I grew up near Rochester, NY and know about their local delicacy, fittingly called the Garbage Plate. This dish contains your choice of meat over some combination of home fries, french fries, baked beans and/or macaroni salad — basically everything that’s left over at a restaurant. In Crazy Platez, you’ll find yourself delivering these to houses all around the Rochester area.
Crazy Platez is a mix of GTA and Crazy Taxi, but with a map that’s pretty identical to Rochester NY. You control a car, moving either left or right in a big circular turn, trying to crash into buildings that contain garbage plates and then bump into the buildings where you need to deliver them. Every house can be a restaurant when the dish is basically made from what’s left in your refrigerator — so you’ll need to follow the arrows on the screen to see where you need to go. Luckily, this is normally close by.
The challenge in Crazy Platez comes from trying to move through these gridded city streets, not being able to turn around, thus crashing often. Crashing against buildings knocks you back a bit, which can end with you pinging between buildings all the way down the road. This is a big waste on your limited gas, although you can replenish by getting a garbage plate to deliver.
Crazy Platez had the goal of recreating the city of Rochester, which it does super well. There are quite a few replicated houses and landmarks that make this game stand out. Even if you aren’t from this area, and have never heard of this extremely local food, it’s still a really fun little game.
I got the chance to have a go on the physical arcade machine that was at GameFest 2019. You can keep an eye out for the arcade machine, which might appear more in upstate NY, or check out the game on iOS and Android.
