Following critically acclaimed titles like Islets and Sheepo, indie developer Kyle Thompson once again delivers a Metroidvania adventure brimming with charm and ingenuity in Crypt Custodian. Players take on the role of Pluto, a mischievous black cat who, after an untimely demise, is sentenced to an eternity as the afterlife’s janitor. Thus begins the game, where Pluto, armed with his trusty magic broom, explores a vast, bizarre, and captivating underworld, encountering a host of quirky ghosts, unraveling their past lives, and gradually uncovering the secrets behind this “feline purgatory.”

One of Crypt Custodian‘s most striking features is its isometric top-down perspective for its core Metroidvania gameplay. This is a bold and successful departure for Kyle Thompson, who primarily developed side-scrolling games. This fresh viewpoint not only adds a new dimension to platforming and exploration but also injects a playful twist into the combat system. Players will freely explore a “huge and constantly branching” afterlife map, utilizing newly acquired abilities (such as air dashes, decoys, and spirit projection) to access previously unreachable areas and unearth secrets hidden in every nook and cranny.

Sweeping Through the Afterlife: Core Gameplay Mechanics

Crypt Custodian‘s core gameplay revolves around exploration, combat, puzzle-solving, and character progression, all cleverly integrated into its unique world.

A New Metroidvania Experience from a Top-Down View

The game’s map design is dense and full of surprises, encouraging thorough exploration. The top-down perspective lends a more three-dimensional feel to level design; platforming is no longer confined to left and right movement but requires precise judgment in 3D space. An in-game hint system highlights missed items, a boon for completionists. Furthermore, the ability to fast travel to any visited save point from the outset significantly enhances the convenience of exploration and backtracking.

Satisfying Combat with a Trusty Broom

Pluto’s primary weapon is a seemingly ordinary but surprisingly potent broom, functioning much like a sword. The combat system features basic broom swipes, powerful ground slams, ranged attacks, and swift dash attacks. The game artfully incorporates bullet-hell elements, requiring players to nimbly jump and dodge dense barrages of enemy projectiles. Enemy attack patterns are usually telegraphed, giving players ample time to react, making combat both stimulating and fair.

Rich Character Upgrades and Customizable Playstyles

As the game progresses, Pluto gains various new abilities that are not only keys to unlocking new areas but also crucial for solving puzzles. The game offers a wealth of upgrade options, allowing players to collect or purchase upgrade points and mix and match them to customize their unique playstyle. These upgrades range from simple stat boosts (like increased health or damage) to more creative effects (such as making defeated enemies explode and scatter projectiles), adding more strategic depth to combat and exploration. The main currency in the game is “trash,” which players collect by “cleaning up.” This tight integration of the core narrative (the custodian’s duty) with the core gameplay (collecting trash as currency) makes every player action feel more immersive and meaningful.

Unique Puzzles and Accessibility Features

Puzzle-solving is an integral part of Crypt Custodian, with many abilities and area unlocks requiring players to flex their mental muscles. Even more commendable is the game’s outstanding design regarding accessibility features. It offers highly customizable difficulty settings, including options to adjust damage output, health, puzzle time limits, and more. This makes a genre often known for its high difficulty much more approachable and enjoyable for a wider range of players, reflecting the developer’s commitment to inclusivity as a core design philosophy.

A Charming and Quirky Journey Through the Afterlife: Narrative, World, and Themes

Crypt Custodian is not just engaging gameplay-wise; its unique narrative, world-building, and thematic exploration are equally impressive.

Pluto’s Afterlife Atonement

Players control Pluto, the black cat, who, after an unfortunate death, is sentenced to serve as the afterlife’s eternal janitor. The story begins with Pluto’s disastrous meeting with Kendra, the guardian of the afterlife, which results in his banishment from the “Palace.” One of the game’s objectives is to help Pluto organize a raid to break back into the Palace, uncover the truth behind his sentence, and the secrets Kendra holds.

A Captivatingly Bizarre Underworld

The game is set in a “charming” yet “quirky and bizarre” afterlife, humorously dubbed a “cat purgatory.” Players will encounter many other “doomed spirits,” learning about their past lives and the reasons for their banishment by interacting with them. Collectibles like “photographs” scattered throughout the game provide rich backstories for these characters, allowing players to optionally delve deeper into how they arrived in the afterlife. These brief tales of other ghosts’ past lives and deaths, though conveyed with just a few words and images, are incredibly poignant and often unexpectedly moving. The local “Sinners’ Inn” serves as a hub for these spirits, where players can chat with encountered ghosts and upgrade their equipment.

An Intertwining of Death, Friendship, and Humor

Despite its somewhat somber theme of animal death, Crypt Custodian masterfully transforms it into a lighthearted and witty experience with a “humorous and quirky” touch. The game’s atmosphere is often “uplifting” and “comforting.” Friendship and mutual support are core themes, with the companions Pluto meets on his journey offering invaluable aid. The game’s writing, lauded for its “clever and quirky” humor, adds considerable enjoyment to this afterlife escapade.

