inscryption is a card game about card games 

"We don't have to keep score" got to me the most. The last thing he wanted was a fun game of cards. I think about it sometimes.

regarding 9:18, Leshy's Blood/Sacrifice is based off of Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Tribute system, with the amount of blood on a card correlating to YGO's Level system P03's Energy being based off of Hearthstone's Mana, which is funny since P03 is a robot and Hearthstone is the only card game referenced [to my knowledge] that's fully online with no [physical version] Magnificus's Mox are based off of Magic the Gathering's Land/Mana system, with the word Mox originating as a name for a set of old MtG Artifact cards that create Mana disconnected from the Land system [Magnificus being a Wizard could also be referencing MtG's publisher, Wizards of the Coast] Gamora's Bones are [to my knowledge] completely new to Inscryption and created to synergize with Blood, although every game mentioned above has a number of cards that interact with dead or dying cards

You almost touched on an issue thats been itching me since ive started playing it, maybe because ive (and by the amount of them quitting, also others) fallen on the experience. On what part do simple earnest card game youtubers play in the experience of a card game. Luke Carder adds drama and a vehicle for the ARG as another level of getting up from the table, but hes also a part of the experience of card games. Not a necessary one but a part of how fans, toe dipping and hardcore, get communal excitement over discovering a card game, or expansions of a card game. Not simply reading through a glossary of cards deciding the best/most preferable play strategy, but simulating talking to an actual person about directly enjoying the game. Its an interesting social element, even if not critical like mechanics, directly clear as artwork or flavourful as writing or unique mechanics. The social (as well as the parasocial) element of seeing someone openly geek out on discovering the game is also an interesting part of the experience. If i ever learn video editing i might flesh out this thread into an essay myself

So as a note, act 2 is definitely a recapitulation of the mechanics of Shandalar, a 1997 adventure game with the Magic The Gathering rules engine inside it that plays remarkably similarly. It's quite beloved by magic fans and because of the sheer amounts of mtg references in the game, presumably beloved by Mullins too. As for energy and mox, they're references to other card game resource systems. Energy is the popular implementation from games like Hearthstone, most famous in that game but used in many places and considered to be an iteration on magic's land system (as is having a separate lands deck, in act 1, etc). Mox, while named after magic, are closer to games where you control a part of the board to access its resource that lets you play your cards of that category. I may be misremembering but Smash Up comes to mind - a game that Mullins designed custom decks for.

You were talking about Magnificus’ cards and didn’t know what they were doing, well each of the Scrybs represent an archetype(there are cards they have that fit into other playstyles, but most build towards something in particular). Leshy is like agro/midrange, he goes on the board early with strong cards for the turn, but burns through cards faster than the others. Grimora is a value archetype, each time a card dies they make bone, so she’s extracting additional value from each card and she builds towards expensive, but game winning plays(Mullins admitted he overvalued bones so her plays are a bit overpriced). P03 is control, with a focus on board positioning, he also has Mrs. bomb, the games only board clear card. Finally Magnificus in combo, he has a lot of draw cards and some ways to suddenly build large numbers (his starter deck sucks though, it doesn’t have a combo it’s building towards so it’s just a weird gimmick deck to begin with)

Inscryption Moxes are references to rare 1st edition Magic cards that were never reprinted because of balance issues. They are among the most valuable and hard to get of all Magic cards. Ironically, even though Moxes are ridiculously overpowered in M:TG, they're kind of weak and difficult to use in Inscryption compared to the other card types. This is despite the cards working exactly the same in both games (0 cost, "free" mana), and some Inscryption Moxes actually being even more powerful than the originals. It turns out that rules are important.

I'm a simple man. I hear "Inscryption" I come running. Great video. The one place where I disagree with you is that I love Kaycee's Mod. I think it's a fun card game and the vibes of Act 1 are just so perfect it still works for me without the meta element (though there's no question that the main game is far superior in so many ways).

