It might be a few weeks past, but, at least in Escapegameopolis, Halloween is still in full swing. How else to explain the recent rash of delightfully creepy, 
awesomely eerie games created for our pointing and clicking pleasure? Latest up in this pernicious pantheon is Crypt Keeper, a gorgeous new offering by the good folks over at Armor Games.
In Crypt Keeper, without a single word of explanation you find yourself plunked down in the middle of a truly spooktastic graveyard. How and why did you get there? Not important. It's the middle of the night, and there are creepy noises and big ominous tombstones and omigosh you need to get out right now! The only option, then, is to move forward and explore. The office and tool shed that border the graveyard both hold secrets and clues to aid you in your quest, but to really get to the heart of the matter you'll have to—gulp!—venture into the crypt itself.
Crypt Keeper is an extremely nice-looking (and sounding) game. The nearly-photorealistic graphics, deeply shadowed and finely textured, really bring the scene to life; the ambient sound effects also lend an air of realism to the environment. Most of the game's puzzles are fairly straightforward, "pick up key A to open door B" sorts of things, though there are a generous handful of more creative obstacles thrown in. My only real problem with Crypt Keeper is that, despite the fact that it displays all the trappings of a great game, it somehow seems to lack soul. (Mu-hahaha!)
I think that this is mostly due to the complete lack of any sort of set-up or background scenario. Also, unlike many other creepy point-and-clicks, no tragic family history or other spooky story is revealed while playing through the game; there is no "plot" other than to escape. And hey, that's fine... but when seemingly so much time and effort is spent in making a game look and sound great, a corresponding lack of substance can feel a bit disappointing.
That being said, Crypt Keeper is still a fine piece of work that definitely deserves your attention. Even without a developed story line, playing such a polished, atmospheric game is a real pleasure. Enjoy!
Woooo cool game just came out and I'm already stuck lol
It goes immediately to my poop list for making me push a "close window" button anytime I click something. Are they on drugs? Never mind that the window completely mismatches the game and ruins any suspense or atmosphere.
Did these designers play their own game?
Okay, I wasn't really impressed by this game. Most of the scenes were too dark for me to see what I needed to pick up. I just basically pulled my mouse over the whole screen waiting for the hand to appear.
Navigation was poor, especially when outside.
And Strangelander is right about having to close the boxes with an 'x.' It just got annoying after while.
it was an ok game. nothing too exciting. and worst of all, every time you click on something a dialouge box appears in the middle of the game and you have to close it everytime. over all, 10 minutes well spent.
I've been unable to find the
hidden room in the office. I click on the file cabinet and nothing happens.
Help?
I was able to do it all on my own except for
finding the black bag under the desk.
There was no way to see it there without clicking randomly around the area. I also had to adjust my screens brightness and angle several times throughout the game just so I could see a new area better. This did not help find the aforementioned item, and overall made the gameplay much worse.
Su2U: You have to click on the map to make your character realize that he needs to find what you are looking for. Just because you know something, doesn't mean he does.
I did like the spooky atmosphere, but I didn't like - as the other people said - how you have to click this small bit of black-on-black to get something. I had to resort to the tab key cheat, but I kept expecting some sort of chiding shock scare when I did it. Having to close all the boxes is only slightly annoying, though, but it could have been handled more smoothly.
Oh, though the Resident Evil reference was fitting, there's one personal issue that probably deserves spoiler tags:
Y'know when you turn on a computer in these games, and get asked for a password? Isn't it always fun to have to decipher a simple cryptogram or something for the screen name, and search around for the password? Just having both name and password dumped into your inventory seems a bit... anticlimactic to me.
I'm with Tishy...
I understand that creepy escape games are supposed to be dark, but lately they are so dark it gets annoying... and I mean dark literally, you can't see squat of what is in the room, even using the flashlight or turning the lights on. :/
Is this game so bad that we should remove it from the site?
I wouldn't say that, Jay, I'm sure a lot of people will like it, but personally, I think these 'unexpected' obstacles (the darkness, having to click the close button for everything you do) put you down a little bit, especially with a game that looked promising...
Instead of being eager to find out what the next step is, I'm sort of waiting for it to end.
