Inscryption Review – IGN

There is a popular technique in classical music called variation– A composer will take a single melody or musical idea and explore it in many different ways, potentially twisting it into dozens of different styles and structures without the overall work becoming repetitive or boring. While that’s not exactly a concept unique to music, it’s a practice I couldn’t help but remember while playing Inscryption – an undoubtedly odd connection, given that it’s presented as a horror-themed roguelite deck-building card game. . But it digs under that somewhat familiar shell and reveals itself as a symphony of exciting twists, clever concepts, and consistently surprising iterations on the fundamentals that got me hooked in its first few minutes.

Inscryption contains much more than meets the eye, and much of what is so impressive is the unexpected places it ends up taking you. That means going into many of the specific moments that make it so special will lessen its impact to some degree, so I’ll try to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible, both in terms of its story and some of its mechanics. With that said, you just have to look at its release trailer to understand that this isn’t just another Slay the Spire-inspired entry in a genre that has started to feel a bit too derivative recently. In fact, he manages to partially live in that genre while also breaking it to pieces.

Like developer Daniel Mullins Games’ iconic Pony Island, Inscryption plays with meta themes in more ways than one. In this case, you start out by playing a roguelike card game against a mysterious adversary shrouded in darkness, but the overall structure isn’t actually one that’s meant to repeat itself endlessly. It took me around nine hours to get to the end of Inscryption, and it’s a proper campaign that tells an interesting and creepy story, takes some justified blows into card game culture, and stands out as a really fun card game.

That game takes the form of head-to-head battles against an AI opponent – you play creature cards on your side of the board that will automatically attack whatever is in front of them each turn, whether they’re opposing creatures or nothing at all. If the latter, any damage they would have done is added to their opponent’s side of a tilt scale, but any damage they take will tilt him towards their direction, once one side of that scale is at least five damage heavier than the other, the game is over. That makes each fight a fun strategic tug-of-war, where hitting one turn could mean you’re out of reach of winning the next. Exciting bosses can also challenge you with lengthy encounters and unique twists, ranging from a miner turning your creatures into chunks of gold to later ones that broke my expectations in legitimately amazing ways.

That’s the core of Inscryption which always stays constant, but the creatures you’ll use, the way you play them, the additional mechanics they have, and the metagame structure around each match change dramatically as you progress. For example, the resource for playing stronger cards begins by forcing you to sacrifice smaller creatures to feed larger ones, which can make decisions difficult but rewarding. But in no time you’ll also get cards that instead spend “bones” spawned when a friendly creature dies, adding another layer of planning to every decision. Later sections even explore systems closer to something like Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering, which keeps Inscryption’s relatively simple fundamentals constantly updated.

Likewise, while it starts out using a branching roguelike-like structure recognizable to anyone who has played Slay the Spire, choosing between paths and improving your deck as you go, it doesn’t stay that way all the time. Not spoiling any surprises, Inscryption’s skin and bones can change as dramatically as its flesh, but the heart at its center always keeps everything beating at a familiar rhythm. That is also good, because it is not too It’s hard to stumble upon exploitable strategies that feel great in the moment but ultimately cut down on tough decisions substantially, meaning certain sections can start to wear out if you continue for too long on their own. Instead you get a delicious feed of all Inscryption games could I’ve been without any of them feeling like a disjointed demo or half-assed idea, and seeing it evolve so completely is pretty amazing.

Inscryption game screenshots

Of course, throwing cards is only part of what Inscryption will ask you to do. In a wonderfully bizarre way, you’ll also occasionally have to stand from the literal table you’re playing at to explore the 3D room you’re in. There you’ll solve simple escape room-style puzzles like finding a safe combination or figuring out how to unlock a container, many of which are cleverly tied directly to the card game. They aren’t the most complex puzzles in the world, being the matches themselves where I had the most fun, but the overall Inscryption vibe shines through in these sections. Its dark, retro art style is superb throughout the campaign, and the eerie atmosphere is perfectly haunting without actually immersing itself in true “horror.”

And while it’s hard to say anything about the plot itself without ruining some of the surprise, Inscryption’s haunted story is genuinely compelling as well. It is told through a mix of written dialogue and FMV scenes, and provides an excellent (and often unexpectedly funny) structure to house all of your clever ideas. It feels like the kind of urban legend you’ll find spread through creepypasta posts on message boards and other corners of the internet, but not in a way that seems dated or derivative.