Crypt Custodian sounds like the name of a hard ARPG, but it’s actually a charming Metroidvania starring my favorite video game cat of 2024. It’s a real shame he had to die.
Pluto fell off a ledge and obliterated it. It’s an abrupt and unwelcome death, but there is a silver lining: Since he was a nice cat for some loving owners his whole life, he should have no problem going to the palace, where good dead pets go when they die.
Things to know
What is that? A bird’s eye view exploration adventure in purgatory, starring a cat.
Expect to pay £15 / $20
developer Kyle Thompson
editor TopHatStudios
Rated on RTX 3060 (laptop), Ryzen 5 5600H, 16GB RAM
Multiplayer? NO
Steam deck Yes
link steam
Unfortunately, Pluto breaks a few things during an interview for an afterlife, and the capricious palace guard Kendra decides that he is not allowed in after all. Instead of an eternity of idyll, Pluto is appointed doorman of the palace. This is of course not a good result. But it turns out that other animals have also unjustly come into conflict with Kendra, and it is not long before a plot is hatched to break out of the palace walls and escape – where?
Crypt Custodian is a game by Kyle Thompson, whose previous works include Islets and Sheepo. Both are loose animal-starring action Metroidvanias, and each has a distinctive art style. The creature designs are heavily inspired by cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s, but Thompson doesn’t seem interested in nostalgia. The animations are modern and fluid, making it feel less like a period piece compared to, say, Cuphead. Like Thompson’s previous games, Crypt Custodian is a stunning thing in action. The clean simplicity of its art fits perfectly with its precision-focused action.
While Islets and Sheepo were side-scrollers, Crypt Custodian uses a top-down view, making it closer to Hyper Light Drifter or Death’s Door (it also has the latter’s slightly caustic sense of humor). It’s significantly easier than those two, or at least its difficulty curve is much smoother.
Pluto wields a simple broom that functions like a sword. Combat remains straightforward throughout the game, but the difficulty lies in the bullet hell traps. Fights are less about fancy attacks and more about balletic maneuvering between often unpredictable projectiles, whether it’s using snappy i-frame-charged dodging or carefully weaving through combat. In true Hollow Knight style, the controls are so finely tuned that the broom fights, simple as they are, remained punchy and entertaining for more than 20 hours.
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The variety comes from the powers Pluto collects throughout the adventure, and there’s not just one level of upgrade here, but three. There are the usual Metroidvania progression abilities, including a ghost double of Pluto for solving puzzles and a broom projectile (called a “broomerang”) that can trigger distant switches. Finally, there’s an upgrade that lets Pluto move to where he can throw his broomerang, and another that lets him dig tunnels into the ground.
There are also less significant upgrades that are tied to a points system, meaning the more upgrade points you collect in the world, the more upgrades you can use at once. These include simple health and attack buffs, but also more creative options like one that makes enemies explode upon death. Also included are special attacks that can only be activated one at a time and are subject to cooldowns. I tended to stick with the brief moment of invincibility provided by the Spirit’s Shield, but there are a number of offensive attacks like landmines and homing projectiles.
This two-tier system, as unnecessarily confusing as it may seem, seems to be particularly crucial during boss fights. While I mostly didn’t find Crypt Custodian all that stressful, some bosses did require me to carefully optimize my “build,” although I generally didn’t have to think much from moment to moment during normal world traversal. Bosses fall back on the old pattern recognition, with their mechanical familiarity balanced by quirky spectacles.
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Charm is ultimately something that Crypt Custodian relies heavily on. Although the map is massive, most areas are just flat, obstacle-strewn paths, differentiated only by a color scheme and a thin, indistinct skybox. This ultimately makes the hard-won discovery of a new area feel less exciting than it usually does in these types of games.
Yes, it does feel monotonous at times, especially when I realized that I could just run past most enemies instead of fighting them.
On the other hand, I liked Crypt Custodian’s modesty, which is actually a strange thing in a video game. Let me explain: For a long time, I always expected Crypt Custodian to surprise me with some incredible new power or some crazy hidden depth. That never happened. Eventually, I understood that it’s not just a mechanically sound video game, but also a cool thing made by a single person with the help of his brother (Eric Thompson contributes the Boards of Canada-style soundtrack). While it doesn’t captivate on the same level, it has the intimacy of the also-solo-developed indie game Animal Well. It has a special vision that would only have been blurred if other hands were involved.
In a year that has felt almost apocalyptic for the industry, it’s helpful to remember that a video game can also just be a weird thing that a single person is trying to make for both fun and profit.
