Inscryption: This Is How a Game Dies
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 มิ.ย. 2024
- except, well, some games don't just die-they rot. and then they spread that death to everything else.
referenced games and sources: docs.google.com/document/d/1u...
want to give me money? here's a patreon link!: / princesspengy
more pengy for any and all pengy needs: princesspengy.neocities.org/
character art, background image, P03 voice acting, and interview material all by O.D. the Cryptid: odthecryptid.carrd.co/
also interviewed was kudamahou: / kudamahou
leshy voice acting by FunGus: / fungusvt
grimora, ember, and magnificus voice acting by me!!!
check out the weird fucking games blog: wfgames.net/
Chapters:
0:00:00 Intro
0:05:13 Leshy
0:11:19 The Scrybes
0:23:35 The Hex
0:26:27 The Hex: "Indie"
0:30:31 The Hex: Interview
0:42:04 Lionel Snill
0:49:10 Beneath
0:56:03 Afterword - เกม
![พบรัก - INK WARUNTORN [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n2wjOYVC38Y/mqdefault.jpg)
There's one more character to cover here: Luke Carder himself.
Where the Scrybes represent the follies of game development, Luke represents the other side: the fandom. He sticks with the game no matter what happens. He will play Leshy's creative janky mess. He will play the dated original. He will even play P03's soulless product. He ignores all calls to stop and let it all end before it ends him. As long as there's something that is called Inscryption, he remains too emotionally attached to let it end, allowing P03 to carry out his scheme.
Where the Scrybes are a critique of developers, Luke Carder reflects those of us engaging with the industry from the outside, unable to get off the bandwagons and move on.
Oh, that is a good read but I am not sure if that was the intent. I feel like Luke more often represtented ones that try to reveal all the shady shit just to get punished in the end( he literally gets shot).
I do think your interpetation has marrot especialy since Inscryption was Luke's childhood
@@obitosenju3768 Luke can be both. He can be the super-fan that refuses to admit when the game has gone sour and isn't worth playing anymore, while _also_ representing the kind of fan that wants to know _why_ it went sour in the first place and starts to dig, which gets him in trouble. Happens to fandoms all the time, even; a good game goes bad and then jilted fans start to ask "Why?" That's usually when a lot of the more wretched sides of a fandom come out, throwing around accusations and slander without any real evidence to justify it - though it _does_ also often do the same thing to the devs/publishers, forcing their hand and making them reveal all the skeletons in their closet that may, indeed, have been some or all of the reasons why the game went south.
6:19 "He always plays fair, and never forces his hand"
Also Leshy: "Too fast to soon"
*FLYING BEARS*
I think he does the "too fast, too soon." So the player doesn't miss valuable mechanics.
In game lore anyway.
since the text is red and it glitches out before it happens, I like to believe that it's the OLD_DATA causing it to happen
@@seraphcreed840 also you can still beat him, pretty easily actually.
@@aguyontheinternet8436 as long as you keep it in mind and prep for it, otherwise that's just plain unfair, especially on earlier runs
Came for the card game, stayed for the scathing indictment of the game education/production industry 🔥🔥🔥
6:21 One thing to note about Leshy killing you: Leshy knows you're just an avatar in a videogame, he knows he's not causing any harm to anyone.
He gouged out his coworker’s eye, turned him into a card, and trapped him in a cuckoo clock.
@@user-gf9qx1mo8c To be fair, Magnificus deserved a little, seem as one of his students is a head in a pike, the other is bunch of goo, and another is going insane.
does he know that? I don't remember him being aware of that
@@thechosenone5421 Yeah all the scrybes know they're in a videogame. In Kaycee's mod we learn that Kaycee would often chat with Leshy and give him tips on how to make the game more fun.
@@thechosenone5421 Yes. All Scrybes want to play the game. All of them (Except for Magnificus) have already, at some point in time, being the one in control of game.
So Leshy going all "Your soul is a card now", along with the "Oh look, another traveler. Let's play this game of which I'll not explain the rules because I explained It to the previous one." It's all just role play. As he doesn't re explain everything from the start, as It's still the same player, and since only the avatar is turned into a card, this is pretty much his way of saying, "Here, let me give you a help".
After all, the protagonist of Inscryption, Luke Carder, never really loses his "soul" whenever we lose a match. And since It's canon for two to three loses to happen, we can safely assume that Leshy is just dramatic.
The sharp contrast between what I imagine P-03 to sound like, and the voice given to him in this video keeps making me laugh. In almost every way his character is spun, I give him this snarky nerd voice that sounds like someone who seems himself as above all others simply by default, meanwhile the voice in here sounds like Rouge the Bat from Sonic. Honestly, im still here for it, I love the gay robot man hes awesome
The rogue the bat comparison is sending me. My directions were “snarky and tired” and gay robot man is what I’m going to call that voice from now on thank you.
@@ODtheCryptid Fantastic work, you killed it!
My dad in his last portion of life reminded me a lot of Leshy.
His thriving love of competition faded when he knew the clock was running out.
He just wanted to appreciate the experience together, and not focos on meaningless numbers.
I think because he already had a meaningless number hanging over his head.
i relate to that as well. My dad died of melanoma half a decade ago. When a person realizes their life is suddenly cut short, and neither you nor they can do anything about it, there’s something existentially dreadful about it. They lose any future ambitions because they dont have a future, and you’re forced to watch them try to live the last couple of months they have in a bittersweet haze of doing all these things they had on their bucket list or whatever. Then on top of that having to watch them physically wither away on top of that, i dont wish that condition on anyone. The ending where Leshy has to come to terms with his death, and in his final moments becomes extremely vulnerable with you, just stating he wanted to play the game this entire time, and seeing small signs of his increasing panic as the game deletes itself around him, it’s incredibly real and raw to me in a way that hurts but also is cathartic. My dad wasnt the first or the last person to have that kind of fate, it can happen to any of us since its ultimately out of our control. This game handled the concept of AI that are not supposed to understand the concept of death having to actually face it incredibly well. Leshy isnt a human, but he’s felt the full array of human emotions, even the fear and experience of death, and that makes him relatable not as a bad guy or as a good guy, but as a soul caught in an incredibly horrible situation that he never signed up for.
