Inscryption: First Impressions + Review

I just “finished” my Inscryption journey a few moments ago. It’s unusual for me to start recording my thought about an experience so soon after it ends. Usually, I like to let it marinate a little.

But Inscryption was a game so esoteric, so strange, so unusual that I feared to wait would only be to find more questions and less answers.

Candidly, I’ve got plenty more of the former and very few of the latter. You may have noticed I put “finished” in quotation marks—there’s a good reason for that. Although I did just watch the credits roll, I can’t help but feel I’m missing a lot of puzzle pieces. I’ve only got 36% of the trophies, which supports this conclusion.

Inscryption is, to put it reductively, a deckbuilding roguelike horror/mystery game. You begin in a strange cabin playing cards with a scary old creature, man, thing? You upgrade cards, expand your deck, fight bosses, etc… and this experience alone would be enough to justify the $15 - 20 price tag you’d most likely pay to enjoy it.

But eventually, you begin uncovering secrets throughout the cabin. You can stand up from the table, exiting the game within the game described above, and walk around investigating the mysterious puzzles and items strewn throughout this prison.

Oh, and when you die, he takes a picture of you… and that picture becomes a card in your deck. It’s pretty cool.

Then you beat the game… or so you think.

You don’t actually. Please excuse my French, but there’s truly only one way to put this: shit gets fucking weird.

You are pulled out of the experience you thought was the game and find yourself in a completely different experience.

The graphic style shifts completely, transitioning from bleak 3D horror to more of a Stardew Valley / Pokemon eye in the sky type adventure. It’s insane.

Even more insane, the transition between these two Acts is just a menu screen for a camera with clips. Some are deleted, but most are initially innocuous videos of a seemingly real human being, a YouTuber and card collector who finds himself wrapped up in this Inscryption-driven nightmare.

Now hopefully you understand why I had to opt for the French. Weird just falls flat. I set a new record for “what the fucks” uttered during a single gaming session.

I’m not going to get too into the weeds with the complexities of this game because a big part of the journey is the mystery and consequent discovery. To spill it all here would be to rob you, the potential player, of that and that’s not something I’m interested in.

Act 3 is unlike Act 1 or 2, transitioning into another wave of newness: art style, gameplay, the unique mechanics of the central card game, etc.

Then the ending and epilogue just blow your brain wide open and stuff it full of more questions.

It ends, but it feels like it also begins. I’m excited to continue to explore, this time via New Game… because there is so much more to find and I get the feeling you have to beat the game once to uncover it.

I’ll report back.

Want to read the full review? Subscribe to the weekly V O Y A G E R newsletter below! No spam, all substance, one email a week.