Act 1 is the worst act

[Pascalbatronic]

Yes, it's time for my unpopular opinion, that nobody gives a f*ck about!

Like I said, I liked the first act the least. I don't like rogue-like games, but I wouldn't say anything bad about games like The Binding of Isaac or Enter The Gungeon, they look like very good representatives of the genre to me, even if I hate the idea of starting over every time. The first act of INSCRYPTION is a roguelike, and as you know, roguelike is known for its variety. In INSCRYPTION, we start each time with the same (almost) deck, follow the same path, and defeat the same bosses. Over and over again. Yes, in the first act, it's worth admitting that the game throws in a couple of novelties in the first runs, but once you see the full range of what it has to offer and when you solve all the puzzles in the cabin (which, I should note, are quite good here), it becomes very painful to replay every time from the beginning. Also worth noting here is the strong influence of luck. The first time I got to the battle with Leshy, I had a pretty good and interesting deck, but I lost to him because I didn't get either of the two starting bonuses due to bad luck and I just "didn't get the right cards" during the battle with him. AND THEN LITERALLY AT THE NEXT MY RUN the game gave me OP squirrel totem at the very beginning and thanks to it I passed the whole act without a single brain cell shaking.

I mean... you get it, right? The first time I lost with a pretty good deck was due to bad luck, and the second time I won just because I got lucky in the beginning and my deckbuilding skills, which I tried to improve as the game went on, didn't come in handy at all. Like... is it surely that the developer wanted me to have experience like THAT? Yes, I complained that I didn't like starting at the beginning, but I would have enjoyed it much more if victory came to me the long and hard way rather than pure random and luck. That way at least there would be a point, that way I'd get the joy of overcoming. But in the present case, I felt very cheated.

I like the second act the best because, although the game throw you in pretty abruptly and make you build a good deck out of a pretty big bunch of cards, this act had the most card types and makes the third act seem kinda poor with only one card type (even though moxes appear later in it). Anyway, the third act is a pretty honest and interesting challenge, unlike the first act. You don't have to go through the same thing forever, the game throws in novelties as you progress. And I found the influence of luck and your skills on the battles to be very evenly matched.

Although... did I say at the beginning that the first act is the worst? It isn't. The worst act here is the fourth act. From a gameplay standpoint, the fourth act (or epilogue) is just awful, especially for a game that's based on such an interesting card game.

[Secundus]

Hello Pascalbatronic,

First of all, thanks for sharing your thoughts about the majority of the acts, especially Act I. Unpopular or not, all of the feedback we receive are invaluable as long as they are insightful! It is true that luck plays a crucial role as it accompanies either a strong deck to make it stronger or make it powerful enough to shred through battles (in Act I's case, it is most likely the squirrel totem). I think it is important to mention that rather than the replayability feature of Act I, we can say that the act itself focuses on "training" the player by throwing various enemies, sigils, and somewhat impossible-to-defeat situations before allowing them to unlock cards and items that can help them a lot and progress towards further acts. As the emphasis is on storytelling rather than having an endless mode of some sort, where players are to learn a great deal of deckbuilding in order to win, Inscryption differs from other deckbuilders.

That being said, can you also try Kaycee's Mod (which is unlocked after finishing the game and available on the main menu) and share your thoughts? The difficulty of the mode itself may push the role of luck to a minimum, though it will still remain just as it remains a part of everything related to RNG.

Finally, can you also share your thoughts about ACT IV and what could have made it better?

Thank you!

[Pascalbatronic]

Originally posted by Secundus:

Hello Pascalbatronic,

First of all, thanks for sharing your thoughts about the majority of the acts, especially Act I. Unpopular or not, all of the feedback we receive are invaluable as long as they are insightful! It is true that luck plays a crucial role as it accompanies either a strong deck to make it stronger or make it powerful enough to shred through battles (in Act I's case, it is most likely the squirrel totem). I think it is important to mention that rather than the replayability feature of Act I, we can say that the act itself focuses on "training" the player by throwing various enemies, sigils, and somewhat impossible-to-defeat situations before allowing them to unlock cards and items that can help them a lot and progress towards further acts. As the emphasis is on storytelling rather than having an endless mode of some sort, where players are to learn a great deal of deckbuilding in order to win, Inscryption differs from other deckbuilders.

That being said, can you also try Kaycee's Mod (which is unlocked after finishing the game and available on the main menu) and share your thoughts? The difficulty of the mode itself may push the role of luck to a minimum, though it will still remain just as it remains a part of everything related to RNG.

Finally, can you also share your thoughts about ACT IV and what could have made it better?

Thank you!

Thank you so much for your answer! You can't imagine how flattered I was by it. This speaks great about you as developers!

The fourth act disappointed me because I was expecting some kind of extremely interesting battle, where there would be many different mechanics that were previously in the game, and maybe even something new. In the end, as a culmination, I wanted to see an interesting card fight in which an already good card game could reveal itself even better.

Instead, I ended up with three extremely short games of one type of card each, none of which I was even allowed to finish. From a plot point of view, some may consider this dramatic, but in terms of gameplay, in the end I was expecting something more than these three stumps.

Anyway, thanks for your reply!

[V3IN4]

0_0

[Vex Werewolf]

The game should be fun to play, and it is simply not.

[uanime5]

I'm finding hard to decide whether act 1 or act 2 is the worst act.

Act 1 was a boring slog because everything was based on luck, rather than skill. As a result I kept dying over and over simply because I didn't get any decent cards. Everything designed to help the player was useless because it was hidden.

Want the Greater Smoke? Well you have to randomly snuff out a candle for several games.

Want the clover/extra candle/bees? Well good luck trying to get the cards you need create the scene in the picture. Also you have to bring these items to Leshy, something no one tells you.

Want to use your death cards to help you? Well assuming you managed to make a strong card you'll find that none of the icons on the map make it clear that they'll give you these cards. Also if you've died a bunch of times the chances of getting a decent card are low.

Want to use your good cards against the bosses? Well they all have moves that will instantly kill them in phase 1 but if you don't use them you might not survive until phase 2.


By contrast in act 2 while you can at least control what is in your deck the main problem is how limited your cards are. As your opportunity to get foil cards due to over-damage are limited and you have 6 non-boss opponents that can only be fought once it's very easy to end up with a weak deck. And if you can't beat one boss with this deck then you have to restart the entire act because there's no way to get more cards.


Finally there's no point in making a game about storytelling when the player can't experience the story because progression is entirely based on luck. You need a system that kicks in after the player loses a certain number of times to start helping them so they can progress.

[cdietschrun]

I agree regarding storytelling needing luck to progress. I basically bailed on the game years ago but decided to get a cheat engine and work my way through it to see the story through. That wasn't terribly fun for me and (to be honest) the story wasn't...that...amazing. Very unique and 4th wall, but not something that will bring me back for more.

[TowerWizard]

Originally posted by uanime5:

As your opportunity to get foil cards due to over-damage are limited and you have 6 non-boss opponents that can only be fought once it's very easy to end up with a weak deck. And if you can't beat one boss with this deck then you have to restart the entire act because there's no way to get more cards.

In the wizard tower there is a training dummy that you can play and win against as many times as you want for overkill damage and foils.

[Morton Koopa Jr.]

I was planning to tease op for this.

But. This is a very well thought out post. And even though I love act 1, I gotta say. This is totally accurate lol.

I'm just fine with act 1 cause I went into this game for a psychological thriller. And was only surprised to see a nicely designed system in act 2.