Post #2531588

Bit late to the party but yeah, this one's a real gem. What I knew ahead of time was "spooky-themed deckbuilder with metafiction stuff going on". This was a tough sell; I'm meh on deckbuilding and tons of media advertised as metatextual has some "I'm 12 and this is deep" energy imo. Right off the top though, the game itself is damn finely crafted. Not high production value per-se but clearly an immense amount of care put into creating a cohesive mood and tone. Also card-battling is mechanically great -- the central "pay in sacrifices" card-cost paradigm leads to a nifty feeling of back-against-the-wall tension. Past that, the way Inscryption deploys metafiction brought me genuine surprise and delight. Cheeky comments about the mechanics are table stakes from the start. The big swings, though, take a while to fully hit -- and when they do, the impact is uncanny.