Hot Take: the puzzles are total BS

[MovieMuscle]

The wardrobe puzzle is basically impossible to figure out. No matter how much I've tried to figure it out, nothing is clicking, which only means it's total artificial difficulty nonsense. Of course the game flashes a hint, maybe?, but I never have the time to pull out my camera to take a picture of it. So again, total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥...

[MovieMuscle]

bump

[MadArtillery]

Go read the rulebook.

[LittleNinja]

If you mean the safe, then yeah, look in the rulebook.

The stoat tells you there is a hint in the rulebook, but you may have missed it.

[mSterian]

"Something is too hard for me to figure out which means it's total bs because I'm the smartest"
First try and understand each interaction on the board from the rulebook. If you still can't figure it out just go watch a youtube video of someone doing it and you'll see how it's done.

[YetiChow]

The puzzles are progress-gates to check that you understand the mechanics and can read the board (i.e. figure out the interactions between sigils, the 'order of operations', and basically figure out what will happen when you proceed the turn.)

Without that ability to figure out what's happening and why, what comes next is gonna be a baaaaaaaaaad time. So take the opportunity to think about each of the mechanics that each of those puzzles is forcing you to engage with. It makes the game significantly more fun when you're beating it with calculated logic rather than just "big OP card go brrrrr!"

The whole of Inscryption is really a puzzle game that's cleverly disguised to look like a roguelite deck-building game. Every fight is a puzzle -- and if you play through the whole 100% game, or if you try and fail enough times to brute-force your way through, you'll eventually see that each of those puzzles is pre-scripted. The opponent doesn't "react" to your moves it simply follows set instructions; and if you can figure out those instructions (or the patterns behind them; of course different opponents have different rule sets) then you can unlock advanced strategies beyond just surface level "this card beats that card."

But to do any of that, you need to learn to read the board and figure out exactly what's going to happen when you ring the bell. Then you can learn to manipulate events and "program" the outcomes you want via the choices of when and where where you place cards. The puzzles like the cabinet are the place where you learn that if you haven't already noticed it in action on the game board.

2 tips to get you started:

1) play always goes from YOUR left to right (so even the opponent's creatures attack starting from your left.)

2) it's very important to pay attention to the 2 rows of card slots, not just the front line -- in the main battle boards you don't get a "back row" but you do in the cabinet puzzle; it's there for a reason. Figure out what happens individually for each attacking card. Pay attention to the order of play, and how different sigils interact -- sometimes the answer is to prevent sigil interactions/procs rather than to cause them.

That also gives you the secret to defeating the bosses more easily; allowing you to build up/keep more resources (items, lives) for later in the run. The first boss you face shouldn't require any items to beat, it's all about using your cards efficiently. The second boss is all about order of operations; playing cards not just in the right place but at the right time to manipulate its moves. The third boss is all about placement and making strategic decisions; you want some of your creatures to be destroyed (and ideally you will have other cards that benefit from creature deaths; whether that's cards with a bone cost or cards that have on-death effects.) And then you'll face the boss that's the culmination of all 3 -- requiring the right cards in the right place at the right time, you won't be able to rely on "just have a really strong card and either hope to place it immediately or stall until you can play it", you'll have to make sure your deck is built well to handle whatever he throws at you.

And then the game really starts. I mean it, what comes after that will take everything you've learned and expand it into so much more; and if you've learned to read the board and figure out card interactions (not just sigils but all the other rules too) then there is so much more to play around with from that point.