Crypt Underworld: The End of History
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION:
Ten years pass, and its desires are forgotten. They seep into crevices in the earth, where they accumulate and admix, taking on ambiguous new shapes. From these caverns of human experience, where forgotten desires linger, an echo is heard in the world of the living:
Crypt Underworld: The Final Videogame™!
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FOREWARD
by
Martin Amis
Crash! Bang! Wallop! These are the sounds I make every day. Yet they’re also, emotions. And these are just some of the many emotions that have been secreted over centuries in the far-reaching catacombs sprawled underneath the city - the very same catacombs that once acted as home to the bandit, Pompelmo, in his reign of terror on the city above. Please grab a seat so that I can tell you about it.
In the year 17XX, still in the living memory of certain persons, a certain bird once flew to a certain house and made a noise some described as “beguiling”. This was the beginning of what we now know as modernity and pretty soon we had all set about being modern in the new and stylish way. I would say I was a “computer programmer” named “Jim” who was working on “soft ware” to “eliminate the ability to make a living”. Oh, how we laughed. But who was laughing when I went home to find my wife in the arms of another man? That’s right – Pompelmo was laughing. Pompelmo, whose arms they were!
The next few centuries were not so hot. But the practice of “computer game design” – building gadgets to slowly and ingeniously kill whoever was operating them, through a delicate arrangement of gears and wires – never died out absolutely. In walks outside the city you might see a picturesque peasant sullenly whittling something in a hut or attempting to flagellate herelf with a tree branch that had the words FINAL FANTASY 8 carved on it in uneven letters. Yet the state of the art form as a hole remained static. Time passed. Various murders, massacres etc. Piles of bodies in the woods. Trip hop was invented and then forgotten, multiple times. They were long centuries.
Finally as every schoolchild knows the invention of CRYPT WORLDS, by the “laughing cowboy of games” known by her saddle stitching as Cicada Marionette, lit up the night skies of our lives like a bomb or firework or something edit this later. At long last the questions which had been bugging us for the last while – “What is ‘meaning’? Where did I put it? It was right here, I swear” - were definitively answered, in terms so celebrated it would be redundant to list them again here. Noble families went on outings to the pilgrime village or the corpse tunnels and marvelled at the feeling that here at last was an experience that had no end. Yet, what was that face we could dimly make out, leering at us from the depths of the digital caverns? Could it be… the familiar face of Pompelmo? Pompelmo, who was never caught by the authorities, and whose valuable emeralds – mark this – never recovered…?
Dear reader, both you and I are dead. As ghosts we can talk only about what was and what will be, and not what is, as per non-disclosure regulations. Yet there are rumours, glimpses. They say that in the ghost world there are videogames also – that the scrap, junk, slime, debris of waking life, plunged into the afterworld, retains some sense of the shape it once had. Goes rolling together in the dark and forms new shapes, buildings, rooms. Piling up in memory into the image of that memory, bearing traces of what once was but turned inwards, inside out. A rambling catacombs… just like the catacombs that once… ah!! I can say no more, for I have just been stabbed, by Pompelmo. Yet we are both ghosts now so the gesture is moot and my response just that of politeness. We each have our own little hobby horse it seems.
Traveller, beware my consumer survey wisdom. In her dark cavern beyond the centuries Cicada Marionette and Zoe Spinnylights create the snare which entangles mankind. In this vast heaped assemblage of rooms, doors, impossible areas, trampolines, frogs, piss physickes, capsule toys, windows to other people’s rooms, glimpsed figures, office workin’, worship of the dread god Dendygar, memories and dreams etc, could it be that we finally have a version of that "ultimate videogame" the thought of which man has used to console himself thru all the miserable centuries...? Hm! Who knows! I’ll have to think about it. Thanks for reading my report. Excelsior!
