It would be an insult to tag it a roguelike. It would be a mistake to call it a card game. It would be myopic to dwell too long on its terror elements, similar to summarising a film entirely on the basis of its first scene. Yes, encryption is all of these things, just like a book is a collection of paragraphs, but it’s much more than that. Even the path we talk about Inscryption has a mystical quality to it. It started appearing in Polygon’s Slack channels one day, just over a week before Halloween. Several authors had tried it over the weekend and were overjoyed when they returned on Monday. “Has anyone else played Inscryption?” It began slowly, then quickly: threads developed, spoiler warnings appeared, and groups divided into DMs to discuss this bizarre, perplexing game with coworkers who had progressed past “that section.”
In other words, Inscryption had created a rare moment, and we were all so enamored with it that we refused to reveal what made it so great. Regardless of our gushing, whispered praise, we trusted the game to work its spell on newbies.
Looking back on Inscryption now, at the tail end of 2021, I can appreciate the game for more than just the excitement it sparked. It came out in a year that was full of roguelites, time-loop puzzles, and genre-defying hits. Nonetheless, it stands head and shoulders above the competition. Its first act deftly blends the strategy of a deck-building card game with the puzzle-solving elements of an escape room. Its second part immerses us in a pixel graphic adventure that pays homage to a variety of franchises, including EarthBound and Pokémon. Its third act returns to the first chapter’s roguelite structure, but in an entirely different setting: Instead of a cabin in the woods, a factory using holograms has been built.
It’s at this point that the full extent of the magic trick is revealed. While we were studying the nuances of the various card game variations, Inscryption was quietly presenting its story. Developer Daniel Mullins has diverted our attention with some of video games’ most clichéd genre cliches on the one hand. With the other, he’s created a whole cast of characters, each with their own worries, ambitions, and insecurities.