It's funny, Daniel Mullins' entire body of work has been an ongoing indictment of the games industry as a whole and the LLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEE all ties back into it, especially the one constant element of the plots: Gamefuna.
God I wish more people played The Hex it was so good
I don't remember Gamefuna in Pony Island, but with a sequel on the horizon, chances are, we'll see more of Gamefuna
They don't know what they're missing.
the hex was a cool idea but not really that fun to actually play
Long story short the games triple A industry is literally made by Satan
@@hisupwassup Gamefuna was kind of a retroactive thing because the lead developer in Pony Island supposedly started the company
Apologies for the essay in your comments, but I want to mention something I picked up in the final hours of inscryption that gives your classical tragedy take on the scrybes enough weight that I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that them being tragic figures is the central conceit of the plot. Yes, every one of the scrybes is a deeply fundamentally flawed person and each representative of a different kind of awful person you'll meet in game design, but something else that's important about them is that they each bring something vital to making a game that's truly excellent to the table. Leshy, as stated, is there to tell a story. One he's poured his heart and soul into, and everything he does is in service to the story. To that end, I'd argue that his disappointment when the player fails is less that you're not living up to his standards, and more that you're not getting to see more of his story. He's more disappointed that he failed to create a scenario in which you could reach the end. I read it as being disappointed in himself because he's just not that good at the other aspects of game design. P-03, again as stated, is the systems guy. He wants complex interactions, optimized gameplay, and all the other stuff doesn't matter in the least. His faults are plain, upfront, and discussed plenty here and elsewhere, but at the end of the day he does bring something far more technical and engaging to the table as far as raw gameplay goes. Remora is where they start getting more complex (honestly, probably because these two get practically no screen time in comparison with the first), but the concepts they represent are far more fleeting. Remora in particular *is* the concept of finality herself. Her goal, from the bottom up, is not to delete inscryption but to make it a *finite* experience. At the end of the day, a game that's truly great needs to give people permission to walk away from it. Making sure it does not go on forever, making sure it comes to an actual conclusion instead of meandering through endless plot or becoming needlessly complex and bloated is her domain. Magnificus, then, is sheer unbridled *spectacle*. The awe of stepping out of a cave and into the sun for the first time, the rush of getting your hands on the ultimate weapon, the shock, disbelief, and sheer "Oh hell yes" of being handed a lovingly 3D modeled and animated duel disk in a game about playing cards. Without a magnificus type, you have a totally acceptable, reasonable game that is generally unmemorable. None of them are capable of making a satisfying game on their own, full stop. But if they had set their minds to working together instead of bickering at each others' throats, then the game they were trying to make would have been far greater than it ever was. But they'd never do that, because that's not who any of them are. That's the crushing tragedy that inscryption brings to the table, and something that it feels like nobody ever seems to talk about because oo what about hitler's deck of cards.
Another point I want to make about Magnificus being the ideas guy and blaming Goobert for all his failures:
We actually see all of the methods the Scrybes go by to acquire the OLD_DATA. PO3's Dredger uses the dredging machine. Leshy's Angler uses a fishing rod. Grimora's Kaycee uses the well and bucket in the crypt. And Goobert...
I honestly didn't get how Goobert was searching for the OLD_DATA until my most recent 100% playthrough, but on that playthrough, I made a realization- the room next to Magnificus's chamber. It's the only place in the entire tower with visible water, and it's always felt very out-of-place. It HAS to be where Goobert is OLD_DATA fishing. And you know what's in there? Leaky pipes, and a couple of water basins barely the size of a sink basin.
No wonder Goobert had never gotten the OLD_DATA! Magnificus gave him absolutely barebones and partially broken equipment to do his job, and then blames him for it not working!
Sound like any managers anyone knows?
the Pony Island 2 trailer shows why Goobert cant find any OLD_DATA beneath the surface - his bottle floats, he cant get under the water :)
I always figured that Grimora wanted to get the piece of OLD_DATA so that she COULD delete the game
Same
Yeah, that's always kinda been my read too. Like, clearly she _was_ searching for the Old Data in the past. But unless I'm misremembering, she never got it either. Leshy was the first and only of the four to get it before the events of the game we play through, after which point he re-wrote everything and trapped the other scrybes. So I read her less as being a hypocrite, and more someone who realized how dangerous the Old Data would be in *any* of their hands, (especially after P03) while still feeling a bit of remorse that she never really got the chance to showcase her own creative vision before the end. While she's not perfect, she definitely still reads to me as the least bad of the four, with Leshy not too far behind.
@@firekirby123I think at first she didnt want to destroy the game, just wanted her own equal crack at the old data (one that she never got because Leshy got his hands on it first). But i assume once she realized what the other scribes could do with it BEYOND the game (with Po3 proving her likely fears right with trying to permanently download his self into the internet like a virus) she realized that the old data was something that could be used for something far more malicious than what her intentions were. I think she is the most moral of the scribes, and i think thats why at the end she took it’s power for herself to make sure it’d stay destroyed, even if that meant killing the rest of the scribes and herself in the process. Yes she could’ve been happy with Po3 being killed by Leshy, but i feel like she didn’t trust him or magnificus too much either. She probably assumed they could fall to a similar temptation that Po3 did.