There's a lot of Yugioh dna in Inscryption. The entirety of act 1 feels like a shadow game from the anime. Some of your cards talk to you, and the rest feel like they also might be sort of alive, making you feel uncomfortable with sacrificing them, your character's soul can get trapped in a card and you find other cards that have lost souls trapped in them, you can use various occult items in the cabin to essentially cheat at the game, etc, just a ton of wacky ideas from the plot of Yugioh that I've never seen properly explored in a videogame before. Meanwhile act 3 somewhat reminds me of modern Yugioh videogames, (partially due to all the blue holograms and tech stuff and all of the cards looking like robots) but also due to what you mentioned about the game becoming somewhat of a shell of itself that's totally focused on mechanics over flavor and is run by a cynical business-minded robot with no imagination that just sees Inscryption as a tool for achieving his goals. (alright well I guess you didn't say all of that.) I like P03 btw, very entertaining character.

3:29 ironically, a name can genuinely be way more important than half the stats on the card because so many modern cards can only target other cards with a specific name / part of a name but ANYWAYS

Favorite Yugioh card is a Gate Guardian card?! Love it.

Absolutely phenomenal video, and really was a treat to hear this perspective on Inscryption. There was definitely stuff here I hadn't thought about during my playthrough, and it partially makes me want to go back and play again, while simultaneously wanting to just hold on that first experience as my only (for reasons that I feel silly expounding upon). Also, no need to apologize for an absence. I think folks can appreciate that you won't just crank out videos in appeasement of views and the almighty algorithm, but instead will only make a video when you truly feel you have something you want to talk about. I just hope you find more games that inspire that creative itch.

This is such a fresh take, I love it! Well done!

Void Stranger would be a fantastic video! No idea how deeply hard it would be to produce, though; there's a lot there, but there's also just a lot a lot.

It's funny that you compare the Wizards to the gymnastics meme and feel that it's the hardest to win with, but it's actually the most consistent deck if you know how to build and play it, which is, I would imagine, an intentional design decision on the part of Mullins. (To go into it, Blue has the only source of card draw in the game, combine it with Green's high strength and liberal use of the hammer to kill the Blue mages and make way for your Green ones, and you can easily dump 3 damage onto 3 of the 4 lanes on your first turn. Card draw is, as always, in all games, really really powerful.)

I love this video! I mean this is the best way possible, but this is a video I think I could have written after my first playthrough of Inscryption. While I tended to describe it as a "love letter to card games and card gamers", your descryption is much more succinct. This is one of my top3 games ever because it came right at the end of my "arc" playing card games like MtG and YGO. So, the feelings it captures, especially the handshakes they have you do at the end, were borderline tearjerkers for me. Excellent video!

yep, I was right, it WAS a fun one :) for real though, super interesting video. I've always thought that the meta-element of inscryption you described is the best part, but I haven't been able to put it into words until now!

Great video, and a fresh take! Absolutely loved it!

Haven't watched the video yet but I am happy you are back! edit : Glad you liked Void Stranger and i would be very excited to hear your perspective on one of my favorite games

11:23 Now don't go and make me feel old by you not knowing what a floppy disk is :( EDIT: I spoke to soon #ShameOnMe

A major difference between acts one and three is that P03 wanted Luke to play so it could achieve its goals, whereas all Leshy ever wanted was to make a fun game and play it with us

If you don't mind, I would like to recommend a game series that I think is EXTREMELY interesting from a storytelling perspective: the Project Moon series. Literally all of their games have some of the best stories I've ever seen. They have three games that all take place in the same universe: Lobotomy Corporation: the first of the series, a brutal but fair management simulator where you manage horrific beasts derived from the human subconscious. Library of Ruina: the second in the series and debatably the best, a sequel to Lob Corp where YOU get to run the death gameshow (think of Danganronpa). And finally: Limbus Company, a gacha game made by people who have no clue how to make a gacha game in the BEST WAY POSSIBLE. I recommend starting with Lob Corp and going unspoilered if you check the series out, as it's the first in the series. Aside from that, this was a great video and I'll be following your channel from now on :)