I'm really sorry that so many of you are having difficulties with the game! Maybe it's the settings of my comp, but I had no difficulty making out the scenes (in terms of how dark they are). Anyways, I enjoyed it enough to recommend keeping it up.
I am having trouble
I have found the cousin, Olivia Hamilton. And I have the shovel. But I can't use the shovel on her grave. It just keeps popping up with her name and dates. I've restarted twice and this keeps happening. Help?
Dayna--
Did you try digging just in front of her grave?
I am having exactly the same problem with the shovel. I have clicked EVERYWHERE.
In general, this game had a lot of potential: good graphics and atmosphere, decent story to tell, nice and spooky, etc.
But it is really missing some of the finer points in the execution, as others have mentioned. So far for me it has not been a positive experience. Hopefully the developer can understand what is irking the players and make improvements on the next game!
I quite liked it. Maybe a little bit easy. The overwhelming darkness was a little irritating, but a little fiddling with the monitor fixed that. There was one thing that annoyed me, but it was a problem with me overthinking a puzzle, and not a flaw of the game.
I LOVED the graveyard puzzle, very unique and interesting. However, when given the "YOUNGEST COME FIRST" clue, I assumed I was putting them in order of who was the youngest when they DIED. Since we only know Sharon died in the 90's, her age at death could've ranged by 9 years, and placed her anywhere from first to fifth in order of age at death. After calculating all possible permutations under those rules, and finding that none of them worked, I had to check the walkthrough, and the numbers didn't make sense until I realized they wanted them in order of who was BORN first. I guess that's more intuitive for most people, but I thought the obscured date of death was a hint to do it the hard way.
The upside-down tower thing was a bit of a red herring, too. I totally thought that was going to be a hint about SOMETHING.
I wouldn't take it down, Jay. Just some aesthetic problems more than anything.
shovel "solution"
you must click on Olivia Hamilton's name in the database so it can tell you that she is the cousin... that's all
Dayna and jrun:
Have you confirmed her in the computer database while searching for John, and clicked on her name? The text "I've seen this name before" or something similar should come up, but you do need to click on her name and confirm her as John's cousin. Once that message has been displayed, using the shovel on the grave itself (not the ground in front of it) will get you what you need.
Got it!
You have to click on Olivia's name on the computer for you to be able to use the shovel.
Tough crowd today!
I thought the graphics were very good and a redeeming factor for some of the faults with the game. As jrun commented "Hopefully the developer can understand what is irking the players and make improvements on the next game!"
I think it was a decent effort and I sure as heck have played many that I didn't find near as satisfying.
So, my vote is to keep the game here Jess and Jay.
Jay, yes. This game IS so bad it should be axed.
I don't see the point of lowering the quality of the selection of games you have on this website.
We are all so sorry that the "designers" are incapable of designing a game. I am also sorry that I didn't make the entrance exams to become an astronaut... but this doesn't mean I am allowed to fly the Shuttle just as an encouragement.
Ha, I've got a working ilitary flaslight and still "it's too dark" inside the house :D :D :D
Also, having to close the windows like 10 times a minute doesn't help making it a classic :(
I'm sorry to add to the "tough crowd" feeling, but I have to agree: I know for a fact that my screen is calibrated well - it must be for my job. Still there are items that are, well, impossible to find without the tab cheat, it's so dark, or at least so non-different from the background.
Either this, or my eyesight is a catastrophee :)
Still, Jay, I don't think the game should be removed, it's not a bad game at all. A special misfortune it's made its appearance one day after Tipping Point Ep4... After that, most of the games would seem lame :)
Just for the balance: the graphics, for example, are really good and I like the choice of the venue.
I managed to totally misunderstand some of the in-game hints - but that was all my fault, not the game's.
What I don't understand, having escaped: I think I saw simple metal rail fences around the graveyard. Would I really go thru all this to escape instead of - well, simply climbing over those not-even-high fences?
I, personally wouldn't :D
But the game should stay, definitely.
need a walkthrough please. Thanks.
I'm not getting the antipathy. It's not the greatest game you've ever featured, but it has a few innovations and no pixel hunts. For that latter quality alone, I liked it more than may 75% of the room escape games out there.
Game wasn't that bad where I wanted to punch the maker. I do agree that the dark made me want to (use the tab cheat just to find items) rip my hair out.
