Inscryption Review (PC Game, 2021)
content warning: gore
Inscryption is an experience. This is a roguelike deck building/psychological horror/puzzle game from Devolver Digital and Daniel Mullins. Yes, that Daniel Mullins, the creator of Pony Island and The Hex. I told you Inscryption is an experience.
You boot up a computer game from the floppy drive era. You cannot start a new game. You can only continue. Your opponent appears in a handmade mask, telling you that his last opponent wasn’t very good. You’re assigned a deck and start navigating a randomly generated map of battles and encounters to expand your deck.
The basic format of the Inscryption card game is familiar if you’ve played a TCG or deck building game before. You draw your cards that cost anywhere from no resources to many resources to play. Either you need to sacrifice cards on the field equal to the number of blood drops or pay tokens equal to the number of bones to release more powerful creatures. The winner is the one who tips the scales entirely to their opponents side with teeth. The loser…well, let’s just say you don’t want to be the loser in this game.
The rules constantly change and expand from there. Items you collect can give you basic creatures to sacrifice, wooden talismen that grant different abilities to your cards, or various cheats to give you an edge. Maybe you want to pull out some of your own teeth to tip the scales. You could also cut your opponent’s card in half with a pair of scissors. If you’re really in a bind, an eye weighs enough to tip the scale halfway to your opponent. The choice is yours.
You also get to walk away from the table and explore the room the game is played in. There are various escape room-styled puzzles on the wall to solve. These unlock additional items and new cards in the game. You find clues throughout the room, the expansive rulebook, and the card game itself to figure out how to solve the puzzles. Some can be done with brute force; others require you to meet certain conditions to actually solve.
Oh, and some of the cards actually have the spirits of the real animals in them that offer you tips on how to beat the various bosses in the game. This card game isn’t just a card game and it’s too late to back out now.
Inscryption does have strategy involved, but the roguelike elements make it very difficult to consistently implement exactly what you know. Different classes of creatures tend to have different powers. Rabbits multiply, aquatic creatures hide underwater, birds fly, and larvae grow over time. The random encounters in the game sometimes let you upgrade these cards through sacrifice or risk. Are you willing to give up wolf to make a stronger elk? Do you trust the hungry campers enough to lay your stoat on the fire? What will the conjoined mad scientists do when you hand them two of the same card? You have no control over the outcome beyond what cards you’re willing to risk something happening to.
The “Continue” option is pretty significant, too. Inscryption is also a cyclical horror game. When you lose—and you will, there is no doubt about it—you start over as a new player. Your last action is creating a new card for the opponent to remember you by. He takes your photo and your name as a souvenir. Play enough times and you’ll get a chance to add your former selves into your deck like a common squirrel card. It’s chilling and effective.
Inscryption is filled with great twists and deep lore. Every time I play I find something new to focus on. The art style makes it quite clear your opponent is the creator of this game and always has the ultimate say in the rules and the final outcome. This is genuinely one of the scariest games I’ve played in a long time and I can’t get enough of it.
Inscryption is available on PC.
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