At first glance, I think it’s easy to see Cryptmaster as a sort of hodgepodge of confused, incoherent ideas and gameplay systems unceremoniously smashed together: dungeon crawling full of riddles? Semi-turn-based typing bouts? Bardic rap battles? It all sounds like the kind of nonsense that loses sight of its identity almost instantly. But not so in Cryptmaster: underpinning every aspect of this experience, tying together all this absurdity, is the oh-so-simple ability to type and say what you want, when you want.

Suddenly, anything and everything is an inspired, varied and delightful word game, suddenly, there’s a cohesion in the chaos, and suddenly, coupled with fantastic writing and voice work that deftly matches the silliness of every twist and turn, the unpredictability is instead just utterly and wildly entertaining every single step of the way.


Many hundreds of years ago, four intrepid heroes gave their lives ending a calamitous threat to the continued existence of man. Now, an infamous necromancer known only as the Cryptmaster, emboldened by the growing power of his mystical soulstone, reanimates these once great men and women, for who better to escort his incorporeal presence upwards to the unsuspecting realm of 'delicious life'?

Honestly, that's about all the plot you'll ever get, even as the adventure comes to a close. There’s a smattering of lore and other backstory here and there, but Cryptmaster's overall narrative structure is much more akin to a selection of short stories, usually involving some eccentric, often whimsical request in exchange for further passage to the surface. Your first stop, for instance, sees you courting a giant frog king after discovering your ticket topside entertains nothing less than royalty; it's all rather light-hearted and silly.

However, it's leveraged exceptionally, and I couldn't imagine a more appropriate method of storytelling; in lieu of involved character arcs and dramatic plot twists (save a couple), there's a veritable revolving door of some of the most overwhelmingly charming, brilliantly written, and exceptionally voiced characters in genuinely all of the medium. Everything from the casting to the performances to the vocabulary used all fit each face flawlessly, and although some see barely a few minutes of screen time, the impressions they leave far outlast them, resulting in a wonderfully memorable, diverse, and altogether mesmerising cast created and cycled with astounding efficiency.

There's plenty hiding under the surface, too. At any time, whether in conversation or just wandering around the striking, dilapidated lower floors of the city, you're able to type in and say any one word at a time and, surprisingly frequently, you'll not only receive a response, but one specifically suited to the phrase inputted. The script is ridiculously adaptive and accommodating, equipped for all manner of player antics: you might well expect some form of acknowledgement after proudly proclaiming some expletive and, yes, the Cryptmaster will emerge facetiously appalled by your vulgarity, but type in something obscure like the name of a dance and he'll tell you he 'doesn't take requests', type the name of a bird and he'll inquire about your interest in ornithology, type what feels like almost anything else and he'll more than likely have multiple, bespoke responses for each subject.

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Granted, Cryptmaster isn't the latest iteration of ChatGPT, and there'll still be a fair few instances in which a particularly creative retort goes over a character's head; however, this isn't a game that only understands yes or no, nor is it one that nonchalantly fills out words for you regardless of the keys pressed, and I can't even begin to overstate how that contributes to the feeling of player agency, that what I choose to type matters, and how much more alive the world and characters ultimately feel as a result.


Simple conversation is just the tip of the wordplay iceberg in the crypts and beyond; from crafting to combat to player progression, every aspect of the experience has a unique and similarly excellent word game governing it. The most common of which, you'll find offered by talkative skulls and inside curious chests lining the walls of your journey—either a classic riddle, needing no introduction, or this sort of 'guess the object' style game in which the Cryptmaster takes a peek at an object, gives you five questions of your choice (look, use, smell, etc) before finally offering a single chance to name whatever it is he's describing. These are generally very well put together, with a superb range of styles and approaches; it was not at all uncommon for me to figure one out long before the question had finished being posed, just to turn a corner and find another that had me stumped for the better part of fifteen minutes.

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The reward for solving one of these puzzles is the answer itself, the individual letters of the solution drifting to the bottom of the screen, filling in blank spaces just above the portraits of the four heroes, almost Wordle-esque. Upon acquiring enough letters to complete a full word, or skilfully guessing it prematurely, the respective hero will receive a memory, small written snippets and insights into their past lives or, better yet, a new skill to be used in combat, both of the same name as the word that unlocked them. The overall catalogue is gargantuan and even more varied, with far more in total than you’d ever manage to unlock organically, even over the course of the fifteen or so-hour playthrough.

Unfortunately, it’s a range that doesn’t see a whole lot of practical use in combat. The idea of battle is great: frantically typing out the names of your newly acquired skills whittles down enemy health, heals the party, or activates one of all manner of other effects, and various craftable consumables can see occasional use as you wait for cooldowns to refresh. However, vanquishing foes generally lacks challenge, lacks any need for strategy, lacks any real consequence for failure, and coupled with how overwhelming the ever-expanding grimoire of spells and skills for each hero can be, it's a little too easy to slip into autopilot, falling back on the same tried and true combos of words to dispatch most opponents. Although some adversaries come equipped with shields blocking the use of a handful of specific letters, and others can grow stronger upon a certain trigger letter typed, both reasonably encouraging one to delve a little deeper into the party's bag of tricks, enemies provide only a single letter towards skills and memories on defeat, and in tandem with how easy it is to simply slip past most encounters undetected, I often found myself doing just that.


Yet, combat is just a single, largely insignificant stumble in a pantheon of otherwise truly superb word games and puzzles. Cryptmaster’s bold creative vision is unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced, one I won’t soon forget, and one I can confidently and strongly recommend.

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