I do think that the window thing for the observations was a tad annoying, but it wasn't so bad. Graphics were, like I said before, way too dark and it was hard to make things out at times.
I wish there was some music besides some chirps. Creepy music would've been good, but I guess it's hard to find or make your own music.
(Well, what do you know! The "hints" in the bottom corner is actually a whole walkthrough. Looks like I wasted my time trying to write a walkthrough out myself. I assumed it'd only give you a tiny hint, not a whole walkthrough.)
This is doable without a walkthrough, which is good. Steps made sense most of the time.
Jay: Some people have different opinions. It's like... Twilight! Some people despise it and hope it gets burned, some people love it and some people don't really hate or love it.
Some people have high expectations and some people don't. I mean, sure I thought this was pretty bad, but it wasn't EPIC FAIL YOU GET 1/5 DO NOT PASS GO kinda bad IMO.
Is Armorgames down for anyone else?
shoy - Armor Games is responding fine for me.
Everyone else - Thanks for your feedback. I get worried that perhaps we compromised on quality a bit too much when initial feedback and ratings are overwhelmingly negative. All things considered, though, I feel there is enough to justify keeping this one around. :)
Maybe it's a philosophical niggle (do we continue to age after death?), but by my book...
there's a difference between "earliest" and "youngest." I'd exile the game just for making me do gratuitous math.
...Mmm, ok, maybe it's not that dire. But, y'know, it's a puzzle, so details like that count.
Aside from that and the feeling that my eyesight was going and the vile boxes and the general linearity of it, it was OK. As good as many others here, and better than some.
Yeah I'd keep it here. The rating system is on a scale of 1-5 for a reason. If every game on the site were amazing, wouldn't it just be a scale of 1-2? This game deserves 3 mushrooms in my opinion - enjoyable but not spectacular.
Well I agree with Su2U.. I cannot get the file cabinet to open. I have clicked all over it and nothing ever happens. And it is really dark. I understand to a point about the dark being a part of it being creepy. But yes so many games are so dark even with a lamp on in the room that it gives no chance of finding an object with out a flashlight or a brighter light. Other than the cursor changing to a hand.
Ok so there is my 2 cents worth.. Thanks Jay.. If I can get past the file cabinet I will let ya know.
Hum.
I do play a lot of games here, even though I do it silently and I got annoyed by the linear aspect of the game and by the small difficulties that stop the flow of the experience of playing (i.e. having a hard time to put the batteries in the torch and not being able to put back item in the bar without multiple tries. Not to forget the inability to dig a hole in front of the grave?)
There it is.
I'm stuck, but it seems it's from a lack of understanding how the game wants me to click, than from gathering all the stuff.
Hum.
Isabelle de Montréal.
Jay the game should stay. It wasn't an earth shattering experience like the Exmortis series or Something's Amiss and lots of other games on your site. Having said that, if one's in a total braindead state, Crypt Keeper is good way to kill about 10-15 minutes.
has anyone here played the Darkness series. Its a good point click game. except some puzzles are extremely off the tamgent. They're not just think out of the box, some of them are think out of this world. Someone should give it a try.
I kinda had to tab-cheat a few times, but I got out in the end... Just out of curiosity...
(MEGA spoiler)
Was that a serious plot twist in the end? Were you the one trapped in the coffin? That's kind of how I took it.
If my thoughts on the end of the game were right (see MEGA spoiler), the end was definitely well done.
I think it might be worthwhile to evaluate whether a "weekday escape" is feasible without sacrificing the quality of the gaming content on the site. i.e. are there really enough quality escape games out there to warrant a weekly post?
In my opinion, yes, there are generally enough good escape games to provide one or several for Wednesday's Weekday Escapes.
Weekday Escape is my favorite feature here. I especially love it when there are more than one to explore, even if they can't all be Submachine. This one had some extra clicking involved... big deal. It was interesting and different and, to me, that more than made up for the dialog issue (hopefully the developer will come up with a better mechanism for future releases).