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CONTROLS
Left Click - Interact / Select
Right Click - Piss
Tab - Open Inventory
Space - Jump
Shift - Run
Esc - Open Exit Menu (only works if not in other menus)
0 - Take a screenshot (saved under 'Crypt Underworld_Data' in the game's folder)
GAME AUTOSAVES ALWAYS
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CREDITS
GAME - ME!!!
COOL MUSIC AND SFX by: ESPer99
Original / Distorted Crypt Worlds SFX + Ominous Bell Sound by: Liz Ryerson
Cut-Up Dialogue uses SCISSORS by Zoe Spinnylights who also contributed to ideas in the game!
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OFFICIAL 1920x1080 Crypt Wallpapers featuring very cute art by Mariken!
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Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- !FINAL! update for the time beingAug 12, 2023
- YES EXCITING NEW QOL UPDATES FOR *YOU* ENCLOSED WITHINAug 08, 2023
- !EMERGENCY UPDATE!Aug 01, 2023
- another updateJul 31, 2023
- last one this weekJul 29, 2023
- anotherJul 28, 2023
- day2Jul 28, 2023
- fixesJul 27, 2023
Comments
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the experience!!
they'll need a crane
hohoho looks interesting
I decided to look this up again and I can't believe it!! Really exciting.
I LOOOOVED crypworlds as a young lad and now seeing this makes me so unbelivably stoked
YAYYY!!!!
is there a way to get out of dendygr's hell room or is it a sorta soft lock
You alright?
I was super depressed when this game released, I locked myself in my room for 3 days straight and basically lived in this game during that time. It was an amazing experience, and I wish I could experience it for the first time again. Theres a part of me that wishes this game was like 3x longer than it is, but I know thats unrealistic. But thats where I'm at :) I love this game to bits!! Its an absolutely amazing game.
A few suggestions tho:
some way to stop velocity, when flying away uncontrollably i cant stopp :(
more dialog, conversations/ more stuff about friendships with things, i get a really warm good feeling from this game and the characters in it and i just wanna be able to exchange like 3-4 sentences whenever a new development happens
something to maintain, like plants??? i wanna water plants and like.. vaccuum or uh.. idk i want something repeatable like that
sit/relax on stuff like other characters do, i cant sit in any of my furniture D:
more music would be great! there are some repeat tracks
day night cycle? days do end but we dont see the night time happen. so what if it got dark and THEN you could sleep, but if you stay up too late you just sleep anyways. then you could show street lights and night time creatures and stuff.. glow in the dark thingies idk
more customization. i wanna engage in the cultures of the things around me by decorating not just my apartment, but myself as well :)
this is my goty 2023 and onwards, i love it love it soso much, you are a huge inspiration to me and have been for so many years. Keep up the great stuff :))
crypt worlds holds a special place in my heart and so does this
This game gave me a good feeling about the ease of inflicting infinity on others and then the depreciation of my path since monsters cannot be exterminated and resources have become worthless, rather rare sensations of freedom
Hello, so, i don't know how to express this in a way that conveys how much i love this, but this enters my top 3 of the BEST games i've encountered in Itch.io. Hell, one of the best experimental games in general. It's such an endearing surreal experience and games like yours is why i call games art. And, well, i love the oniric feel it has for me. I've been playing this almost since it came out, but i didn't make a review at the time because i didn't knew (and i still don't to be honest) how to express the genuine excitement of playing this. I really wish you the best, you made something beautiful and damn, i have to read the volume 2 of Bessttsy City...
ive been waiting for this game since the milisecond it was announced. crypt worlds is a game that changed me forever, always holds a deep place in my heart. Thank you so much for what you do. Very inspiring artist.
this game fucks so hard
This is my personal game of the year for 2023, it's so good :D
This is amazing. There are so many places to find in this game! I think my favourite area so far was the dark swamp/lake area with the characters in boats. Something I do miss is the lighting from the earlier versions of the game, it really added to the atmosphere (not sure if this has been changed, I downloaded the game a few months ago when it came out). Either way, it's a very immersive world.
