, I've drifted away from the world of Playdate in recent months – not because of a lack of quality games (it has plenty of those), but simply because I'm so pressed for time that I haven't been able to give Panic's diminutive yellow handheld a chance.
You know what will change that? The arrival of a fiendishly addictive score-based game which makes excellent use of the Playdate's signature crank controls. Enter A Fool's Errand, IORAMA's painfully compulsive action title, which sees you climbing a forboding tower using the aforementioned crank.
"Is it bravery or folly that calls young Roland to scale the winding heights of the Dark Tower?" asks the game's Playdate store page. "Crank to ascend the infinitely spiralling tower, dodging its many devious traps and creepy denizens."
The crank's proportional control means you can slow down and even reverse to avoid incoming hazards, and I'm particularly taken with how smoothly that tower rotates as you climb – it brings to mind the similarly silky-smooth scrolling seen in Hewson's Nebulus / Castelian.
Fool's Errand costs $6 and is available to download now. The same developer is also responsible for Grand Tour Legends, which is also worth checking out.