@@Samookely Yup, very much agreed
When your friends were describing the way the video game class worked, it reminded me a weird amount of how my mom talked about working in the theater. She was a hair/makup artist and shes refered to the opera/ballet as a "cult" in a tone thats light hearted but still serious. Shes spoken about how often people in the arts are always going on about how its a privilege to work in that industry, how its all about being there as long as possible. She was working 80 hour (at least) weeks, had a 2 hour commute, the wig makers used chemicals that often resulted in burns. She was always on call, and returned to work with bearly any maternity leave twice. Shes chronically ill, and got a thyroidectemy before returning to work after bearly any time.
Shes spoken about how, on my first day of school she wanted to take the day off work to take her kid to school and be there to pick me up. Her boss asked why she needed the full day off, it wasnt like she *needed* the full day, she could come in after she dropped me off.
I think, theres a tendancy in any artistic field, to glorify sacrifice. The artist who bleads for their work is more worthy than the one who takes breaks, the game dev who works so hard they dont see their home for days is more worthy than the one who sees their family on a regular basis. The woman who walks out of sergery and into work is a good employee, the one who takes takes time to heal is not.
The part where you spoke on Game dev education hit way too hard for me.
On the second half of a two year course about computer science and the tutor who was supposed to teach us most of the programming and game dev stuff simply vanished to go on sick for the whole year after making promises on everything we'd do in the first year. This was apparently been a common thing for him within the past 5 years. Came back few weeks before the end of the first year and a couple of us had to use mario maker as our assignment submission because he wasn't there to teach us anything.
Second year, found out the game development module was only for the first year and we had that tutor again for software development. Stuck around longer than last year but it was the same assessments and worksheets as the year prior. Cherry on top is how every time someone asked him a question he wouldn't actually answer it himself, instead sending over ChatGPT responses.
Now he has gone on the sick again, and we recently found out he isn't even home resting or anything. He has been on a vacation.
dang mario maker
What the fuck, that guy sucks.
Has anybody reported his behavior to the administration?
Just learn it yourself. You'll be way faster
@@maegnificant can confirm, you will learn much faster
You've really nailed down what I love about Daniel Mullins' body of work. There are lots of games that have meta gameplay and narrative elements but a lot of them are just for novelty. Daniel's games aren't meta just for the sake of it. Instead they use it as a powerful tool to draw the audience much closer into the stories. By reaching out from beyond the fourth wall, they drag the player right into the center of this inner world showcasing the darker corners of game development. I'll admit that I'm also a sucker for the "lore" and ARG stuff but it's more like a juicy worm on the fish hook rather than the real reason I'm swimming in the pond to begin with.
The angler would be proud
Leshy is writing
magnificus is style
P03 is mechanics
grimora is just another player
P03 is BAD mechanics specifically. Hardcore optimizing out your fun mechanics.
@@DairunCates exactly
@@DairunCates he is a heartless robot after all.
Maybe that makes Grimora QA, then?
Po3? More like..
Po5 🤧
When I first discovered Inscryption, I didn't see that it was made by Daniel Mullins. I only found out after act 1. It really speaks to Daniel Mullins skills that he made a game that catches everyone attentions when he first released the game. I played the demo so much that I easily beat act 1 on the first real try. I was kinda sad that I didn't get more out of act 1. But after act 1, the story and characters just dragged me in.
I think that's the real power of Inscryption. It draws you in with a mysterious card game that then pulls you deeper with the mystery "What actually IS Inscryption?" I feel like the message of "How games development becomes toxic" is kinda lost in the evilness of the Old Data.
Lovely video essay though, hadn't really considered it myself about how Inscryption is an analogy of the Video Game industry, but it makes perfect sense.
Also, love the fact that you site your sources used and games shown like that
I just got a few minutes into the section talking about game design in college, and it's already hitting me.
I used to be in school for a game design major, and it completely shut down any passion I had for the profession. It didn't help that partway through covid hit, but still, many classes of "here's the bare minimum, now learn it yourself," no real help in figuring out what specific part i wanted to be in, and most classes that sounded specific, just turned into "group with classmates and make a game."
I had a music and sound design class, that used a web-based 8-bit music maker/sound toy for about all of it, no real music theory or concepts on how to fit into a theme or tone of a game. The final project was make a level of a game with classmates, and the only requirement that aligned with the class was for everyone to make 10 sound effects with the web app. I mostly did art for that project, barely touching anything audio related.
All of this over and over caused my depression to worsen, drop out, and lose the passion i once had.
While you're not necessarily wrong about P03, i think your description of him as a game master is a little uncharitable. Yes he doesn't care much for the story and yes he thinks its so cool to implement a mechanic from Dark Souls, but that's just it, he *likes* mechanics. He *cares* about mechanics, in a way that contrasts with Leshy. Leshy was focused on the experience, on the atmosphere, on the story, and the mechanics were a means to an end on that. For P03, the mechanics are the end, and everything else is something he begrudgingly includes out of a perceived necessity. You get the feeling that if he felt he could get away with it his representation of the game would be pure text interacted with via command line.
He's still a terrible person in terms of how he treats his underlings (as are arguably all of the scribes as you point out), but his care for mechanics at the expense of story isnt necessarily a reflection of corprotization so much as a different kind of equally destructive passion.
PO3 cares about the idea of mechanics. But he doesn't respect mechanics. He wants to see new cool mechanics. But he doesn't take the time to think deeply about them. This is best exemplified in the "design your own boss" battle, where he allows you to create a game breaking rule by accident. He is happy to do big set piece bosses, but he doesn't understand how to balance a game.
While Leshy too had issues with balance it hits different with PO3. PO3 thinks he is supposed to be the "smart one", the one who designs the fun out of a game. But he is only a know-it-all with a few tricks in his proverbial bag. It is clear that he is phoning it in when he isn't interested. But this hides a deeper issue: he isn't actually any good at designing mechanics.
The rot you bring up goes so much further than the gaming industry .
