Crayta brings together players of all abilities and backgrounds to create and play multiplayer games with their families, friends, and the rest of the world. Create and collaborate in real-time, then share your games instantly with the Crayta community. Powerful, flexible, accessible, fun – game creation is now a game in itself!

9.1 / 10

A game, within a game, within a game, within a Taco Bell. Tacos may not control me, as they do my old friend and latest follower Tacoscontrolme, however self-referential interconnections, reminiscent of inception, arguably do.

This purposefully developed platform, hosting a myriad of created layers, seems to create itself within. Borrowing from the theme in Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, I label it a “strange-loop”.

Disclaimer — this review is a result of my biased first impression after exploring four hours of undirected gameplay and should be taken lightly.

Overall: 9.1 / 10

Crayta is a brilliantly designed playground of fun – bounding with community, ripe with potential, and built on a polished foundation of character customization, seamless in-game exploration, and a robust creation mode for a breadth of game types. The gameplay boasts an excellent start, begging for deeper complexity and polish as the platform matures. Crayta is a vibrant young creation, and one that hopefully excels with age.

Gameplay: 9.3 / 10

A fine start that continues to draw you back in.

Controls 9.7 / 10

A triumph considering the scope of different modes and layers. The esc button (for keyboard controls) manages a clean toggle between menu and game that feels great once understood, but is a bit puzzling at first. A quick tutorial or a seasoned in-game friend could easily bypass the initial confusion. Beyond the menu, character control is intuitive and clean.

Difficulty: 8.4 / 10

Feels a bit easy, overall. This is likely the nature of community created games, whereas in contrast a development studio could focus more on tuning difficulty.

Progression: 9.8 / 10

Or rather, breadth! Want to solve a mysterious story, race through platforms, build a lakeside farm, manage a business, shoot robot clowns, or just parkour around the world? Sure, it’s the nature of the platform, but it excels.

Story: 9.1 / 10

Open-ended, and ours to tell…

Characters: 9.0 / 10

Community driven and customizable, with a familiar look and feel to Fortnite. Oh, just wait until you meet the legend himself, TheDeveloper!

Setting: 8.9 / 10

The platform world itself doesn’t seem to have a true identity, although the asset styles seem themed and seasonal. The real success here is in the seamless transition between games. The platform hosts the ability to enter a game within a game through a billboard-esque panel or even just a designated location.

Progression: 9.3 / 10

It’s hard to measure story progression with a game such as Crayta. Yet I found myself immersed all the same, and through leader boards and unlockable skin customization, the world begins to build an identity of progression within. There is SO much potential here, but for now it is vague and undetermined.

Production: 8.8 / 10

Familiar while remaining brilliant and imaginative.

Music 8.5 / 10

Nothing to write home about, but it does its job well enough.

Art 8.7 / 10

The style may be borrowed, but it borrows correctly, and builds consistently within. Ya, ok, good.

Graphics 9.3 / 10

The character models and animations are beautiful. Lighting and water effects seems spot on. Game assets are a bit clunky and call for curves and polish.

Recommend?
Yes, and particularly for the youth.

Replay?
I’m young at heart. TheDeveloper will find me, and know me (I pray). See you out there.

Joy?
Abounding for the creative introvert and the charismatic extrovert alike.