You're absolutely right that Inscryption, the physical card game that apparently exists in this setting, must be an absolute mess to play in person 😂 Blood and Moxes aren't that bad, since they just rely on cards that are on the field, but needing to keep track of the energy count in case one play or the other just happens to have thrown an energy card in their deck would be quite annoying, not to mention keeping counters around for all the bones in case someone has a bone card. As for Mox decks stacking up against the others, I'm not sure that it actually does in-game (I believe it's noted that Magnificus never managed to win out against the other three in their little metagame to take the game over), but in theory the idea would be cards requiring a specific mox would be on the level of a 1-blood card, while there could be some uber-powerful card that comes with the stringent condition of needing all 3 moxes in play, something very hard to assemble.

Interestingly, each of the game's 4 main mechanics seems to be a dual reference to different types of games, but the references change between the "mechanics" of the cards and the "flavor" of the cards. To keep it simple, i'll seperate them first. For flavor, leshy's beasts probably best match pokemon and other creature collection style tcgs, whereas magnificus' magic theme is VERY yugioh, only emphasized by the duel disk analog he brings out for the final duel. My card game experience is a bit more limited to make a direct connection with the robots and graveyard themes in any sort of iconic tcg, but there are plenty out there, especially in the digital space, that you could choose to make reference to whatever your personal favorite niche game you want. Mechanical references are quite a bit more clear, though. Leshy's sacrifices are a direct reference to yugioh's tribute system that dictates more powerful monsters needing more sacrifices to bring out, with the actual ruling being 1 tribute for lvl 5-6, 2 for anything lvl 7+, and 3 tributes being reserved for some of the most powerful creatures in lore or game warping effects, but those that require as many tributes always state as much on the card. But all those basics for yugioh mostly fly out the window in the modern game with the focus shifting to special summoning and otherwise cheating out high level monsters to get around the early restrictions. P03's energy is most closely linked to hearthstone and its engine, where mana is a currency spent to summon monsters that increases in cap every turn while completely refilling, as a way to manage the pace of the game and limit how early powerful monsters can be summoned. That leaves the underutilized mox to represent card-based resource costs that have to remain on the field, like pokemon's energy or magic's lands. Again, that leaves bones to be an obscure or otherwise wholly original system without an easy flagship to point to, but it isnt hard to make the loose connection to cards that generate some resource or advantage on death, such as pokemon's prize cards mechanic or yugioh which started leaning into it as power creep made tributing obsolete in all but a few very specific decks built around it.

Nicely done 👌🏽💚 Definitely keen to hear your thoughts on Void Stranger. Absolutely insanity of a project

Inscryption is truly one of the best meta games I have seen.

Something relevant of note I think is that Daniel's previous game to Inscryption, The Hex, was similarly a video game about video games. He probably branched off of that. Makes me wonder if Pony Island 2 will continue the trend.

always excited to see a new video from you ^_^

Nice video! I just beat the game today and loved it. Been playing card games my whole life, even had a stint as a pro card gamer, so Inscryption was a joy to experience. And yes fuck the Wizard cards lmao

I don't fully agree with you on the worth of Kaycee's Mod, to me this is the prequel, the back and forth between Leshy and Kaycee, and there are clues Leshy Mourns this time and her. The golden age before the fall. This place in time makes it a bittersweet farewell.

Very good video Also based gate guardian player

Poe!!!!!! Pretty sure you just enraged the entire inscription fan base

It's cool to take breaks if you aren't feeling it dude.

Worried about watching a video on Inscryption from a channel called "Video games are bad" EDIT: Ok checked the rest of the channel and the name seems ironic. EDIT 2: Ok the video starts with Sacrifices Must be Made, this video is gonna be kino.