Crypt Custodian

Crypt Custodian is a single-player video game of the Metroidvania and action-adventure genres. It is played from the top-down perspective. The game follows Pluto, a black house cat who dies and is sent to the afterlife, where he is tasked with cleaning up the underworld by a bullfrog named Kendra. With his broom, Pluto must sweep up trash and fight various enemies and spirits, with the ultimate goal of breaking into Kendra's castle and escaping the underworld.

To help in his journey, Pluto must also befriend the creatures he meets along the way, who have roles ranging from passers-by to shopkeepers that can be purchased from. Through interactions and conversations with these other characters, the player is able to learn more about their stories and backgrounds and eventually must recruit them as aid in the quest to storm Kendra's castle.

Crypt Custodian was developed by Oregon-based American indie game developer Kyle Thompson and published by Top Hat Studios. Thompson began creating games at age 12, with Game Maker. He created flash games as a teenager, and, around that time, learned of the Metroidvania genre and enjoyed it and its exploratory nature, later citing An Untitled Story (2007) and Knytt Stories (2007) as early favorites and influences. He resumed game development around ten years later, and, formerly a creative freelancer, now makes games full-time.

Crypt Custodian is Thompson's third indie game in four years, after Sheepo (2020) and Islets (2022). Since his previous two games were both side-scrollers, Thompson found it difficult to envision new side-scrolling video game elements and mechanics for another game. As a result, he decided to create Crypt Custodian to be played from the top-down perspective. Initial ideas for the game included a concept similar to pachinko (a Japanese mechanical game combining elements of pinball and slot machines), featuring bullet hell projectiles that the player could pause and interact with.

According to review aggregator website Metacritic, Crypt Custodian has received "generally favorable" reviews. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received strong approval, being recommended by 89% of critics. Heather Wald of GamesRadar+ said, "above all, it's just downright charming", a sentiment echoed by many other reviewers.

Crypt Custodian was praised for its "cutesy" and "lovable" characters and their various backstories, which critics found humorous yet moving. The dialogue was characterized by Liam Croft of Push Square as "witty" and by Christopher Holler, writing for PC Games, as "charming and full of humor". Several reviewers also enjoyed the game's writing, with Rachel Samples of Dot Esports describing the storyline as a "silly but heart-wrenching narrative" and Marcel Vroegrijk of Gamer.nl praising its authenticity. On the other hand, Holler found the story overly simplistic.