What even is this "game"?

[fleaster]

Maybe I don't know anything about card games, maybe I'm just a complete moron, but this game makes it annoying to make any progress. It doesn't even seem possible to get a decent enough deck to get pass the first boss more than 10% of the time. Doing those little puzzles in the room to get the other cards is pointless.

All the hype around this game has just left me completely confused. What is going on?

[Don Warione]

Doing those puzzles in the room grants more than a couple cards. It adds to the meta progression of the game. Keep at it, the game is a lot more than it seems. I highly recommend it, one of the best games I've ever played.

[fleaster]

Honestly, I think after creating a dozen death cards this game has lost me.

[nil]

your loss

[fleaster]

Not wasting any more time on this game is actually my gain. Happy to skim a walkthough to find out what's so phenomenal.

[Don Warione]

The first part of the game is the toughest, this game locks it's greatest content behind the 4th boss. If you do the meta-progression and get that far I guarantee the story makes up for the time and effort put into it for the experience.

[fleaster]

Fair enough. Probably need a break.

[RequiemsRose]

A break could be a good thing. The first part does tend to be hard for a lot of people, but it's also meant to be set up so each time you try again you are more likely to succeed. The puzzles around the room do actually help a lot, and some are required to progress at all. Some of the puzzle rewards certainly help more than others though, and sometimes the help those rewards offer is not readily apparent. Without spoiling anything, some of the better and more helpful rewards come from the painting puzzle which has 3 rewards total but only 1 can be obtained per run (though you get to keep those rewards for all future runs of that playthrough). Eventually you can reach a point where that first section actually becomes boring because there's nothing your opponent can actually do to beat you anymore, though most move on to the next section before going that extreme with it.

All that said, the game itself shifts a few times, so even if you don't like this first part you might find that you like other sections of the game more once you do get past it. Many prefer the first part, but it's not universally the "best" part to everyone. It just might not be the style that suits you out of the possible styles you'll encounter as you progress. Purely as a guess based on your frustrations here, you might enjoy act 2 a lot actually, you have far more control over your deck and strategy in that section.

[TransylScania V8]

The only other card game I have played is Wingspan. I'm really enjoying Inscryption, but not sure how I'm supposed to beat the trapper when starting with a bullfrog and rabbit pelts. When I need sacrifices I get bone cards. When I've a pile of bones I draw cards that require sacrifices. I too have made my fair share of death cards. I guess I'll figure it out.

[Soft Lockpick]

Originally posted by fleaster:

Maybe I don't know anything about card games, maybe I'm just a complete moron, but this game makes it annoying to make any progress. It doesn't even seem possible to get a decent enough deck to get pass the first boss more than 10% of the time. Doing those little puzzles in the room to get the other cards is pointless.

All the hype around this game has just left me completely confused. What is going on?

This game, despite its mechanical setup, is not as much a card game as is advertised.

By that I mean the game is just the devs way of delivering his 3 stories. 1 story is the in game story of play. 1 story is the story of the player. 1 story is his worldbuilding. Because of that the card game quickly becomes very unbalanced, it is meant to have broken combos that you can exploit to move on. Though some of the escape room elements are required to move on also. It's not making an attempt at balance like a game in the Magic the Gathering vein would. So think of it less like a card game and more like a waiting game. You have to let the snowball start rolling. Solve all the puzzles.

Story quality:

1) In game story? Pretty good.
2) Meta story of Luke, the story of the "player" - Bad
3) The worldbuilding story - I mean it's super hokey. The devil uses hitlers nuclear codes to make video games. Worst of the 3.

Gameplay:
Act 1) Early on the game isn't broken yet, it presents some challenge. The game has snowball mechanics as you progress though. So powerups from solving all the puzzles in the escape room, and the more you play (and die) the more options open up on the map to make you stronger. Example: You can initially only use the fire once. Eventually you can reuse it at higher risk of card destruction.

Act 2) No longer roguelike, so you have no failure state. You start very weak regardless of the starter deck you choose, though Leshy and Grimora are easier to start than the other two for most people as they'll be familiar mechanically. But again, there are snowball mechanics like the Ouroboros which persists from Act 1 to trivilize gameplay. And since the deck size is limited and you can get a mulligan you have high odds of doing just that.

Act 3) Also not roguelike. You start off with all you need ONCE you learn how to use the tools you have. It's an awkward shift from the other deck types and play types. But as you progress your old cards are mass improved and spot improved by map points. And if you want you can pick up more but honestly you're almost better off picking up very few cards and just powering up the ones you have.

Act 1, new player, is the hardest point of the game. It has a reverse difficulty curve. With a spike at the start of Act 3 because it lacks familiarity. Probably a little even if you picked the P03 starter.

[Dougomite]

Originally posted by Soft Lockpick:

Originally posted by fleaster:

Maybe I don't know anything about card games, maybe I'm just a complete moron, but this game makes it annoying to make any progress. It doesn't even seem possible to get a decent enough deck to get pass the first boss more than 10% of the time. Doing those little puzzles in the room to get the other cards is pointless.

All the hype around this game has just left me completely confused. What is going on?

This game, despite its mechanical setup, is not as much a card game as is advertised.

By that I mean the game is just the devs way of delivering his 3 stories. 1 story is the in game story of play. 1 story is the story of the player. 1 story is his worldbuilding. Because of that the card game quickly becomes very unbalanced, it is meant to have broken combos that you can exploit to move on. Though some of the escape room elements are required to move on also. It's not making an attempt at balance like a game in the Magic the Gathering vein would. So think of it less like a card game and more like a waiting game. You have to let the snowball start rolling. Solve all the puzzles.