I just got a new computer recently which is much faster, so now I can finally play lag-free. Need to give the game another go!
hmm... the movement feels strange compared to the build i've played in the past
deacceleration is reallyyy slow... takes a good second to stop regardless of if i'm using the bedazzled version or not
also the way i'm facing affects my movement in the air feels uncomfortable and strange...
wondering if there's something wrong with my setup? or if the game is just intended to be this way
hope its not intended to be like this, it feels really uncomfortable..
EDIT: lack of a mouse sensitivity slider is also quite discouraging... i've been really excited to play this but.. mm... maybe i'll try again later when i'm feeling better. feeling a bit off atm and this isn't helping
After playing the game probably 10-20 hours by now, both just for fun and to get footage for a video, my main gripes would be that the character controller is definitely odd and quite uncomfortable to use, and the lack of mouse sensitivity or FOV options are rough for quality of life - the FOV quite subtly gives the game a sort of nausea-inducing feeling in addition to the character controller.
Then, on top of that, the lighting being so extreme makes it a lot to... take in when you're playing.
I suspect some of these changes are related to the way the character controller is affected by the various armor pieces you can get which can be activated/deactivated to give bonuses to your movement.
I would imagine there was an earlier character controller that was a bit more intuitive and then they had to create a new one that was able to receive all these bonuses to various aspects of it, and creating a first person character controller from scratch is quite a frustrating and complex task. I don't blame them but I'd love to see a new version one day that uses a revamped character controller and has FOV and mouse sensitivity options.
Did just about everything outside of finding that last damn coffin. Is there any sort of discord for this game/community? I'd like to share shenanigans and also see how others played.
a masterpiece!!
Did a full playthrough finally, love the game, keep up the great work! (also where is the final drac statue??)
waaaaa
The 64 Linux build fades to a yellow screen and doesn't do anything, and the regular Linux build crashes my computer entirely.
I've been waiting for this game since the original came out, but I guess I'll have to wait a little longer until I get ahold of a Windows machine.
Holy shit. I never thought I would live to see the day this finally came out.
I am so very excited to see this get a "final" release! I am workin on a Linux machine at the moment and not well versed in it's operation. How do I run/install this beautiful piece of art?
Local wizards have cast spells upon my laptop. Piss to the World! <3
Hi i just wanted to say that Crypt Worlds is like my favorite bizarro indie game and i have finished it like 4 times and i JUST found out the sequel released and just wanted to say thank you for your great work over the years. its genuinely inspiring.
Oh also just to ask a question. wasn't there a fully custom engine made for crypt underworlds? i noticed the github page has been scrubbed of all mentions of the game, and the game itself is in unity. did something happen that lead to switching back to it?
It's a bit of a kerfuffle with regards to the two developers of the game, I wouldn't discuss it here as it seems to be a sensitive subject. Basically one of the developers wanted to recreate the engine from scratch and one of the developers wanted to just get the game finished and shipped.
I wont play until I can pay <3
thank you, ive waited many years. :)
At this point I think I've played 8 hours at least, I've beaten the game, and seen what I assume must be every area. I'm really impressed by the game and it's clear how much work has gone into it. It has a great sense of humor, a wonderful aesthetic, and I love some of the more subdued and quieter areas in the game like the Museum, Ghost Buffet, Necropolis, Paradise Garden, Cosmos, Lonely Apartment, etc... in comparison to the many loud, abrasive areas just absolutely chock full of stuff. I'm really glad you decided to release it and I hope that releasing it will mean you can take a break for a while and let your mind cool down after spending so much of your life working on this thing. I know just as well that a project like this can sort of destroy your brain over time.
As far as negatives, I wish the 3d-space-swirl/spin effect when you get hit by bombs or touch meat/conveyer belts, and the fact that hotdogs force you to vomit for 10 seconds (which makes the game near-unplayable in many areas when you unblock the hotdog factory) were changed. Perhaps an Iron Stomach upgrade to make it so you can eat hotdogs like burgers instead of getting force-bezoar'd and an Iron Equillibrium upgrade to remove the spin effect would do a lot to help the quality of life.
