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Krypta FM review: a delightfully spooky taste of cryptid huntingDial M for Mothman
Dial M for Mothman
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Under The Sink Studio
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Under The Sink Studio
At ten past nine every evening he sends you out into the darkening world. He’s the presenter ofKrypta FM- pronounced with the chopped staccato of every good radio announcer as Kryp! Ta! FM! - and you are his eager listener and hopeful protege. Sniff the evening air. Breathe deep! The small town world that lies sleeping all around you is just teeming with cryptids, surely. Anyone seen a mothman lately? A werewolf? Grab a camera and get out there - but be safe, okay?
The genius, of course, is that Krypta FM, a short - and entirelyfree- exploration game, sends you out into two worlds at once. There’s small-town Poland, with its abandoned train stations, dark woodland roads and flickering street lamps, and there’s the world of 2006, when the game is set. This era gives you chunky digital cameras with dodgy batteries, bulletin boards with flame wars and talk of “netiquette”, and PC desktops still in thrall to Frutiger Aero. Because of this, Krypta FM is several things at once. It’s sinister and nostalgic. It’s creepy and often oddly sweet.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Under The Sink Studio
These daily, or rather nightly, objectives give you just enough of a sense of structure as you start exploring a surprisingly rangy open world. There’s your little house at the centre of it all, with its radio dial set to Krypta FM, the noble bulk of your PC monitor strobing through screensavers on the desk, and the narrow hallway to the front door where it gets so gloomy you’ll already need to turn on your flashlight. But beyond that, and beyond your scrabbly garden with its missing fence panels and chain link gates, there’s the paved road, the rest of the village, and everything that lurks just out of view.
And these places provide the game with its most evocative moments. Woods so dark that even with a torch you’re moving between the prickly absences of trees and bushes you can’t really see. A railway station that’s currently padlocked and out of reach. There’s that graveyard out there somewhere, but where exactly? And what’s with the hissing, crackling electricity pylon out beyond the point where the road paving gives way to rutted mud?
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Under The Sink Studio
This is prime territory for jump scares, and over its short running time Krypta FM has at least one of these that is thrillingly simple and effective. But the game also knows when to hold off on tapping you on the shoulder or leaping out in front of you. The moments I remember the most are when I was out there in the woods and I was sure something was about to happen, but then it didn’t. Krypta FM’s world feels real in part because I spent so much time lost in it, sure, but also because I spent so much time just standing there amongst the trees, wondering if I was actually alone, or whether something - a beast? the hovering intent of the game’s designers? - was out there with me.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Under The Sink Studio