Story quality:

1) In game story? Pretty good.
2) Meta story of Luke, the story of the "player" - Bad
3) The worldbuilding story - I mean it's super hokey. The devil uses hitlers nuclear codes to make video games. Worst of the 3.

Gameplay:
Act 1) Early on the game isn't broken yet, it presents some challenge. The game has snowball mechanics as you progress though. So powerups from solving all the puzzles in the escape room, and the more you play (and die) the more options open up on the map to make you stronger. Example: You can initially only use the fire once. Eventually you can reuse it at higher risk of card destruction.

Act 2) No longer roguelike, so you have no failure state. You start very weak regardless of the starter deck you choose, though Leshy and Grimora are easier to start than the other two for most people as they'll be familiar mechanically. But again, there are snowball mechanics like the Ouroboros which persists from Act 1 to trivilize gameplay. And since the deck size is limited and you can get a mulligan you have high odds of doing just that.

Act 3) Also not roguelike. You start off with all you need ONCE you learn how to use the tools you have. It's an awkward shift from the other deck types and play types. But as you progress your old cards are mass improved and spot improved by map points. And if you want you can pick up more but honestly you're almost better off picking up very few cards and just powering up the ones you have.

Act 1, new player, is the hardest point of the game. It has a reverse difficulty curve. With a spike at the start of Act 3 because it lacks familiarity. Probably a little even if you picked the P03 starter.

Yeah what they said. It's not really really a card game, you more so play it until you learn the mechanics enough to break the game and then all you really have is the story behind it all.

So find your favorite overpowered mechanics and start putting them together in ridiculous combos. It's definitely more fun when you find your favorites and abuse them, but if you're not enjoying it so far I doubt you'll enjoy the rest.

[fleaster]

Having spent a couple hours with it the problem isn't that I don't like it, it's that I don't see the appeal at all.

I got about 4 or 5 hours into Disco Elysium and dropped off because it just wasn't for me. The difference is that I could absolutely understand why some people raved about that game, and really appreciate how good a game it was even though I didn't click with it. With Inscryption I'm just completely clueless. For all the hype that's built around this game, I have zero idea why someone would think it's good. Does it take more than two hours to get the hang of it? Is there RNG involved and mine is just bad? I'm totally lost.

If my refund doesn't go through I'll give it another go, but I hope I can put that 20 bucks to something else.

[RequiemsRose]

For a lot of people the appeal is the overall story and the ARG elements more than specifically the gameplay. The gameplay is basically balanced around being unbalanced, but that's because the card game aspect is only the vehicle for delivering the story rather than the main focus. Which is also part of why the mechanics of the card game part get changed throughout the game as well. As a card game, not the best. As a story? it's pretty interesting. Also maybe not the best, and it spans more than just this game if you dig a bit which can make it hard to fully enjoy in this game if you generally have no idea what is going on at all. Especially in the first act when very little has been revealed to you yet.

[June]

Originally posted by fleaster:

Having spent a couple hours with it the problem isn't that I don't like it, it's that I don't see the appeal at all.

I got about 4 or 5 hours into Disco Elysium and dropped off because it just wasn't for me. The difference is that I could absolutely understand why some people raved about that game, and really appreciate how good a game it was even though I didn't click with it. With Inscryption I'm just completely clueless. For all the hype that's built around this game, I have zero idea why someone would think it's good. Does it take more than two hours to get the hang of it? Is there RNG involved and mine is just bad? I'm totally lost.

If my refund doesn't go through I'll give it another go, but I hope I can put that 20 bucks to something else.

If all else fails, spoil yourself just a little. If you ask I'm sure someone here could explain just enough to make the appeal clear.
Everyone acts like minor spoilers ruin these sorts of games, and while I get where they're coming from, I don't think that's true. It may not be as impactful but it still works. I wouldn't have played it at all if I went in completely blind, and it's still one of my favorite games of all time.

[fleaster]

Originally posted by SevenOfSpades:

Originally posted by fleaster:

Having spent a couple hours with it the problem isn't that I don't like it, it's that I don't see the appeal at all.

I got about 4 or 5 hours into Disco Elysium and dropped off because it just wasn't for me. The difference is that I could absolutely understand why some people raved about that game, and really appreciate how good a game it was even though I didn't click with it. With Inscryption I'm just completely clueless. For all the hype that's built around this game, I have zero idea why someone would think it's good. Does it take more than two hours to get the hang of it? Is there RNG involved and mine is just bad? I'm totally lost.

If my refund doesn't go through I'll give it another go, but I hope I can put that 20 bucks to something else.

If all else fails, spoil yourself just a little. If you ask I'm sure someone here could explain just enough to make the appeal clear.
Everyone acts like minor spoilers ruin these sorts of games, and while I get where they're coming from, I don't think that's true. It may not be as impactful but it still works. I wouldn't have played it at all if I went in completely blind, and it's still one of my favorite games of all time.

Yea I thought about looking up spoilers, that might be the way to go if I do go back to it.

[Hunu]

I was loving act one, the whole vibe and aesthetic was all really impressive. I enjoyed the deck builder rogue-lite thing going on and unlocking cool secrets and stuff...

I'm now on act 2 and the game is A LOT less fun and looks like ♥♥♥♥ compared to the first part. I liked this game but now I'm not sure I'll bother completing it because the gameplay loop of act 2 is weak compared to act 1 and it looks like it was made in RPG maker.

It's a shame it took me a little bit over the refund time to get that far and feels kind of annoying that the game was sold on "act 1" but the tone and graphical change and complete change of gameplay isn't really spoken about anywhere.

This is one time I regret giving DD the money before playing the game.