In 2016 the company I worked for was gobbled up by a tech giant. It was scummy and all of us were out by 2019. The worst time was at the start of every project. They'd parade us in front of the clients executive team, presenting our record. It was practically a public shaming because they had "delicate" ways of saying you didn't go to the right schools, had health issues, were not in the boys club, opinionated, valued your personal life, the wrong gender/sexuality or just didn't like the taste of boot.
I saw the title a few weeks ago and went "oh its just someone talking about how inscryption could have been more than it is and not understanding that a game can just be a game" only to find out after actually watching it that it was the exact opposite of what I thought.
I absolutely love this video, everything about it hits so well, though I might recommend a better title because the initial impression it gives is the exact opposite of the message of the video lol.
I resonate with this message a lot. This is exactly what I'm afarid is happening to the animation industry. Crap just keeps getting worse. But that's why indie animation is shining lately, and it's why indie games are too. I'm an optimist, so I like to think video game creation isn't going to die or be stuck like this forever, not when we're finally realizing how screwed up it actually is. After all, there are still indie creators untouched by the problem and are even drawing attention (however little) to the problem. Have hope. Things will get better.
When I recommended inscryption, I recommend it as an experience, with a disclaimer that there is more behind it, but that you want to play it in the dark, alone, and just experience it
6:20 he absolutely forces you down a single path. If you go too far in a single run, he *will* just shout "TOO FAR. TOO FAST." and do the equivalent of Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies.
Edit: 23:30 OH THANK FUCK, I TAKE IT BACK. but also, i *will* recommend Flaw Peacock's video on the "trilogy" as while he *does* go into a lore analysis on all three of them to show how they interconnect, and how DM builds on the puzzles over time (for example using Beneath The Ice as a cypher key in Inscryption because he established that language with his audience back in The Hex), when taken individually, they are very much about the story analysis, with the lore more as a means to help better understand what's going on, things like why the Scribes seem to be alive, the fifth scribe, and so on.
the first one:
it gives the player a extra challenge (figuring out how to defeat the 8 FUCKING BEARS)
I've seen a speed run of the game. It's insane how... Mechanically broken the game can become.
Hell, dude was doing 3 duels at one time on Po3
@@emireri2387you don't, that's the entire point
@@sunbleachedangel its possible to defeat the 8 FUCKING BEARS
Okay, this is gonna be an UNNECESSARILY LONG-WINDED NONSENSICAL DIATRIBE rooted from this video as I just watched through it so, bare with me here whoever comes across it:
When I first opened the video and got greeted with the opening point, my first thought was like "well, maybe people didn't pick up on Inscryption's messaging because it's emphasized way more in the Hex-"then half of the video turned focus on the Hex, then I kept on going.
In terms of how some details and messages in Inscryption became lost among the audience, I always like to bring up "death of the author" as a backing point--video games, or artworks in general are no longer outlets of one's thoughts in this economy, it had fallen prey to the market competition and became pure consumer products like the rest of the things. People are taking media for granted and cherrypicking whatever they WANT from it and not exactly what the media ARE. This could very well be a more cynical take on the situation from a bitter artist such as myself, but to me it stands--arts have become less about what they are, but more about what the audience can pick up on and consume. The content creators want to indulge the audience's morbid curiosity, the audience themselves have their own concern than reading between the lines of tropes and messages to get what can fulfill their need for thrills, some people may even go as far as to say that media literacy in modern days is DEAD on the floor--but at this point, I cannot fault anyone for it. The greater picture of things and struggles in individual lives make exploring into media and making attachment with the artists through art itself hard and unworthy of the hassle, and it's sad that it's the sort of rules that most people are forced to abide.
And when it comes to the Hex, I do have some personal stories to tell: ever since the Chinese localization of the Hex was out (and yes, I was one among many of the translation proofreaders in the project), I checked over and over in the Steam reviews to see people's reactions. One of my concerns being the core messages of the game will be lost on people much like when it was without full translations--and I'm glad that it didn't happen at all. Video coverage of the Hex all narrate the portrayals of gaming industry struggles, and the Chinese audience generally managed to pick up on the messages the game is selling (well, aside from a few reviews complaining about that the gameplay itself isn't fun--which is half-true to their credits). I was thrilled to see the reception, because what intrigued me about the Hex to begin with is its messaging. As it was said in the video, the Hex dares to tackle topics that no one had talked about before, and even going as far as to contest ITSELF when necessary. All three of the Daniel Mullins trilogy explores the topic of game development in one way or another, but the Hex is the one that didn't sideline it for the sake of a narrative, it instead dived deep into it and explored the subject in a just way. As someone who isn't always impressed by a fancy story but more intrigued by its messages and intents, the Hex earned my great respect, and the portrayal of Lionel Snill still lingered in my head as a "would I also become this way?" sort of thought.
I swear to god it would be extremely embarrassing to read back to this nonsense 3 minutes after I posted it, but to hell with it lol, I'm just glad that somebody acknowledged Daniel's mastery in delivering a point in an engaging way
Frankly there’s a million things I could also go into about this video and things like what your talking about, but I find the talks about audience vs the author and homogeny vs being unique especially noteworthy regarding difficulty and what’s “artistic”.
I’ll give ya, difficulty and balance aren’t exactly the most artistic things. But they’re also not nothing either. To somewhat ironically bring up the point of Dark Souls, it’s difficulty is in pursuit of its themes. There’s literally the implication that giving up because it’s too hard is going hollow. In Dishonored, you barely have anything interesting or that good when it comes to pacifist while being an evil killer is super easy and fun. That’s to bring up how being good is a job while evil is an easy action away yet leads to ruin. Superliminal is EXPLICITLY about overcoming hardships and staying determined in the face of any problem thrown at you. Need I even mention Undertale?
And yet, each of these games and these points are criticized for not being open and accessible to all… which is especially interesting to hear from someone who talks about artist intent and how we should get unique things instead of this homogenousness. (Not talking about you, AF_Productions, I don’t know what your thoughts are on difficulty. I’m more-so referencing a point in this video).
