You must play Cryptmaster, but please don’t use a compact keyboard

You type a lot Cryptmasterbut I wouldn’t call it a typing game. No, Cryptmaster is a word game: The dungeon-crawling adventure revolves around finding the right word for a bunch of different crazy scenarios. Typing is how you use that power.

Here’s the premise: You play as four (dead) adventurers who have been awakened by the Cryptmaster to, well, travel through a creepy world and do his bidding. The catch is that these four people have lost all of their memories, and a set of lost words is the key to unlocking them. The keyboard is everything (but you can use a controller or play on your Steam Deck). The arrow keys are essential for movement, and you use the rest of the keyboard to type words that control everything else.

Let’s say you’ve found a mysterious chest on the ground. You open it by typing: chest. Then you have to guess what’s inside by asking the cryptmaster to describe the item. Type feeling and the cryptmaster will touch it and describe the experience; type taste and he will describe the mouthfeel; type Look and he will tell you what it looks like. When you answer these riddles correctly, the cryptmaster will reward you with a number of letters hanging under the four portraits of the protagonists. Once you have enough letters, you can use them to guess the answer; under each name there are cards with spaces for missing letters, which ultimately spell out commands for each respective character to help in battle, things like prick, stairs, to scratchor to calm downYou also earn letters when you fight opponents. When they are defeated, they drop letters from their names.

These commands are important to remember: with these you fight Cryptmaster‘s evil enemies. This is where I want to emphasize that Cryptmaster is a word game, not a typing game. It’s not so much that you have to type fast; instead, you have to memorize and use these words quickly and efficiently, managing cooldown times, attacks, and shielding. Plus, there are puzzles, riddles, and mini-games to discover, all of which iterate on the way words work in Cryptmaster.

Although the black and white world looks simple, Cryptmaster is anything but. The crazy, yet creepy style is reinforced throughout, especially by the words. Words are not just something you do in Cryptmaster; the world itself is built around them. Words are silly, creepy, weird little forces, embedded in every detail.

There is only one problem with CryptmasterSpeaking as someone who uses a compact keyboard without an arrow keypad: That’s my problem. I get by without an arrow keypad on a daily basis; the function key is my best friend. But I just recently discovered that it’s a nightmare to play games on, thanks to Cryptmaster. It was difficult to juggle focusing on both typing and holding down the function key to create a makeshift arrow key. But again, this is a problem of my own making. And I like it Cryptmaster enough that I now have a external four-key directional pad in my digital shopping cart.

Cryptmaster was released on May 9 on Windows PC. The game was reviewed on PC using a download code provided by Akupara Games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You may additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.