Recent reviews by blorpy_manatee

I really wanted to love this game. I've loved manuscript marginalia since I was a tween. The style and aesthetic of the game is definitely on point. But the gameplay itself is deeply convoluted and un-fun.

I spent over 3 hours just going through the tutorials, and it was an absolute slog. I'm also barely over halfway through those tutorials. I kept going because basically the whole way through I assumed I was "almost done" with the tutorial. (Note; after a certain point I could see that I had many more to go through, but I figured they'd get faster or I'd be able to start the main campaign without completing them. This wasn't the case.)

I noticed that some making similar complaints in the reviews were replied to by devs saying that you can start the main campaign without finishing the tutorials. I have no clue what they're talking about, because as soon as I tried to start a new campaign I was immediately asked to make binding decisions about rules that hadn't yet been introduced three hours into the tutorials.

Not to mention that the roguelike/RNG aspect makes a lot of the actual strategy useless.

There's also a lot of toilet humor. Which I don't hate but got old really fast.

This game is a blast. I had a great ride, laughing out loud and yelling "WHAT" at some of the meta moments. This is also probably the best deck-building video game I've ever played just based on the merits of the card game itself.

Other reviewers have mentioned that the game is more like "3 games combined," which is true in a sense, but I found this misleading. It's true that there are 3 separate parts of the game (and an awesome addition, which is an infinite version of part 1 with different options and challenges built in) and each has a different aesthetic. (Part 2 is a pixel-graphic, early-1990s stlye RPG.) However, throughout the whole game you will be playing the in-universe card game Inscryption. As you go through you learn new mechanics and your cards gain abilities that can sometimes drastically change play, but it is still essentially the same baseline mechanics and rules. Also, parts of the game are rigged to beat you so that you have to repeatedly play the card game. So if you don't enjoy the card game after an hour or so of playing it, you will probably not enjoy the rest of the game.

Some people won't like the broader story/framing device and the meta aspects. It's hard to discuss or characterize them without spoilers. I will say that if you like stories where the story is that the story is trying to eat you, you'll probably enjoy Inscrpytion. I had a lot of fun with this part of the game, and learning more about the lore adds to the replayability of the game for me.

As for the horror aspects, this game landed--for me personally--in the "fun" area of horror. I was never actually creeped out or haunted by any of the visuals or story elements, which is how I like it. There were no jump scares or time-sensitive anxiety-inducers. During moments of actual gore, the first-person-POV looks away and you just see blood spatters. However, if you are sensitive to any of the following, you may want to avoid: eye gore; teeth gore; insects; spiders; discussion of hunting and skinning animals.