The lighting is obviously not ideal but you're clearly aware of that, so I don't think it helps to mention that, and I love the aesthetic of the whole thing, I just wish some areas weren't so mind-meltingly bright in the bedazzled version.
The character controller seems to have a glitch that causes it to frequently veer off in one direction rather than go straight forward much of the time, I'm not sure what causes that but it can be pretty annoying sometimes.
this was very special thank u so much, crypt worlds was wildly inspiring to what i wanted to do and this is just fantastic and fun,, and meaningful.
When we needed her most... she returned
I've been playing the game, and... wow. It's been really fun so far! Visited many places, did a lot, it's been a really fun and weird and sometimes disturbing time! Even tho I never played Crypt Worlds, which folks say is easier to get into, I honestly thought it was pretty smooth goin'!
Also, uh, something I just wanted to check up... where did you get the audio for the Cowboys and Archeologists? I'm just asking 'cus, I could be wrong, but... it's literally a sentence in my home language! It's Portuguese, maybe with some accent from the south, Alentejo maybe! "Nunca mais vem... solinho", it's this, right?
Hearing about this made my entire month. I'm sad that I didn't get to try it sooner. The original Crypt Worlds is one of my favorite games, and a big inspiration for my game development aspirations. Thank you for putting your art out into the world, it does not go unappreciated.
Seems like there's an issue with piss upgrades that you get from the Piss Guild members, they don't do anything and disappear permanently if you reduce the level.
The bedazzling is lovely! Such a different mood to some places. Though, I wonder if I had played this version first if I would have found as much stuff. More dark areas.
Also, enjoy vacation! Free yourself from the curse of toil.
you call that piss? heh. child's play
I'm so glad this is finally out, I've poured countless hours into the previous builds and will gladly engage with this masterpiece once more, Mall Ghouls are best girls. Also, is there a chance for a download of the entire OST? I would pay money for that. The theme for the arcade is especially good.
thank you for releasing the bedazzled version. such a treat to look at. love the art you come up with and the color of the lighting in every map really brings so much more out of this game. keep up the amazing work
thank youu!
Hey Lilith Zone. I'm very interested in Crypt Underworld and the rest of your work and planning to make a video on it if you're okay. Do you know where I can contact you so I can ask you some question (kind of a mini interview) ?
I have uploaded the last builds I'm going to do for awhile. I am taking a vacation for a bit so I won't be checking here as much. Read the latest update for more details
I dont get it...
amazing amazing sequel, it's everything i've been looking forward since playing crypt worlds and more, thank you so much for creating something so genuine and raw.
also! i think i found a bug in the "waters below" zone where peeing on the ancient tulip knocks you back way outside the map. i tried landing back onto the tulip after falling for about a minute and i was launched so far upwards that the map unloaded. when i tried using a warp to load into another area my upward momentum didn't go away and i kept flying out of every warp until i restarted the game.
last thing! unless i've missed an item, i keep finding these blue eggs around the world that have the green interactable hand icon whenever i hover over them, but nothing seems to happen when i try to pick them up. this could be user error though!
Ok, so... how exactly do you get into that Waters Below area legitimately? I was pushed outside the map when I was about to fight the First Homunculus I think, and I then landed there.
i think you're only meant to get to it by falling out of the world in several areas, which becomes a lot more accessible after you get some mobility.
also, where is the first homunculus fight? i don't remember encountering like that on my playthrough.
Well, if you fall off of the Labyrinth and land on the lakes down below, you'll find a door that leads to a place called... the Sunken Court or Drowned Court, something like that. It seems to be an area where many masked homunculi live, they even have many popes to worship, and in one of the last rooms, you can find it, past the area with the craddle. At least, that's how I think it was called - I didn't get to fight it when I opened its sarchophagus, as I was thrusted out of bounds immediatly. Sadly, you can't repeat the fight either, so I hope I didn't miss any crazy items or so.