Cryptmaster

One of the best and weirdest things I've ever played.

Funny, creative, unique, and an excelent but hard to define dungeon-crawling riddle-solving turn-based puzzle adventure typing game.

An excellent experience I was not prepared for. Good writing, good riddles, good game. The amount of skills/memories to unlock was a bit too much for the length of the game, but otherwise a great time.

I've recommended this game to literally everyone I know. Cryptmaster offers such a cool experience I haven't seen anywhere else in games, even going back and replaying it offers more to think about and experience. Can't wait to see what more Hart and Williams are working on!

Cryptmaster is built around an incredibly clever idea that, unfortunately, never quite lives up to its full potential. A hangman-inspired typing RPG is delightfully unhinged on paper, and Cryptmaster never lacks personality. The sheer amount of narration is just staggering.The number of lines the narrator must have recorded is borderline absurd, and the team deserves genuine credit for committing to such an ambitious, wildly impractical idea. The core concept alone deserves loads of praise, but the execution struggles to sustain that initial spark, and as a result it gets old pretty fast. The riddles and chest puzzles are mostly underwhelming, rarely pushing the player to think in interesting ways. Combat, while novel at first, quickly becomes confusing with the sheer amount of options you have, and then repetitive once you settle into a handful of reliable word combos. What initially feels inventive gradually turns into a routine. Visually, the game leaves a strong impression, with a grungy, monochrome aesthetic that is very striking and cohesive, perfectly matching the tone of the experience and doing a lot of heavy lifting when the gameplay itself starts to falter.

I sadly cant recommend this game, only because it isnt really a typing game. Its a barebones dungeon crawler where instead of clicking the action you want to do, you type its name. That's it. There is also a cooldown to using abilities, so there is no reward for being a fast typer. It has a great aesthetic, a dark-silly premise, but ultimately I found myself too bored to continue

As a fan of word-based games and dungeon crawlers I didn't expect to be so blown away by the delightfully dreadful characters and brilliant use of wordplay to experience the game world. Outside of the gameplay, the voice acting was excellent and having the Cryptmaster react to most words was hilarious. I'd say my only nitpick (which is a personal pet peeve) is that UI elements don't loop around which was annoying when going through the list of cards for Whatever and even when choosing Whatever's letters.