Ultimately, there’s always a counter example to everything nowadays so it’s difficult to say anything solid. The difficulty of the games I mentioned is intentional and (arguably) does their job. There are other games that don’t have that intention. There are games where listening to fans instead of dismissing them like trash are applicable… there are other games where this doesn’t apply. There are games we can point to and say “this should be more unique, too bad this industry grinded them down” and other games we can say “this is excluding me for no reason greater then hate, a snobby “holier then thou” attitude and/or incompetence”.
And all of this further mystified by the fact we can point to people pointing these things out… and state either being “right” or “wrong” from perspectives and themselves being right or wrong from perspectives.
I’m glad to see there’s more videos going over Inscryption’s actual plot and themes. The arg and all that other stuff is cool and all, but I find the themes to be a lot more interesting as it is the glue and foundation that holds a story together. Makes me think of another video retrospective that analyzed the shared themes of Daniel Mullins trilogy of games.
This is an incredible video essay that deserves so much more attention, much like some of the games mentioned in it. The fact that this doesn’t have millions of views is a crime.
with how Daniel Mullins is it would not surprise me if Pony island 2 will be about the sequelization of games, but also a complete subversion of this expectation might also be the case
Wow, with the quality of this video I expected you to have many more subscribers and views. While I can't do much I can at least give one of each, excellent work and I look forward to any other essays you may produce, no matter the length of time between them.
Finding this in my watch later has been the highlight of my week. I love finding new creators with this level of passion for stuff no one else is covering, especially ones with such strong editing and writing skills! You really brought me back to the thoughts and feelings I had with the game during my first playthrough, before they got buried by all the ARG stuff and countless runs of Kaycee's Mod. Can't wait to see what else you talk about in the future.
what a great video, saving it in long analysies. btw you have a beautiful voice, i hope to hear it again in other videos
I agree with most of this video, and the in-depth writing is fascinating. You're entirely correct: apathetic games are the death of the industry. Indie was made on the back of passion, of creativity, and of genuine collaboration.
Though, I don't think Kaycee's Mod fits? Kaycee's Mod isn't really an exploration of anything further, or more-- and while dwelling on a game makes sense, Kaycee's Mod is, first and foremost gameplay-focused. Even Kaycee's musings (her writings you can unlock after challenges) aren't really new features, new lore, new concepts-- just adding more things we could already assume. Everything new is in the gameplay, something deeply overlooked by the lore videos. It's Kaycee's very writings that leads me to believe that all of the writing feels like it's there just to support the gameplay that rather than the other way around. The audience for it are not the lore-freaks, it's the people who loved the gameplay. It's also a free mod-- not monetized, and, when it was uploaded, updated by the creators continuously on bugs, connecting with the community. The server was a blast. It wasn't a cash grab and didn't read as someone attempting to gain more press for Inscryption. The mod, above all else, felt fun. Not necessarily a work of art, but just fun. Not a sequel-grab, not a soulless inclusion, just fun. I don't think it's inclusion supports the main idea of this video essay, and it feels out of place.
Specifically, one of Kaycee's logs stand out to me that feels like the antithesis to this essay. You get to it by beating everything. It, for all purposes, is a finale log. A reward for getting achievements, and slaving your way through Inscruption. But in it, there's no lore. Instead, Kaycee notes how no one will ever see her game-- but, for the time, she indulges in a fantasy, of people playing her game-- her little mod. About the art made from it, the music made from it, she ends it stating she is overflowing with gratitude. I still read it now and it makes me cry a little. It makes me think about talking with the team as everyone talked about little bugs, and scores, and how much fun it was just to play around with Inscryption's main part of the game. It makes me think about all of the fanart I saw, the people I talked with, the community made around it.
Kaycee's Mod is not soulless. It's a thank you. Not from Kaycee, but from Daniel Mullins Games. And I don't think it fits in this essay.
Otherwise, fantastic video, I loved every second of it. Especially the testimonies-- getting that insight into the game industry feels haunting in a way I can't really articulate.
Thank you! I loved Kaycee’s mod, because i loved the gameplay. Sure, i loved the story, and sure, i like ARG’s, but i had some qualms with how they were presented in inscryption and i’m not the only one. Personally, i’m really big on games that love *being* games. I want to enjoy playing them, not just understanding the story, and i say that as someone who fights tooth and nail for the idea of games as a story telling medium. Innovating in gameplay, creating mechanics that interact with the story, and are just downright fun, is valuable i think. Triple A’s don’t want to innovate, they just want to make money based on existing precedents, so i do think that indie games that focus on good gameplay fit into the narrative, not against it. I fucking love Kaycee’s mod man, i love a good challenge, and i love that they embraced people who really enjoyed the gameplay in the first section! The story of inscryption means so much to me, but the hours of playing Kaycee’s mod do too.
god your gonna inspire me to make a video abkut why the hex is about daniel mullens personal vendetta against game engines
Do it
Just a bit of feedback: For the interview portion, I found myself asking, "How is this relevant to the previous topic again?" I feel like there could've been a bit of a recap that The Hex is talking about these experiences, because going from Inscryption to The Hex to Indie Games to the 12 minute interview referencing the game that I frankly didn't really come to the video for, is a bit disorientating. IDK maybe it's just me
I actually agree with you
Same. That was taking way too long.
Wake up babe, new Video essay just dropped.
and a really pretty good one too :)
I hate this idiotic done-to-death comment by anyone without creativity that thinks themselves funny..
@@Big_Dai get a life
Absolutely entranced by this video. Especially loved the interview with your friends, I hope they're in a better space now at least. Excuse me while I share this everywhere.
The contrast between Leshy and P03 can also be seen in how they prevent the player from leaving the table.
demands you get up, but there’s hypothetically nothing stopping you save his request. P03, however, literally shackles you to the table until he needs you to do something, and only then will he release you.
