Cryptmaster preview – working your brain harder than your fingers

Cryptmaster / Akupara Games

When Cryptmaster was first revealed at Day of the Devs 2023, I salivated at the idea of a revival of games like Typing of the Dead. If you went to an arcade in the ‘90s, you’ll know House of the Dead 2 all too well, and Typing of the Dead reinvented it by forcing you to type out complicated and humorous phrases before the enemies attack. It was goofy and whimsical so it fit in perfectly with the style of House of the Dead, but few games have utilized the typing-style gameplay successfully. The only one that comes to mind is Learn with Pokémon: Typing Adventure, which is also a banger.

One look at Cryptmaster and you’ll see that this dungeon crawling typing adventure has the same goofy charm that worked so well for Typing of the Dead. There is a sassy talking skeleton who guides you through the dungeons, and he has a wide variety of responses depending on what you type at him. As you explore the dungeon, you’ll come across chests to open, and enemies to defeat, and these reward you with letters to help you unveil special skills you can use. Everything revolves around typing, and each skill you can use first has to be unlocked by guessing its name. It’s clever and will work your brain more than your fingers.

Cryptmaster / Akupara Games

You may have noticed I write for a living, and I was confident that with my lightning-fast fingers, I would be a touch above the rest. However, Cryptmaster doesn’t rely on how quickly you can type, as chests will give you unlimited time to make your guesses, and attacks have a cooldown when in battle. Instead, you have to focus on your vocabulary when guessing what’s in a chest, with a limited number of actions you can do to them. This pushes you towards accuracy, and figuring out which actions will give you the most information. Combat is made far easier when you have a large number of attacks at your fingertips, but the larger your library of attacks, the more words you have to remember.

Cryptmaster / Akupara Games

The idea is unique, and I can’t think of a typing game that has come before that matches up. It reminds me more of the text-based adventures of the ‘80s, except now the technology is more sophisticated. Not only do you have animated graphics to accompany your adventure, but nothing I typed during my 45-minute preview was rejected by my skeleton friend. His vocabulary is vast and he has seemingly endless responses to all the things you type at him. The game also remembers questions you have asked before, and your skelefriend will sassily remind you of that.

In the time I had, it didn’t get repetitive but I can see this being one of the game’s main flaws. I found myself refining the actions I performed on each chest with ‘use’ and ‘feel’ often getting me to the answer. Similarly, in combat, you’ll find the most powerful attacks and stick with those. This feeds into some pacing problems. Lines are fully voice-acted, which is a charming touch, but you also can’t act until the NPCs stop talking. Combined with the lengthy cooldown on attacks, you’ll find yourself watching the screen more often than typing.

Cryptmaster / Akupara Games

Despite these flaws, Cryptmaster has obvious charm and a very unique design, and there is still time to refine things like the pacing, and vocabulary before launch. I would love to see restrictions later in the game forcing me to use longer or more complicated words. Above all, Cryptmaster has clear promise and I’ll be diving in when it launches on Steam on May 9.