Inscryption (card game... roguelike? arg? dm simulator?)

[whydoibother]

From the creator of Pony Island and The Hex comes the latest mind melting, self-destructing love letter to video games. Inscryption is an inky black card-based odyssey that blends the deckbuilding roguelike, escape-room style puzzles, and psychological horror into a blood-laced smoothie. Darker still are the secrets inscrybed upon the cards...
In Inscryption you will...

• Acquire a deck of woodland creature cards by draft, surgery, and self mutilation
  
• Unlock the secrets lurking behind the walls of Leshy's cabin
  
• Embark on an unexpected and deeply disturbing odyssey

Game has a free demo on Steam.....

... but....

rug pull

From what I gather after glancing at game discussion, the game changed genre and basically tells an on-rails story through switching pace, genre, rules, etc, and its only really a deck building roguelike for Act I. Having played the demo and wanting more of it, this put me off from buying for now.

Anyone playing? Is this worth buying if you just want a roguelike deck builder like Slay the Spire, and dig the guy DMing your adventure vibe of the demo, or does it stray too far, too fast? How's replayability?

 

[Latro]

apparently it's a deck builder that segues into an undertale esque meta story

 

[Salvo]

From the creator of Pony Island and The Hex comes the latest mind melting, self-destructing love letter to video games. Inscryption is an inky black card-based odyssey that blends the deckbuilding roguelike, escape-room style puzzles, and psychological horror into a blood-laced smoothie. Darker still are the secrets inscrybed upon the cards...
In Inscryption you will...

• Acquire a deck of woodland creature cards by draft, surgery, and self mutilation
  
• Unlock the secrets lurking behind the walls of Leshy's cabin
  
• Embark on an unexpected and deeply disturbing odyssey

Game has a free demo on Steam.....

... but....

rug pull

From what I gather after glancing at game discussion, the game changed genre and basically tells an on-rails story through switching pace, genre, rules, etc, and its only really a deck building roguelike for Act I. Having played the demo and wanting more of it, this put me off from buying for now.

Anyone playing? Is this worth buying if you just want a roguelike deck builder like Slay the Spire, and dig the guy DMing your adventure vibe of the demo, or does it stray too far, too fast? How's replayability?

It's a decent game hurt by its meta-narrative and ARG sections

 

[cb.spike]

Yeah, fuck this game. Even the good part, spooky card game, later turns out to be on rails with not a proper card system behind it and card matches are just series of premade "puzzles".

 

[Cunt Dickula!?]

First game that made me feel: "I'm too old for that shit."

 

[ValeVelKal]

So I reached the "Undertale" part, and more, and so far it has been an incredible journey. Very, very high recommend.

Would not call it RPG though.

Pony Island was fun and different as well, but not a great game. Inscryption is.

 

[Jaedar]

When I first saw this I avoided it because "just another deck building roguelite". But someone told me there's more to it than meets the eye, and after having played and finished it, I agree. There's a demo on Steam, which is what convinced me to take the plunge (so gj to the developer on that).

Spoiler

For me, the first part was the weakest. Second part could have been a true standout if it weren't so short.

Yeah, fuck this game. Even the good part, spooky card game, later turns out to be on rails with not a proper card system behind it and card matches are just series of premade "puzzles".

I don't agree. The first time you go against some of the bosses is nigh guaranteed loss, the rest are proper card battles with a twist. They're not symmetrical, but single player deck builders usually aren't?

 

[Leonard]

Why is this in RPG section?

 

[Jenkem]

 

[Harthwain]

Yeah, fuck this game. Even the good part, spooky card game, later turns out to be on rails with not a proper card system behind it and card matches are just series of premade "puzzles".

What do you mean "not a proper card system behind it"? You're literally shaping your deck by picking specific cards, random cards within a class (wolves, bugs, etc.), mixing cards by inscribing sigils on them, making them attack harder or have more health, combining totems, and there are also death cards to consider after you lose a run (which is essentially "make your own card" system).

Why is this in RPG section?

Probably because you're playing with the DM. That's the only reason I can think of.