Sharing this as much as I can, I love finding videos with so much care and passion oozing out of them.
I realised this video has stupidly become sort of a comfort for me. Without getting overly sappy and emotional on the internet, since it just feels like screaming into a void, I rewatch it and replay it whenever I need something comfy to listen to in the background and sometimes even the foreground.
The visuals, the audio, the narrator's voice, everything is super cosy- and the interview section especially made me reconsider a lot of what I spending my time on and I knew it needed to change. People echoing the same things I'm feeling and the bit about your personality becoming your job and vise versa making me scared shitless. But in all this I just wanted to say thank you! This video has changed the trajectory of me for hopefully the better.
what’s with youtube and sending me cool unknown videos from unknown creators rn, amazing
whatever they are doing with the recomendation algorithm, i like it
I initially intended to leave after watching the video, without a word that'd be a drop in the ocean, but then I actually looked at the view and subscriber count and, woah, I realized got recommended a hidden gem. That's something worth commenting about in its own right.
I didn't really know what to expect from the title, but the overall message seems so bleak, that I think I need a break from everything for a while and I don't think that small hopeful message at the end is enough to outweigh the whole rest of the video in that regard. That being said, consider it a weird sort of praise, as it also means it was compelling and moving.
I don't really know how to end this comment on a positive note, so I'll just say that I subscribed to the channel and that I wish everyone whose time I wasted with reading this comment a good day and a reason to smile.
This is an incredible video essay about a game and topic that I love. Thank you, youtube algorithm, for doing your arcane chicanery once again. Also, you did an incredible job with the production of this video, really well made and lovingly crafted. Easy subscribe
Fantastic video! I first learned about Daniel Mullins’ games from Inscryption theory videos a couple months ago. I was interested enough to check out some stuff on Pony Island next, but then when I got to The Hex it was like the final piece of a puzzle, it brought it all together, and I liked the full picture even better than the individual pieces.
I had to at least see a let’s play (not a stream) of The Hex, and the only person I knew of and trusted to get it right was Welonz. She and the game delivered, and I know it’s better to play games for myself, but riding along for the whole journey with minimal cuts and no distractions really helped me see what’s actually happening in the game.
But anyway, all that is to say, you did a great job getting to the core of it in this video! I like spooky satans more the more allegorical they are, and while I thought The Hex was fairly crystal clear with what it was trying to say, that sort of thing seems to slip through the cracks a lot. It’s often up to people like you to dredge the truth up from the murky depths, and pull off its Scooby Doo villian mask.
This made by someone with only 200 subs? Making that 201 now. Bravo!
BEST VIDEO ESSAY EVER
very well put together video, well done! :3
"Hey this is about the Hex now" --pivot to like three hours on how the phil fish movie sucks and a random interview with friends who apparently wouldn't stop sending discord DMs about being in the video
Video essayists gonna video essayist I guess
Edit: Okay I wasn't expecting "why are we being taught about traditional animation when we do 3D animation", that was entertaining after a fashion
I watched the first five minutes, and I can tell that this is not something I need right now.
The video looks great. I’m definitely coming back to finish it.
Just wanted to thank you for reminding me of Inscryption’s ending. It’s probably the most touching game I’ve ever played and I’d entirely forgotten it. Thank you
I would recommend reducing the length of an interview section for a video essay. I came close to switching off and skipped the last 5 minutes of the interview
The way you concisely present your ideas and maintain a clear goal throughout the whole video really makes your perspective shine. The immense effort you've been putting into your channel, livestream, etc. makes this influx of attention on your work more than deserved. Congratulations Pengy!!! I'm exited to see where you take your creative prowess next. :D
loved the vid! also thank you for the referenced games list, gonna hunt through the list soon, random niche indie games are so beautiful
THIS VIDEO IS SO GOOD ADJEHEJSJ
It's such a novel and interesting analysis of a game that's already been picked apart so many times and I absolutely can't wait to see more of your content!
I like that I was randomly recommended this video essay on Daniel's work, because this is the kind of game design talk I live to hear. Whether it's digging into what feels good in the mechanics or tying together all the threads of the plot, I enjoy deep dives into the art of video games.
And I especially appreciate this because I wasn't keyed into this particular line of thinking when I played Inscryption. Instead, I was one of the people who had been looking forward to it because of the game jam title that lead to its creation, Sacrifices Must Be Made. My introduction to the game, and my mode of thinking, was centered on Leshy's storytelling and the game's use of sacrifice as a core mechanic in a card game. Bone requiring your creatures to die, blood requiring you to sacrifice your creatures, energy being hard-limited, and mox taking up precious board space (do you destroy the mox now and lose the ability to summon that color, or do you keep it and have a weaker board?), all of the card mechanics force sacrifices and choices through every step of the game...right up until the last phase of P-03 getting high off his own power, proceeding to make your entire vessel deck OP as heck to speed up his plans.
And...that kind of ties back into the whole conversation about the industry of mainstream gaming, because "sacrifices must be made" is definitely a strong mindset in that realm.
Excellent video. Thank you for making it and for expressing your love of games/game devs so passionately
This is one of the coolest videos I've seen on TH-cam and it was from a channel i never heard of before on a topic i never really considered deeply enough when I had the chance to at some point.
Keep making amazing things.
This video deserves so much more attention its so well produced omg
Hi! Just found you through this vid, enjoyed it a lot, thank you for the documentation on sources and breakdown! Hadn't realized this kinda context on inscryption and really enjoyed this analysis
Ooooooo this channel is really promising. Thank you for making this hon I’m excited to see where you come from here. I love your enthusiasm
Finally finally FINALLY!!!!!!!!! I'VE BEEN WAITING YEARS FOR AN ANALYSIS ON THE STORY AND IT'S FINALLY HERE. I'M GRABBING SOME POPCORNS CUZ THIS IS GOING TO BECOME MY FAVOURITE INSCRYTION VIDEO.
