ZX Spectrum game · play free
Crypt Caper
Pick a Knight, a Wizard or a Squire and search a 60-room keep for three shards, each guarded by a creature only its own relic can banish.
In short
- Crypt Caper is an original top-down flip-screen adventure for the ZX Spectrum 48K and 128K.
- The castle has 60 rooms over three floors, joined by doors, stairs, trapdoors and secret passages.
- To win, find the Sun, Moon and Star shards and carry all three to the Moon Gate in the Great Hall.
- Each hero has a different weapon and a different way through the secret passages.
- It's a tribute to the castle explorers of 1983, with all-new rooms, art, monsters and text.
How to play Crypt Caper
You're seen from above, in a castle drawn one room at a time in bright outlines on black. Walk through a doorway and the next room appears. Your candle in the side panel is your vigour: it burns down over time and drops sharply when a monster touches you. Eat food to restore it. Let it go out and you lose one of your three lives.
Monsters appear in each room after a short delay, with a warning sparkle first. Touching one destroys it but costs vigour, so it's usually better to shoot first or keep moving.
Knight, Wizard or Squire?
| Hero | Weapon | Secret passages |
|---|---|---|
| Knight | A thrown axe | Tapestries |
| Wizard | A bolt that bounces off walls | Mirrors |
| Squire | A fast sling | Crates |
Walk into your hero's passage object to slip through to another part of the castle. That means each hero finds a different route, and the castle feels different every time you change class.
Keys, relics and the three guardians
Coloured doors need the matching red, green, blue or gold key. Keys go on a keyring and don't take up any of your four hand slots. Some doors open and shut on a timer, and trapdoors open on a cycle and drop you to the floor below.
Each shard is guarded by a creature that only one relic can banish:
- The Lantern banishes the Grey Wraith.
- The Chisel banishes the Stone Gargoyle.
- The Salt Jar banishes the Bog Witch.
You can only hold four things at once, so plan your trips. Press 1 to 4 to drop an item somewhere you'll remember.
Tips
- Draw a map. Sixty rooms on three floors is a lot to keep in your head. Squared paper works as well as it did in 1983.
- Don't fight everything. Every touch costs vigour. Leave a room if it gets busy.
- Remember where the food is. It won't reappear somewhere else once you've eaten it.
- The castle can always be finished. Keys are placed so you can't lock yourself out, and trapdoors only drop you where you can get back to the start.
How Crypt Caper was made
Crypt Caper is written in Z80 assembly and needs no Sinclair ROM routines at all: it has its own font, keyboard reading and interrupt handler. The castle layout was designed first as a browser game, then re-laid on the Spectrum's 8-pixel grid, with a script checking that every item, stair and passage can be reached. A scripted run then won the game as all three heroes, through the real 48K and 128K loaders.
On a 128K, the AY chip plays "Danse Macabre for Three Heroes" on the title screen and a slow, creeping waltz in game, with a different key and pace on each floor of the castle.
The Kempston joystick is off by default in this game; press K on the title screen to switch it on. Our joystick guide explains what Kempston, Sinclair and Cursor mean. New to flip-screen games? The history of the ZX Spectrum explains where they came from.
