Inscryption

Without spoiling too much. This is a card game that is intentionally made so that its easy to break. You can easily find broken combos and one turn wins. It doesnt take a lot of skill or imagination. What it does take is a bit of luck, in order to get the right cards, mix them (you can combine cards for higher power), power them up and finally draw them while in a battle. I really like the idea. It is a bit meta. Also, you can tell that a lot of love has gone into this game. There are many secrets etc and the game is deeper than it seems. The problems for me are that runs are often 1. extremely easy with multiple 1 turn win cards or 2. very difficult as you only have shit and your few good cards drown in shit cards that you don't want to draw. Its rare to have a game that feels fair and balanced. Usually its either winning no matter how shit you play or losing despite playing very well, simply because you did or did not get some broken card. I have played some card games before and don't mind randomness but this game takes it further than most. Its some kind of meta commentary on card games. Thats quirky and rofl and all but for me to really enjoy it, it should have been a bit less easy to break and balanced accordingly. Also, I don't get why so little information is shared in game. For example I combined two cards today. Usually when you power up cards they get stronger but this one got stuck at 0 power and there was no explanation as to why and no warning. There are many details like that. Instead of learning some valuable rule you have to learn bugs, as this is intentionally made to resemble a bug infested mess of a game. Worth trying because it is very different and parts of it has a nice atmosphere, but it is not as good as many say.

F small character limits in reviews! Don't buy into hype and marketing. The core is a nice card game with a creepy atmospheric backdrop. You want to know what's going on. It's got great presentation and it's compelling! But not-to-soon you realize it's only surface deep despite it's attempts otherwise and that's where the problems are. Beat it once, and then the unlocked mod mode is what you'll be playing and that's good enough! For the main campaign, it does a neat job of expanding it's "in-universe" game, where, through 3 acts, you experience 4 "rulers" and each "area" offers a slightly different take on the core mechanics. Act 1 is the main way. Act 2 "unlocks" the other 3 folks and their flavor of playstyle (kinda like Slay the Spire but with all 4 characters at once). Act 3 is basically Act 1 but with the flavor of one of the remaining three entities overlayed on it. That will not change between playthroughs though, it's intentionally static so it can tell the narrative it wants to tell. And that's the problem. If you play it, you'll understand what I mean by all those quotation marks. So core mechanics and presentation are good. But I wish there was better music once the atmosphere wears off quickly. The problems with this game are everything outside of it. The shoehorned "realworld" aspects. Those are cringeworthy as hell and severely drag down the experience perhaps to the point of ruining it. Because of it, I really wasn't invested in much past Act 1 and definitely not in Act 3. The game isn't about you in a cabin forced to play a death card game with a creepy murderer and uncovering things...but some fake-ass youtube twat who finds this "cursed" game on a floppy disk and some conspiracy with the company and who gives a fuck. It's like that stupid part of Superhot. It tries to be like Undertale but fails. God, dare I make some mention of the Blair Witch Project? I don't have enough space to explain why this is bad and harms the quality of the game.

I mean, I thought that it would have some crazy twists but the dev was really brave for not spoiling anything about the game in the screenshots. Play it, it's amazing. Also if you're like me and hate jumpscares and stuff, the game doesn't have anything like that. It's purely an unnerving sort of horror, and any shocking or loud things can be seen coming a few seconds in advance. That just adds to the dread of what's going on. Best game I've played in years.

In my opinion, the game is not worth its full price but it's absolutely worth playing until you beat the first part, which doesn't take long. So wishlist it, get it on sale, and set aside a quiet evening for it.

The core of the game is a deck building and card battle. But this also has an interesting story and escape room puzzle aspect around the card game. The experience is similar Legacy board game.