Crypt Custodian review

Crypt Custodian sounds like the name of a tough guy ARPG, but it's actually a charming metroidvania starring my favourite videogame cat of 2024. It's a real shame he had to die.

Pluto has fallen off a ledge and snuffed it. It's an abrupt and unwelcome death but there's a silver lining: since he's spent his life being a nice puss to some loving owners, he shouldn't have any problem getting into The Palace, which is where good dead pets go when they die.

What is it? A top-down exploration adventure set in purrgatory, starring a cat.
Expect to pay £15 / $20
Developer Kyle Thompson
Publisher Top Hat Studios
Reviewed on RTX 3060 (laptop), Ryzen 5 5600H, 16GB RAM
Multiplayer? No
Steam Deck Yes
Link Steam

Alas, Pluto breaks some stuff during what is effectively an afterlife job interview, so capricious Palace Guardian Kendra decides he's not allowed in after all. Instead of an eternity of idyll, Pluto is made a Palace door janitor. It's not a great outcome, obviously. But it turns out other animals have fallen unfairly afoul of Kendra too, and it's not long before a plot emerges to break out of the Palace's walls and escape to… where?

Crypt Custodian is a game by Kyle Thompson, whose previous work includes Islets and Sheepo. Both are breezy action metroidvanias starring animals, and all share a distinctive art style. Creature designs borrow heavily from 1930s and 1940s cartoons, but Thompson doesn't seem interested in rote nostalgia. Animations have a modern fluidity that makes them feel less like a period piece compared to, say, Cuphead. Like Thompson's earlier games, Crypt Custodian is a gorgeous thing in action. The crisp unfussiness of its art is a perfect fit for its precision-oriented action.

Whereas Islets and Sheepo were sidescrollers, Crypt Custodian opts for a top-down view, bringing it closer to something like Hyper Light Drifter or Death's Door (it shares the latter's lightly mordant sense of humour, too). It's considerably easier than either of those, or at least,