Inscryption

2024-12-23
Absolutely wonderful vibes. Classic Daniel Mullins game with great music, beautiful kind of retro aesthetic with a pixel-y filter overlay, and a subversive meta-narrative around the game itself that evolves as you play.

This one starts as a roguelike deckbuilder. And the actual core of that game is rock solid. Incredibly fun almost like Magic-esque but with the persistence and deck building and branching pathways of Slay the Spire. Add in the charismatic Leshy, the creepy dude across the table, and all the occult aspects such as sacrificing creatures and your cards talking to you and you have a masterpiece in the first Act.

The problem then comes in that there are 3 acts. The second is not as good as the first but still good and the third... Well, by this point I was mostly bored of the game and the added wrinkles didn't interest me much. The background story with the little movie clips also wasn't particularly thrilling. I get what it was going for but it just didn't land as well as it could have.

But even with all those complaints the first Act is so compelling, the vibe and aesthetic is so tastily creepy, and moments like Leshy being deleted and the Golly boss (that involves you creating cards that are then uploaded and used by other players and you're informed how the other player using your card does...VERY COOL) are fantastic enough that this is still a hearty recommendation from me.

??? (2022-12-??)
Absolutely wonderful vibes. Classic Daniel Mullins game with great music, beautiful kind of retro aesthetic with a pixel-y filter overlay, and a subversive meta-narrative around the game itself that evolves as you play.

This one starts as a roguelike deckbuilder. And the actual core of that game is rock solid. Incredibly fun almost like Magic-esque but with the persistence and deck building and branching pathways of Slay the Spire. Add in the charismatic, Leshy, the creepy dude across the table, and all the occult aspects such as sacrificing creatures and your cards talking to you and you have a masterpiece in the first Act.

The problem then comes in that there are 3 acts. The second is not as good as the first but still good and the third... Well, by this point I was mostly bored of the game and the added wrinkles didn't interest me much. The background story with the little movie clips also weren't particularly thrilling. I get what it was going for but it just didn't land as well as it could have.

But even with all those complaints the first Act is so compelling, the vibe and aesthetic is so tastily creepy, and moments like Leshy being deleted and the Golly boss (that involves you creating cards that are then uploaded and used by other players and you're informed how the other player using your card does...VERY COOL) are fantastic enough that this is still a hearty recommendation from me.