Man I’m glad I found your channel this is just outstanding work, love what you’ve created and definitely plan to stick around for more!
I'm very sad there aren't more videos of yours to binge! I really love your insight and presentation style, and your avatar is great too!
Lou Natas' last name, the CEO of GameFuna, is literally Satan backwards and Lou as in short for Lucifer. It would also not surprise me at all if he had an 'S' starting middle name to make it Satan S.ouL backwards.
I like card games, so when Inscryption came out I wanted to see what else had the dev made, and then it was when I learned they made Pony Island, which I loved, but then it was when I learned they had made another game that no one seemed to have been talked about. The Hex, of course. Since I enjoyed Pony Island so much I wanted to see what was The Hex all about, so I made sure to play The Hex before the release of Inscryption and I was baffled at how good it was and how little noise there was around it. Like you said, The Hex has a bit of roughness around the edges that Inscryption did iron out and further enhanced with a lot of Style and atmosphere, something that The Hex seems to lack a bit with its mostly 2d pixel art style. The Hex is in a place of transition between Pony Island and Inscryption regarding style, but I also do feel like it has the strongest story. Which is also paramount for understanding the more subtle elements from the third game. Heck, the end of Inscryption is, in a way, a weaker version of the ending from The Hex.
I'm honestly excited for Pony Island 2, because it does feel like a distillation of all the stuff Daniel have learned. And going without a publisher means that he's unrestrained on the sort of stuff he can talk about.
Daniel Mullins is my favorite developer whose theme is all about meta and post modern themes on videogames.
Oh shit new Pengy essay dropped it’s insane how quickly you finished this tbh it feels like it was just yesterday you were sending me your silly little edit progress vids. They grow up so fast. 💛
Games can be vehicles for entertainment and art at the same time. Some people commit this sin of viewing fun and entertainment as taboo words when it comes to game development and/or reviewing. Art is meant to stir your emotions. So why are we removing enjoyment from this equation? Games can focus on being entertaining and still be art.
Jesus Christ, I'm going to be watching this video at least 2 or 3 times.
I love your delivery and way of structuring this entire topic because it's clear that you care about how we perceive it. Your inflections inject enough emotion to know that while you're reading a script, you're remembering and sharing how you felt when you wrote those words on some level. While I only have a passing interest in Inscryption (enough to beat it, but not much else), what you added made me appreciate the Scrybes and what they represent all the more. If you're planning to make more essays, I would love to fling you into a place I know that would be welcoming to that kinda stuff.
Either way, great work and I hope you're satisfied too!
God I love your grimora and PO3 voices
i almost cried seeing your inclusion of hello charlotte in your list of strange indie games towards the end of the video. the hello charlotte games have completely changed my life and made me feel seen like nothing else. i know the series has a sizable fanbase, but there's something about seeing it referenced outside of me specifically searching for it online or wooing my friends into playing the games that warmed some sad little piece of me.
i love both your videos. your artistic analysis is rly insightful but also i just care immensely about the games you've talked about and im grateful for your focus on indie games ;_____;
A well done video-essay on one of my favourite games. Thank you for the in-depth analysis, it's amazing C:
This is so good!!!! Immediately subscribed looking foreward to more
Dwelling on things until they lose their meaning... that kind of describes my creative process. I spend so much time buried up to my neck in my stories, working over every part of them again and again, that I need to write down lists of the original points of the story's elements, lest I forget. I had to outright write myself a letter about how I had turned one of my own characters into a flanderized fanfiction version of herself, I'd spent so much time obsessing over her psyche. That was last week.
Wait what, this is the second video on this channel!
I was expecting to have video essays to listen to for at least a couple full days based on the production quality and confidence of presentation!
Good work! Really looking forward to more, whenever you make it!
I don’t usually comment, but you more than deserve the engagement after the amount of work put into this. This is one of those videos that made me sit and think about art itself and how I can explore it in more ways than I initially thought. I’ve always been partial to things where you get the story told to you without any viewer input like animation and comics since I wasn’t able to get my hands on a lot of video games when I was younger, and now I’m finally really able to dive into the world of video games and see the different ways of storytelling they have and how they go about imbuing the themes they want to convey throughout the gameplay. I’ve also never been one who focuses on bigger themes like industries, but this breakdown of Inscryption and The Hex has helped me work out how it can be tackled so I can better learn and create. Also, I watched a play through of The Hex soley for this video since I wanted to be fully aware of both games and I do not regret spending a whole day on that, thank you for bringing it to peoples attention and for your good taste 👍. I’ll be keeping an eye out for any videos you make in the future
Dude Flawed Peacock is what you're looking for
I'm SO glad the algorithm recommended me this and utterly shocked at the subscriber count of your channel! When you started talking about The Hex I jumped with glee because it's also my favorite Daniel Mullins game and I find it really frustrating as well how under the radar it is compared to his other output.
Thank you so much for this video, it is now one of my new favorite video essays
True facts about rail roady DMs. When I started building my own campaigns I basically had Back-Up plots where if they killed an early bad guy *he'd be replaced by someome who was worse at his job, which eventually draws the attention of the Big Bad prematurely.* I call it the Murder Hobo Contingency, and it's my way of enforcing diagetic consequences for clown behavior.
I freaking love your style for making videos, this was so good. We need more! (No crunch requested 👀)
I'm only halfway through this and I just have to say this is a phenomenal video. Thank you and your guests for making this.
What an amazing video essay, absolutely love your exploration of the themes, and especially love that you brought in people who are actively learning and trying to get into the industry themselves to comment on these themes. The games industry can unfortunately often feel bleak and souless because of this vision of what "success" means for a game, indie or otherwise, but we often overlook the true passion projects and dedicated devs that just want to make and create artful pieces, good naratives and fun experiences. Look for those games, look beyond the money and to the art and passion of devs, and you will surely find them.
