Author: Rich Meister
This thing started as a review be the more I typed, the harder it got to dance around the things that make Daniel Mullins’ latest card-based adventure so cool. Sure the card mechanics play a big part; I’m a sucker for a good card game, but more than that, it’s the weird story being told and the mysterious way it unfolds that make it this year’s must-play game.
If I were writing a review, the verdict would be east BUY IT, but instead, I wanted to briefly talk about why you should play it without getting overindulgent on the game within a game aspect or spending four paragraphs explaining card mechanics. Instead, I’ll keep it relatively spoiler-free and do my best to explain what this game is briefly.
For the first few hours, Inscryption presents itself as a horror-themed rogue-lite card game. You assemble a deck of cards themed after wild beasts and square off against a mysterious cabin keeper, forcing you to progress on a board game while he roleplays as characters you encounter. Along the way, you can get up from the table and solve some puzzles to get to the bottom of a bigger mystery and escape, all while you gather unique cards for your deck. Even if Inscyrtion were just this, I’d still love it, but once you finally solve all of these puzzles and best, the cabin keeper shit then starts to get weird.
From here on out, you’re conquering new variations of the base card game unraveling mysteries about the game Inscryption itself, and watching some pretty weird FMV scenes that had me so invested in the world they were building it isn’t even funny.
Whenever you think you’ve figured out what Inscryption is doing, it flips both the rules and the game’s entire vibe on their head. As a result, Inscryption feels like multiple games all wrapped in the same meta mystery, and every single one of them is great.
If you listen to the podcast, you heard Josh, and I say it’s hard to discuss Inscryption without ruining what makes it cool, so I’ll end this here, but just know this game isn’t just for those who like card battlers. Inscription is equal parts card game, indie horror adventure, and alternate reality internet mystery. It’s also the weirdest thing I’ve played in years and one of 2021s best games. So when you click out of here, I implore you to check it out.
