Episode 132 - Past in Games - Inscryption

It’s been so long since I’ve had a podcast. Welcome back to the
podcast! Today we’re going to be talking about Inscryption, and,
before moving on I have to say that I will be crucified for writing
anything about Inscryption online that people who haven’t played it
can see with their virgin eyes and ruin the experience for
themselves. So note that this is one of those kinds of games and
proceed with caution if you really don’t want to know anything
about it, though I’m going to stay as spoiler free as possible in
this description. With that out of the way, Inscryption is a… card
game. It’s a game with some twists and maybe even a few turns, but
at its mechanical heart it is a deck building card game, and a
genuinely good one at that. The game is easy to pick up and
understand with a level of mechanical depth that can be imposing at
times later in the game, and it meshes thematically with the world
the game creates exceedingly well. In fact, a lot of what aids in
the grokability of the game is how well it fits within the fiction,
sparking curiosity in the player and letting that naturally turn
into an investigation of the mechanics. Beyond that, it’s hard to
talk about this game’s tone without spoiling some of it, but I’ll
say that it does remain interesting throughout and is one of the
best things about the game. It pulls off “creepy” better than most
traditional horror games do and packs an alarming amount of detail
into even its smallest environments. The rest I’ll leave to you to
find out for yourself. We’re going to be talking about how figuring
this game out while not knowing anything at the outset is more
enjoyable than most, the card game mechanics and what they do right
and when they get complicated, and we fail to make a poop joke
which should come as a big relief to everyone. Thank you for
joining us and also for putting up with that vague description! We
really liked this game, for the record, so if you’re on the fence
about it and our opinion means anything we’d try pushing you in its
direction. If you’ve played it, how much did you know about it
before going in? Did you find it mysterious and cool? Are you a
card game player and did you pick up on all the references and clap
your hands or roll your eyes at them? Let us know in the comments
or over on Discord! We’re taking a pretty big jump in the style of
game we’re talking about next time, and covering Tina Tina’s
Wonderland, the Borderland’s spinoff based around fantasy and
D&D, which is apparently pretty hot right now, so we hope
you’ll join us for that!