This is an important video, thank you for making it
I really like your editing style and comedy! I have a hunch you'll hit it big sooner or later!
this video has a great deal of things to like!! the most impactful to me, personally, was at the end, when you described how the truly indie & experimental stuff can "set fire to senses you never knew you had". that's *such* an evocative way of describing the sensation that i'm always chasing when i go digging through the obscure!! these games are often obscure because of how specific and incisive they are, and there's a potency of emotion you rarely experience except in art that resonates with you /specifically/, rather than just being good /broadly/. i'm always trying to get the people i know to dive into experimental weirdo art on the internet, because you can't get experiences like that in prestigious commercial art.
i really feel your enthusiasm for the weird, beautiful indies. i love video games too.
Good vid, well put together, well analyzed. I appreciate the level of focus on the topics
Waaaa im so glad i got recommend this video! Honestly I never thought about inscription in this way so it connected a lot of the dots for me LMAO. Overall great video, cant wait to see what you cook up next!
aaaaa this is super good!!! ❤❤❤ I'm really glad you mentioned that about grimora bc as you mentioned yourself she seemed actually decent but had some weirdness in her thematics and final speech that felt a bit out of place and I wouldn't have connected two and two if you didn't mention it! It's really lovely to see someone else finally talk about the game development metaphors here and actually personify the scribes properly as creators and developers
You mention magnificus crawling to you to shake your hand at the very end but I always kind of hated him more for it. He fails to get the handshake because he was so wrapped up in his terrible unbalanced version of the game using the worst archetype that he let it get to the very last second before he tried to make his peace
i'm glad to know someone else cried with the final act...
Daniel Mullins is a pleasant guy in my experience. I sent him an email when I first played Pony Island when it came out and told him how much I liked it, and he responded, years went by and I've replied to that chain a couple times when I play a new game of his and when I have, he's actually responded each time. I know as the years have gone on that he's almost certainly become a more busy guy, and it touches my heart a bit that he'd take the time to respond even after years have passed.
More to the point, hi there very cool new essayist who is somehow both very polished and has only two videos so far. Congrats on being chosen by the YT robot, loved the video you put together here. Great work using the subject matter to talk about real world issues, and bringing in some insightful people to talk about it. I look forward to your future work!
I'm a self-taught artist. I have seen so many artists leave art school completely baffled and unprepared to do the thing they went to school for, and more than a few of them have told me "You taught me more than I learned the entire time I was there." I won't say it's a scam, but it definitely doesn't do what it advertises.
If you're making art, don't seek out a career pipeline, seek out other artists. And if you must join anything, join a cooperative. Never leave your fate in someone else's hands without at least equal say.
tear rolls down my cheek. finally new video essay abt inscryption AND it mentions the hex (peak)
Only just finished the intro part, but it perfectly describes how I feel about Inscryption as a whole. When I first saw Markiplier's playthrough of it, I instantly downloaded it after the first episode because I was just so intrigued by the mystery and aesthetic of it. It felt so new and different, everything in the game looked and felt so tactile and beautiful but once it got into the second half of the game all that magic was just lost. It became just another indie pixel art mystery/horror game with a kinda cool story and an ARG tied to it.
Tbh, the only thing that kept me playing were the mechanics of the game and the reveal that there were 4 types of main cards rather than just Leshy's beasts deck. I'm glad I did keep playing though because the part where Leshy returns felt like seeing an old friend. A return to a much simpler time. That was the best part about the whole game to me.
The interview part made me really worried and made me feel down. You see, I plan to make a little cozy fashion game and I was thinking of asking or hiring someone to do the coding of the game for me, with me making all the the rest of the assets, but after hearing that programmers are actively discouraged from adding to any projects creatively and are there just because they can lend their skills to someone else's project, it sounds like hell and I would never want anyone to go through that because of me. However learning to code or program also sounds like hell and from what I've gathered from other videos talking about it, it sounds like a major time sink, you should only do it if your genuinely passionate about it and you should never have your first project be your big idea project. While that also describes many other skills, I'm only interested in the skill as a means to an end, rather than being interested in the skill itself. There's also the issue of me having next to no problem solving skills, I've had anxiety regarding maths for as long as I can remember and it just seems very overwhelming in general. Guess I'll probably never make this game.
Leshy is an asshole, but he is our asshole and we love him
not even 2k subs...yet! but such an amazing video...I can't imagine you'll stay small for long! Hope you keep up the great work!
I remember tearing up when the scale disappeared, it was like an old mentor, realizing his time is near and saying "Keeping reading, I want to know how it ends" or "Keep playing, I loved how you'd play/sing that song", it reminds me a lot of the final moments of Digimon Kizuna when the partners died, that moment of passing of an old friend.
What a fantastic video essay, one of my favorite so far this year, you, my friend, are a true artist
Subscribed, make more videos like this! I really loved what you had to say about this game, its one of my favorite games in recent years but i feel like people only ever talk about act 1 and the args when theres an entire 2 other acts full of gameplay and story twists that i never see anyone talk about more than dissing them or comparing them to act 1!
Just wanted to say this was a beautifully done video. I really liked hearing your perspective on Inscryption and The Hex. I'm glad I found this video.
Welp, I guess I’ve found a new channel to subscribe to! Your perspectives are great, although tbh I could hear your voice talk about the history of bricks and still enjoy it.
This is such a good and comprehensive video
the converyor belt is the place where games go to die... oh raven... my dear Raven... when will you leave the call of duty mines?...
My favorite part of inscription is that its a joy to play.
Holy shit, this really reframes the part of the gaming industy that I genuinely saw as "the good guys" and "the underdogs" in my mind. Wow.
Thank you.
One of the best essay on Inscryption and game development. Thank you!
Man, I am kind of glad I was just doing advergame design in Flash and never went to school for game design only.