PC Gamer - UK (2022-01)

The game at the table is a
deckbuilder, lessSlaythe Spire and
more like the singleplayer mode of a
CCG – a Hearthstone solo adventure
with a wilderness Americana theme,
all rattlesnakes and yeehaw. I collect
a deck of animal friends, bullfrogs
and wolf cubs with familiar stats and
thematic abilities. The
skunk smells so bad
enemies have their
power reduced, the
beaver builds defensive
dams, and so on.
The mechanics of
this card game are
wilfully off-kilter and
grotesque. Most cards
have a blood cost, which has to be
paid by sacrificing other cards.
(Which is why I’ve got a separate
deck of squirrels – free cards worth
one blood each.) Rather than being
measured in hit points, damage
against my opponent and I is counted

in teeth, which fall into a pair of

scales. I need to get ahead by five

teeth to tip the scales and win each

round. There’s an item on the table

that promises to help me tip the

scales. It’s a pair of pliers.

My opponent isn’t a simulation of

another player and doesn’t play by

the same rules. He’s

more a Dungeon

Master, or the Dealer

fromHandof Fate,

narrating encounters

and putting on masks

to portray NPCs as I

cross a map. “Thar’s

gold in them cards!” he

hollers as the

prospector, whose pickaxe

transforms cards into rocks. Then he

takes off the mask and sets up minis

around a campfire to play out a scene

with suspicious, starving travellers

who offer to warm one of my beasts

by their fire. He may be a murderous

kidnapper, but he puts in so much

effort I kind of respect him.

I spent hours inThe Elder Scrolls:

Legends playing singleplayer battles

with fun twists: a siege dropped a

stone wall across the middle of the

table, a storm-tossed pirate ship slid

cards back and forth. The twists in

Inscryption are just as novel. Every

wolf card gains the ability to fly; a

hook drags my cards across the board

and turns them against me.

There’s another twist, however.

Inscryption is the work of Daniel

Mullins Games, who madePony

Island(in which the Devil forces you

to play a buggy auto-runner), and The

Hex (in which videogame characters

re-live flashbacks to different genres

they’ve been in). Like those games,

Inscryption changes as you play,

revealing so many layers that if it was

a cake, Paul Hollywood would shake

someone’s hand.

To discuss those layers, I’ll need to

spoil them even more than I have just

by acknowledging they exist.

Spoiler-averse? Skip to the verdict.

TRAPCARD

The second act of Inscryption is a 2D

pixel-art RPG in the style of the

T

his is a card game with a villain. This shadowy figure, all
staring eyes and long fingers, waits at the table for our game
to start. I’m trapped in a cabin and have to play, under pain of
death, though I can get up and stretch my legs. There are
shelves of trinkets on the walls: a skull, a safe, a clock. They
present puzzles to solve as part of the larger puzzle: how do I get out?

DIE CARD

INSCRYPTION is a disconcerting, multi-layeredcardgame

ByJodyMacgregor

The mechanics

of this card

gameare

wilfully

off-kilter

What I reallyneedis

Flames of Wrath, or my

Broadsword.

ABOVE: Ask not for whom the clock cuckoos.

NEED TO KNOW

WHATIS IT?

Part deckbuilder, part

puzzle room, part

nightmare

EXPECT TO PAY

£15

DEVELOPER

Daniel Mullins Games

PUBLISHER

Devolver Digital

REVIEWED ON

Windows 10, Intel Core

i7, 16GB RAM, Nvidia

GTX 1060

MULTIPLAYER

No

LINK

inscryption-game.com

Inscryption

REVIEW