A Unique Audiovisual Feast: Art Style and Music

Kyle Thompson’s works have always been known for their distinctive art style, and Crypt Custodian is no exception.

A Visual Treat with Hand-Drawn Cartoon Aesthetics

The game’s visuals are described as “hand-drawn” and take inspiration from classic 1930s-1940s cartoons, yet are cleverly blended with modern fluidity, avoiding the strong period-specific feel of games like Cuphead. Character designs are cute and endearing, with Pluto’s every movement exuding feline agility and charm. The environments are diverse, ranging from snow-capped mountains to shadowy cinemas, each area possessing its own unique atmosphere. While some reviews noted that certain areas might feel slightly monotonous on a macro level, the micro-level artistic details remain outstanding. For instance, players can see fish swimming in the water and mist shimmering in moonlit swamps, creating an engaging and fantastical world.

Atmospheric Music and Sound Design

The game’s music is composed by Kyle Thompson’s brother, a continued family collaboration that has established a signature auditory style for Thompson’s game series. The soundtrack is praised as “excellent background music” capable of “single-handedly creating an atmosphere that perfectly fits the game”—at times melancholic, at times relaxing, and occasionally tinged with hope, perfectly echoing the game’s themes of afterlife, loss, and hope. The sound design is equally stellar, especially in combat, where the broom swings with a satisfying impact, providing gratifying feedback to the player.

An Indie Artisan: Kyle Thompson

The success of Crypt Custodian is inseparable from the visionary behind it: indie game developer Kyle Thompson.

The Kyle-Led Brotherly Development Duo

Based in Portland, Oregon, Kyle Thompson is renowned for creating popular Metroidvania titles. In his game development process, Kyle Thompson primarily handles the core aspects such as art, programming, and game design, while his brother focuses on music composition, forming a close-knit fraternal collaboration. This Kyle-led, two-brother approach showcases their remarkable ability to produce polished and critically acclaimed games with an extremely small core team. Crypt Custodian was a two-year full-time development effort, and its high degree of polish upon release is impressive.

An Ever-Evolving Design Philosophy

Thompson’s games are characterized by their signature “charming” aesthetic, engaging Metroidvania mechanics, heartwarming narratives, and common use of animal protagonists and humor. His art style is unique and highly recognizable across his multiple titles. More importantly, Thompson isn’t content with repeating himself; he constantly iterates on and evolves his design philosophy. The shift from 2D side-scrollers like Islets and Sheepo to the top-down perspective of Crypt Custodian is not just a change in viewpoint but an evolution and refinement of the core Metroidvania formula, demonstrating his unwillingness to stagnate and his courage to explore. Each game builds upon the foundations of its predecessors while introducing new perspectives or mechanics, continuously honing the quality of his work.

Potential Challenges and Considerations

While Crypt Custodian has captivated a wide audience with its unique charm, there are a few potential challenges and aspects worth considering when embarking on this afterlife cleaning spree:

• Learning Curve for Advanced Mechanics: While the game’s basic tutorial is well-executed, as players delve deeper, particularly into complex puzzle solutions and thorough map exploration, some may find a degree of challenge.
• Perceived Difficulty Variance: Opinions on the game’s difficulty are somewhat divided. Many reviewers found it accessible with a moderate challenge. However, some players reported specific sections (like the final boss) to be quite tough. The game’s extensive accessibility options can help mitigate this.
• Environmental Design Repetitiveness: Although the overall art style is charming, a few reviews mentioned that some areas might feel visually monotonous or repetitive.
• Lack of Groundbreaking Mechanical Innovation: For players seeking revolutionary innovations within the Metroidvania genre, Crypt Custodian might be seen more as a refined execution of existing frameworks rather than introducing entirely new, game-changing concepts.
• Late-Game Backtracking: As an inherent characteristic of Metroidvania games, a certain amount of backtracking is unavoidable. Some players might find this slightly repetitive in the later stages of the game.

Conclusion: A Heartfelt and Surprising Journey Through the Afterlife

Overall, Crypt Custodian is a well-crafted, charming, and accessible Metroidvania that successfully blends a heartwarming story with engaging gameplay. It not only offers a satisfying exploration and combat experience within the genre but also stands out due to its unique top-down perspective, captivating art style, humorous narrative, and delicate portrayal of emotions.

Developer Kyle Thompson once again proves his prowess as a prolific and high-quality indie game creator. The success of Crypt Custodian stems not from a radical reinvention of the genre, but from a masterful application of established Metroidvania elements, artfully infused with Thompson’s unique personal touch. This game further solidifies his reputation as a dependable creator of high-quality indie titles and sets a positive trajectory for his future projects.

If you’re looking for an indie game that delivers classic Metroidvania exploration fun, is filled with warmth and humor, and stands out with its unique perspective and art style, then Crypt Custodian is absolutely worth experiencing firsthand as the afterlife’s newest janitor, Pluto.

Digital Release Date: August 27, 2024

Steam Store Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2394650/Crypt_Custodian/

GOG Store Page: https://www.gog.com/game/crypt_custodian