This game's just.... lovely. Really, a lovely experience all the way through!
I'd played the dev's last game Islets before and liked it well enough, a fun if a touch unpolished little metroidvania, but!! You could feel the care that was put into the game.
I'm happy to say that the same level of care and attention is felt in Crypt Custodian!!

Crypt is a top down metroidvania, which surprisingly isn't that common of a genre. There aren't thaaat many movement upgrades to find, which is not really what you usually see in indie metroidvanias I've found. But the upgrades that are there, while simple, still make the experience interesting the whole way through.
The combat's fun too! A touch frantic and mashy maybe, but I wasn't expecting a deep system from this. It's a pretty fun mix of top down action and shmup dodging, and it delivered more than enough for the experience.

I think the highlight here are the vibes and the story. Crypt Custodian has you playing as a recently deceased cat that's locked outside "The Palace" (aka he's stuck in the bad afterlife) and tasked to being essentially a janitor. Through the game you're meeting other ghosts and making friends, finding out a bit of their lives, some happy some very sad, but it's never too much, and the game never lets the mood get too dour.
Honestly I think this might be a pretty decent game to play when you're down. It gives you the thoughts of the people you love still looking out for you even when the situations are tough, and even when they're too far away to be phisically present. It's not necessarily a 'happy' game, but its for sure a comforting game.