Scissors that will cut up an opposing card. A jar containing a sacrificial Squirrel, for example. Single-use objects that help turn a match around. You see, during your card fights there are also tools to one side. Was the solution in the room, or something I had to perform at the table? There are a few moments like this throughout the game, and while none of them held me up too long, your own patience may strain.įor my own problem, it turns out I didn't make good use of the tools. After 10 hours of battling my shady antagonist, I knew I was missing something to keep the underbubbling tale going, but couldn't tell what it was. This puzzle aspect sometimes stalls things. The whole room stinks of a smiling creepiness, the comedy of rot. A rulebook sits to one side, with certain rules blotted out by globs of ink, bringing to mind the inscrutable game of Blaseball and its own censored tome. A skull on a cabinet earns itself a gleaming new smile. Fungus appears on shelves where it wasn't before.

Objects from your card fights, narrated by your macabre opponent, start to bleed into the room. Eventually, you'll find things in the room to help in your card battles. There are candles to snuff out, safes to crack. Between fights you can get up and move around the cabin in that old 90 degree dungeon crawler way, watched always by two eyes glittering in shadow. This is the 'escape room' element I mentioned, with puzzles and riddles and paratextual clues that lead the game into darker and funnier places. Look closely at the cards in your protagonist's hands and you will see that they are constantly trembling.īut the real wobbles come when you get up from the table. There are other prices you will pay to gain an advantage. If Inscryption has a theme, it is 'cost'. This is only the first example of bloody forfeiture in the game. Squirrels lead to Ants, Ants lead to Wolves, Wolves lead to Bears. Meaning you must sacrifice multiple creatures to play bigger creatures. Everything in this gloomy cabin is subject to change. It's a compelling twist and the only weakness is that if you figure out a consistent way to deal five points of damage on your first turn, you'll storm through fights with ease. One moment you're winning, the next your nemesis has you cornered. You lose and gain momentum, deliver killer blows, claw back from a near-loss by being aggressive. These scales mean the fight goes back and forth. Instead, the scales tip in both directions, meaning you must win by 'positive 5' and stay away from 'negative 5' (I won't say what happens when you lose). You don't pick away at an opponent's health pool, like in Hearthstone. 'Look closely at the cards in your protagonist's hands and you will see that they are constantly trembling.'īut it's those health scales that are the most immediately novel thing. But the limited space actually means the brawl rarely gets unwieldy or overlong. These are all interesting movers and shakers on what sometimes feels like a claustrophobically small board. Skinks leave their tails behind when attacked and escape to the lane next to them. A Mantis can strike in multiple directions, Kingfishers can dive underwater to avoid blows. Special rules and abilities are soon introduced. Every point of damage you do to an empty lane will add what looks like a little stone to the scale. The goal is to do enough damage directly to your opponent to tip a set of scales in your favour. On your next turn, you'll draw a card and keep going. His Bullfrog, sitting opposite, has two health. Then you ding a little bell to signal the end of your turn. You play wildlife-themed cards against your opponent's own on a four-lane board.

For anyone else, I'll do my best to tiptoe around the layers of meta-story that unfurl from this game like flakes of skin. If you trust the opinions of a grizzled deck tinkerer, and enjoy comic unease in all its forms, you should simply get stuck in. I won't say much more about the plot itself. It seems like Slay The Spire or Hand Of Fate. You are in a cabin, playing cards against a face shrouded in darkness. It starts off as a familiar card battler, if a little darkly themed. The depth of its rabbit hole isn't apparent at first. It's a card game with an escape room built on top, and other sinister secrets buried beneath. It had me grinning ear to ear, sometimes nervously, sometimes with the joy of someone who simply loves thumbing through new cards, even when a rustic antagonist with big hands is reaching for my throat. Inscryption is both a love letter to card games and a twisted, jocular caricature of their numerical excess.

A sinister and excellently crafted card game with a darkly comic underbellyīe afraid.

Inscryption review