Clank working on fixing time on a planet.
Planet rooms are a mechanic in A Crack in Time. They are rooms in the Great Clock that provide a view of a planet in the universe, allowing caretakers of the Great Clock to remove any of its time anomalies. With his Chronoscepter, Clank used these rooms to restore temporal normality to planets. Clank first learned of how to restore time from a recording of Orvus inside his own subconcious during "Learn how to Repair Time". After, he restored time to several planets in "Fix Time across the Universe!".
Planet rooms involve a time-fixing minigame where the player must defeat time anomalies that appear. In some cases, these planets are visited by Ratchet, who can visit the planets after the anomalies have been repaired to collect gold bolts. Some optional planet rooms that are not visited by Ratchet will unlock gold bolts upon completion.
Planet rooms can also be replayed in an endless mode with a score attached to it, based on anomalies restored and powerups gathered, with later rounds granting more points for each. Reaching round 31 in endless mode grants the skill point "Master of Time".
Gameplay[]
Overview[]
Clank learning how to repair time in his subconscious.
The minigame involves zapping time rifts with a beam emitted by Clank's Chronoscepter. The beam is controlled with 
, whereas the planet itself can also be rolled around with 
. Once all rifts have been successfully stabilized, the planet will be repaired, and Clank will be awarded with a payout of bolts.
The level of stability can be observed by looking at the color of the rifts: a blue single rift is stable, a yellow single rift is mildly unstable, an orange double rift is unstable, and a red triple rift is critically unstable. Rifts will gradually become more unstable over time. Critically unstable rifts will split into two mild anomalies, increasing the workload. If a player fires a beam at a stabilized rift, it will become unstable.
Purple "rift seeker" objects will occasionally appear and can accelerate the destabilization process by colliding with rifts. These must be destroyed with the beam.
Power-ups[]
Power-ups appear as the player fixes the rifts. Smart bombs, when zapped, release waves of energy that destroy seekers and rifts, and stabilize any rifts within their blast radius by one level. Energizers double the power of the beam, causing rifts to stabilize twice as fast. The slowdown power-up reduces the speed of all entities on the planet, making it easier to manage and stabilize the rifts.
Rewards[]
Completing any minigame provides a bolt reward. The planet rooms for Torren IV and Terachnos will remove anomalies on those planets, allowing Ratchet to obtain gold bolts there.
The planet room for Quantos will not remove any anomalies preventing Ratchet from obtaining any collectibles. However, it means that when the player visits the planet as Ratchet, it will be a different experience when exploring.
Planet rooms exist for Fastoon and Jasindu, which are not visited in A Crack in Time. Instead, completing these planets in the Great Clock will simply grant a gold bolt reward.