Top 10 Games of 2023: No. 3 - Inscryption

3. Inscryption, dev. Daniel Mullins Games

I am flexible with the definition of "2023". Technically Inscryption came out in 2021 on the PC. It did ported to the Switch very late in 2022, which rounds up to 2023. And it got an Xbox release last year. I did not play it on Xbox or Switch, still the point stands. By the broadest definition of "game of 20XX", it counts. If you object, pay me $1000 and I'll leave this space blank. Also, didn't we have a game from 1996 on this list the other day?

Inscryption is a card game roguelite, one of many genres I write-off out of disinterest. It is also a metafictional horror experience, a genre I do not write-off easily. The card game element being just the first level of a much larger Creepypasta universe. You're stuck in some kind of Evil Dead cabin, forced to play cards forever. The goal of the roguelite is the escape the roguelite, which is fine by me. Let us totally shatter the run-based systems and take these core mechanics in new and maybe stranger directions. Right from the start, your cards, especially a cute rodent called "the Stoat" are talking to you, giving you hints about how to proceed and break the system. You can definitely trust little cards, right?

The first meta-layer to Inscryption is that you can stand up from the table you're playing cards on and explore. You can fail the card game, and you're going to fail the card game many times. With just the base systems given to you, it is very unlikely that you will ever develop cards strong enough to win the four levels and boss fights. Luckily, there is also a first-person Escape Room element that allows you to cheat.  You can use the card game to gain keys or knowledge in the upper level to truly proceed. For example, the Stoat will drop a hint that leads you to a safe combination, and there you find another talking card, with more knowledge. Later, there is a mechanic where you can rip out an eye for bonus points (it is grisly as it sounds, your POV loses part of its vision), and you can use this to actually see more in the cabin if you play it right. A few more high level mechanics, things just slightly tilted your way to truly win.

It is funny though that Inscryption wants so badly to break the roguelite since in terms of actual quality of "game", that is the best part. There's a lot of tactics, a lot of fun ways of mixing together powers, a lot of unique evolutions, and you can rip out your teeth for bonus points. It was so successful on its own that Daniel Mullins added a mode six months later where Inscryption was just this card game, nothing more. With some careful maneuvering and a little luck, you can snowball your powers into an unstoppable party of fighters. In my image for this post, I have a solid wall of Blues (as in "me", the author in card-form), all with high damage, self-cloning, and they boost each other. Totally unbeatable. Who could stop me? Not even the game itself.

And from there, the game was never as much fun, however, it only got more fascinating.

Once you've broken one system, you find yourself right in another one. We're like Neo escaping the Matrix, only to find out the real world is rigged completely by the machines as well. We're also uncovering a series of live-action FMVs involving a Youtube channel creator, Luke Carder (Kevin Saxby), exploring an obscure card game also called "Inscryption". Carder finds himself more and more drawn into the mystery of this unfinished, unpublished game, getting dangerously close its secrets. As we can see in our own experience, something has gone terribly wrong with this simple card game about animals, going from just a cute adventure into some kind of Sam Raimi nightmare.

If you reach end of Inscryption and then play an ARG game you'll eventually answer as to what mystical nonsense is really running this universe. The answer is as ridiculous as it is unsatisfying. But lore is never the fundamental engine of horror. Answers are not scary, questions are.

Inscryption is terrifying because it feels like a game completely out of control. However, it is always under control, even as it pushes out to surreal Doki Doki Literature Club places. You "beat" it only to find it evolve and transform into another thing entirely, then something else after that. You keep trying to "escape", but can there be an "escape" in video game terms? If you rescue Princess Peach, you've just reached the end of the level set, not defeated the fundamental concept of video game platforming. No matter what, video games have to be a rules-based world of clearly defined success and failure, engineered by some intelligence in control. In Inscryption we find ourselves just spiraling around from one kind of master to another, as long as the game continues, so does the spiral.

Hmmm... spirals, you say...