Cryptmaster

Did You Know?

• The four heroes had battled a great evil but perished after, awakening in a crypt resurrected by the Cryptmaster.
• The Cryptmaster has the group ascend the crypt so he can break into the world of the living.
• All four heroes have lost their memories and abilities due to being dead for so long.

Gameplay

In Cryptmaster, you guide a party of four: Joro the fighter, Syn the rogue, Maz the bard, and Nix the wizard. The Cryptmaster himself, a necromancer, tags along, acting for you in certain scenes and offering tips on how to play. Each character’s health equals the number of letters in their name; leveling up lets you tack on extra letters to boost that health. The whole game runs on typing. You move, fight, and solve things by typing a word for what you want to do. Under each party member’s name is a hidden string of letters; when you find and type them, you unlock a battle move or a piece of their backstory. In fights, you use those moves by typing them, and beating an enemy gives you one letter from its name. Moves also work outside combat. Puzzles pop up in chests, skulls, and story bits. To open a chest, you guess what’s inside, and it rewards random letters that hint at a move or story detail. Talking skulls ask riddles; answer right and you get souls, which go into the Cryptmaster’s Soulstone. Those souls power magic moves like healing. There’s also a card game called Whatever, playable with any NPC, where you spell out card names to play them. If you’re on Windows 10 or later, you can turn on push-to-talk voice input instead of typing, but it turns off a few minor features and encounters. You can also switch combat from real-time to turn-based for controller use. An option to show hints and make puzzles easier is there too.

Development

Cryptmaster began when Lee Williams offered to write for free for several indie games, and Paul Hart accepted that offer in 2014. The game went through many versions of an idea where words were the main gameplay element. The two developers say the typing mechanic became more central only because it was easier for players—typing was not part of the original plan. After settling on the controls early, Williams and Hart focused on blending combat with typing. The first version gave players all skills from the start, with attributes improving as they played. The duo name Hangman, Wordle, and Wheel of Fortune as inspirations. The game includes a large voice-recorded dictionary of words and phrases that respond to whatever players type. A system decides which line to use: first it looks for a unique response tied to a specific word, then it checks pools of word categories like verbs, items, or expletives, and finally it plays a default reply. Williams says he recorded roughly a whole dictionary’s worth of words.

Reception

Cryptmaster received generally favorable reviews according to Metacritic, scoring a 77/100. Many critics praised its unique mechanics, humor, and art style. The game's art style received particular praise; Alex McHugh of PCGamesN enjoyed the monochrome graphics and weird enemies, noting players battle bizarre monsters and giant wobbling eyes peering out of doors. Others noted the game's humor and jokes. Kevin Purdy of Ars Technica praised the humor, commenting that Cryptmaster seems like the worst possible game for people like him yet he digs it. Purdy and Mollie Taylor of PC Gamer noted how the Cryptmaster particularly responds to profanity. Jerry Williams of RPGFan praised the pacing and the Cryptmaster character's humor and personality. Mikhail Madnani of TouchArcade reviewed the game on a Steam Deck, noting that despite the keyboard reliance, it supports a controller. Noah Cochrane of GameTyrant complimented the voice acting and sound design, noting the ambient music contributed to the atmosphere. Slant was more negative, criticizing the repetition and lore; Aaron Riccolo said the game suffers from having too many words to learn and too few chapters in which to do so.