Inscryption is a card game. So before anything else, if you dont like strategy or card games in general, move on.
The card game itself is not remarkable. For the most part, we have seen these kind of games before. Its just cards with some RPG elements thrown in. Cool. Its fun and does get deep while easy to pick up. But like all card games, skill is secondary to the gods of chance. No matter how smart you are, nor how skilled at mouse clicking, sometimes, you just get a bad draw and you lose. I am one of those who prefers skill based strategy rather than games of chance but oddly enough, I found myself liking this one namely because you can tilt the odds in your favor a lot once you know how to build your deck of cards.
The best part of this game however is the atmosphere in Act 1. I puts you in cramped cabin with a mysterious master giving you orders that you have to follow. Its very much designed to be creepy with dark humor thrown in at places. Overall the visuals and sound did a great job at making feel a little uncomfortable while also making me want to see what happens next.
Ok so why not a higher score? Well, the devs couldnt keep you in that cabin forever. It would get boring after all. So you get out and the next two acts arent as interesting in terms of design. Not that they are bad but we go from a dark horror environment to something that can only be described as a NES style 2d environment with none of the atmosphere and a bunch of new characters that are totally different from the 1st guy you met. The card game also changes to add new types of play which is actually nice. They do that again to a lesser extent in act 3 as well.
But back to the point, I found that acts 2 and 3 were not nearly as immersive as act 1. They are still ok, but I didnt get drawn into the new characters as much.
I did find that the story was ok as well. Its a quasi breaking the 3rd wall, murder mystery with some elements from various genres. Pretty fun actually and very different from what you get in mainstream games.
Definitely a good game overall. If you love card games give this an extra point. If you find yourself liking acts 2 and 3, this could easily be a 9/10 overall. Give it a shot and dont be turned off by the graphics. This is not the type of games where graphics matter all that much.
For younger audiences, this game might also help you understand why older gamers might say that some old games are better than newer counterparts despite worse graphics. Its all about gameplay and setting the atmosphere.
