This world has a decent amount of writing for a 1991 world, but it's kind of a mixed bag. It's really good at being playful and mischievous (barring its treatment of mental illness). Unfortunately, the writing suffers when attempting to give you a sense of purpose to your quest or give you a sense of place. The asylum area especially feels like it's part of a completely different game.
As far as how it plays, it's mostly fine aside from the lack of health -- ammo and torches are quite generous. I could do without the passage maze in the crypt though.
The best part is selecting the wrong answers when talking to the final boss.
I considered this a great game, because it had all this atmosphere and although for a short little game.. you'd think a game would have more than a block for every board. I loved this game though. It had style. It also had a mouse in which you bring it cheese. Totally classic.
Aside from being short and rather difficult, The crypt is good fun. I can't say I played the Zenith version, but this one played fine. The puzzles were challanging and at the time I'm pretty sure that passage puzzle was original. So you have to give credit there. The graphics are noting special but not totally god awful. The programmer captures mountains and forests nicly without stk. Again credit due for this. The ending board looked really cool with the centipedes and I figured that I'd be stealing that idea sometime down the road for something. Not worthy of the crappy two, but also not worthy of the "Good" 4. This is a fun yet mediocre game.
I like the idea of a vintage genre, but the thing about these games is that thaey are vintage. You give the author credit for making a halfway decent game at the time, but now things have come, such as ZZTAE, STK, and other things to help make a better game. Take Smiley Guy for example. The original game is considerad crap now because of its pre-programmed enemies and items, but Zenith Nadir came along years later and made it quite an enjoyable game. I'll give it the benefit of the time and give it a two for holding my attention span. But this game did not age well, unlike improving like a fine wine over time, it aged like the foul-smelling stuff in the back of your fridge.