To get rid of Weekday Escape, you might as well kill off Link Dump Friday -- and miss out on a lot of gems in the name of "quality control." If anything, I'd rather see MORE escapes each Wednesday :)
I honestly didn't like this game. I hate it when games are dark just to make them "spooky", even if that means you can't make out anything in such darkness. The interface was unintuitive (I never would've looked where the flashlight was if I hadn't read the walkthrough, and it only lit up the office when I had found what I was supposed to be looking for). Navigation was awful (once you were looking at the tombstones, you couldn't go right any more to go straight to the office, and vice versa). The dialogue windows didn't need to be manually closed for everything. At the very least, they could've allowed a click anywhere to close them. Also, whenever I was holding an item, most dialogue wouldn't show up (for example, trying to use the flashlight on the crypt gate doesn't clue you in that it's locked). The wording on the last puzzle was misleading too, and I didn't understand what I had done wrong until I had already used the walkthrough to finish the game.
Oh, and for the ending:
What kind of a crypt has an entrance to outside the graveyard? That's the perfect entrance for a grave robber! Not only that, but you should be able to pick the lock of the main gate, or use the bolt cutters if it was a combination lock. But no, he moves a giant stone wheel out of the way to escape (isn't that from an Indiana Jones movie or something?)
I do have to agree with the second poster, why didn't they get a couple of friends to test the game? That would've let them know that they made some mistakes in the flow of logic of the game. I honestly hope that the creator reads the feedback and fixes the problems if he makes a sequel. I did, however, find the computer's interface to be intuitive (except for the "familiar name", which forced me to use the walkthrough to find out what it meant)
But, despite its shortcomings, I don't think it should be removed from the site (at the time of posting, it has a 3.1/5 rating. If it were to drop to 2.5 or lower, then I might change my mind).
For those of you stuck on the last puzzle (the one that has the eight "butons"):
"Young" refers to the age when the person died, not how old they would be now.
Stuck on the roman numerals?
They are arranged from 1 (top) to 8 (bottom).
Still stuck?
Key:
"I" = 1
"II" = 2
"III" = 3
"IV" = 4
"V" = 5
"VI" = 6
"VII" = 7
"VIII" = 8
By the way, a full walkthrough can be accessed by clicking "HINT?" in the bottom-right corner.
I appear to be the ONLY complete loser in this game, but I've got the batteries and I can't get any further, even with the tab-cheat thing. I can't seem to click anywhere that progresses me at all from here. Am I missing something?
wardrich -
oh, that makes so much sense. It's worth keeping the game just for that. But then
(more mega spoiler)
I'd hope I'd remember my own name! But it fits. And, EMDF, with the white light at the end, I didn't take it for escaping as much for, well, 'moving to the next level.'
i thought it will be scary but not.
Easy game except inserting the chips part, confusing~
Need the spoiler to get me through~
Yeah, I didn't bother to finish this one -- walkthrough or not. The interface is just too annoying; same complaints others have already posted, random clicking into darkness, incessant closing of information pop-up windows -- that was the REAL horror here! I even tried a second time today after leaving off for a few days, thinking that maybe I was just in an impatient mood when it was first posted, but NOPE! Sorry, this game just wasn't fun.
I cannot figure out how to get in the secret room behind filing cabinet. I keep clicking but nothing happens.
How to get to the secret room
you have to have looked at the map in your inventory and have click on it so the comment comes up about it being larger than it appears. Only then will it reveal the room. Drove me insane!!
i loved the game so sweet, it's very rare i come across such a creepy cool game please make more, love it!
Seriously bad game. Incredibly disappointing. The design flaws are just too bad to overlook, it made the whole experience frustrating and I just found the whole thing annoying.
I went to the cheats when...
I couldn't get any grave names to come up on the "ROSTER LOOK-UP". I thought it was a bug.
Otherwise, it's ok except for the non-toggling popups, and black objects on black backgrounds.
This game is more of a Puzzle than a Escape game
upside down picture on porch does have a function in the game:
it points to the flashlight (up is down, so look down)
generally annoying interface, though.
First game from which I have walked away. I finally got frustrated enough to click hint and was told to find the hidden door in the office by clicking the file cabinet after going to the right. Obviously can't find the right pixel?? As 5 minutes of fine tune clicking has resulted in nada. Also suprised that the shovel does not seem to dig anywhere (like around the graves). These challenges and the lame pop ups that have me forever hitting red Xs are enough to move on (very unlike me).
This game is pretty good but i dont like games where you have to take notes because it takes too long & i still cant do the puzzle in the wall...
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