Deck-building roguelite with some adventure puzzles and psychological horror elements is where this game is at. At least from what I've seen so far. It's pretty damn good game overall though.

 

[Ivan]

 

[whydoibother]

Probably because you're playing with the DM. That's the only reason I can think of.

Yeah, I thought of it like a tabletop simulator thing.
Also, all this time later, I haven't beaten it. The first act is fun, if a bit on rails, but the second act was like doing homework, and it doesn't get better from there.
This might be the one game where the free demo is better than the full product.

 

[Delphik]

I went into this game completely blind and it's pretty good, the gameplay is fairly simple, and once you crack the code in the first act it can be a bit way too easy but then you realize

How to break the first act

they basically want you to break it by putting several hints as to how, I just used the squirrel totem thingy and made each squirrel sacrifice count as 3 blood

, after that I fell in love with the game, it's worth a try even if the ending felt a little bit disappointing, after you finish the game you can play Kaycee's mod, which removes all OP interactions and makes the game more challenging and it can be a fun game mode if you're going for all achievements.

 

[oldbonebrown]

I picked this game up on sale, good money spent.

I've played it for 13 hours so far, got stuck for a good while on trying to kill the GM a second time
Just did and unlocked the part where

spoilers

you end up walking around in the shed outside the cabin that the game is being played in

locked out in the cold dark shed lmfao

dead

time to start a New Game


Good stuff so far. I'm surprisingly not bothered by how intense the game is with its presentation and narrative. It is very heavy handed in how the game flows, but it flows really quite well most of the time. Though the death-sequence got very longwinded when I started dying a lot in a row.
I also played it drunk for a bit and got nausea from it after a while. Man, is the perspective swinging back and forth a lot in this game. Puts you in a trance almost sometimes.

 

[oldbonebrown]

Currently a little bit hooked on playing kaycee's mod
I find it very much to be about getting a 1hit kill doomsday card, especially on the last boss you have to kill him before he can act

I was just down to 1 hp on the Leshy with nothing but a gold nugget on the board and cards I had no chance of playing on my hand
On the last pull before death I get a sparrow with the hoarder sigil and get it on the board using a squirrel bottle to use it to pull up my doomsday card - an 8/8 Geck with the Fecundity sigil

bang bang G G
feels good man

 

[oldbonebrown]

fuck the bullfrog
for some reason it feels much worse to play than any other card

 

[oldbonebrown]

I geck'd him again right after

Had another 4/4 geck on the board when I took down the moon too

Now I have only level 12 left, the last deck looks hard to play on it

 

[notpl]

The first portion of this game was pretty good and then they lost me so god damn hard with the later chapters.

 

[oldbonebrown]

The first portion of this game was pretty good and then they lost me so god damn hard with the later chapters.

The first chapter is the best, which worked well for me since it was also the longest. It is the main meat of the game, as seen by it being expanded in Kaycee's Mod.
But chapter 2 and 3 are also good. What did you not like about them?
Nice change of pace, and the meta narrative proceeded well too - even if it did not reach the heights of the first chapter.
I think the first collection of video clips of the Player/Card Collector was the highpoint of that for me. The card opening videos were very funny.
But as I commented on earlier, it was also great when you stepped out of the cabin in Chapter 1, and started a New Game and ended up in Retro Chapter 2.


I just finished level 12 of Kaycee's Mod and beat the secret final boss. The devlog message from Kaycee you get at the end was very sweet and worked really well.

 

[oldbonebrown]

Why is this in RPG section?

Because it was a JRPG like Pokemon before Leshy got loose on the code.

 

[oldbonebrown]

One little thing that kept on being funny was when the Player commented "always pick mantis god" after I had just started having that realization, and then it kept on being true for most of the entire game so I kept being reminded of it.

 

[3 others]

Having bought this and Darkest Dungeon (1) recently, I must say that one marvellous thing about Inscryption is how it respects the player's time. The animations, actions and camera pans are crisp as hell compared to the annoyingly ponderous transitions in DD.

Game's otherwise good too.