I fell in love with Inscryption the moment I started the first "duel." As one who grew up playing Yu-Gi-Oh! almost religiously I've been keeping an eye out for a digital game to sink my teeth into of the similar style. Even so I found myself drawn in further not just by the card game element but how well every bit of meta content evolved it from merely a card game into a mystery to solve. This game had my friends and I talking about it for weeks.
Games like Super Hot provide an example of how meta narrative doesn't necessarily enhance the experience of a game. They're woven together fine in terms of pacing, but the tone of the gameplay just doesn't lend itself to that kind of narrative. When the story starts progressing and some force stops you from playing the game in order to try to make an impactful "meta moment," it just leaves the player annoyed that there's something in the way of running around and shooting like John Wick. An action hero wouldn't sit and cower from this stuff, they'd bust through the screen and punch the antagonist in the face. That's what I want to feel like while playing Super Hot.
I do think that the meta elements greatly improve Inscryption, and I would like to see this kind of design delved into in other games, but as you mentioned if used haphazardly it could be jarring and immersion breaking. I wouldn't want to see more of this just to see more of it, but if other games were to come out that have the same thought put into using these meta elements I'm all for it. Inscryption works great as a standalone roguelike deck builder (as you can see by playing Kaycee's Mod) and I'm sure if that was all the game had been I would still have loved it and played a ton of it as both the aesthetic and gameplay were right up my alley. When I encountered the meta elements in that already solid foundation, it really grabbed me and pulled me in deeper because I just *had* to know more. Why can these cards talk? What are they trying to tell me? Can they help me escape this place? I think Daniel did an excellent job of incorporating those elements into the game and it greatly enhanced my immersion, pulling me deeper down the rabbit hole. The one thing that I think creates a weird dissonance is the face that at the Archivist you're pulling files from your computer, where the rest of the game is framed as though your gameplay is really the recordings of Luke Carder. Honestly, this didn't bother me at all during my playthrough cause I was just deep in it and loving every second, but I believe you were the one that pointed it out when you streamed it and now that I'm aware of it, it's hard not to notice. Sorry for the wall of text, I absolutely adore this game and could talk about it forever.
I am honestly little bit confused by the mention of Daniel Mullins breaking game design conventions, as I can't tell what Inscryption breaks, beside by treating it as diagetic and/or part of the story as much as anything else. Anyway, main thing I wanted to highlight which makes Inscryption's meta so interesting, that a lot of story ultimately seems to focus on the character of game designers and players. What drives them, what kind of tools they feel compelled to use, and what the end result of these seemingly hardwired decisions might look like. By making the story meta, Daniel Mullins has allowed us analyze the story by analyzing the game design of each Act. That's a rare treat, and something vital to these kind of meta-narratives. Ultimately what does going meta-allow us to examine and discuss that might be harder to grasp without breaking confines of the medium?
Ever since OneShot, I've been really interested in these 4th-wall breaking games. I feel like they heavily utilize the major aspect games have over other mediums; that being interaction. Being the one to search through your own computer files to advance the game instead of watching someone else do it adds a tie to you and the game. Though there are 'choose you own adventure' books and TV shows, they only provide you with set options to take. Inscryption's way of forcing you to sift through your own files, private or not, really draws you in, whether you wanted do to not. Well that my take anyway.
While i think that layers of the meta narrative design (namely the FMV sections with Luke and the ARG - though this can be ignored, there's something to be said about how my reaction to one plot point in the ARG was "Okay you could've just used Satan again and I would've hated it less" ft a small salty sprinkle of "if you're gonna tie in GameFuna, maybe talk about that one question we all have about Hex regarding Sado and what the fuck she is" but that's me and my own personal dissatisfaction with completely optional elements of the plot) are deeply fascinating, I think it's really more telling how, when I recommend this game to my friends (and i have, frequently) I always say "the plot is good and the meta-plot is fun, but the meta-meta-plot you can just ignore". That is: Inscryption does meta well, and then it has an unfortunate habit of continuing on when it would've been fine stopping. Now the kaycee's_mod beta that I've been happily playing introduces more meta-plot and actual confirms some fan theories that I've had and agreed with in the community, but that's because it steps back from the meta-meta-plot for a second to talk about how the copy Luke got was the way it was when he got it. Does it concern the OLD_DATA? Yes, but in a similar vein to how Act3 started because of the OLD_DATA falling into P03's hand, it just clarifies how the game WOULD have worked, had we not had the meta-meta narrative of "this copy is the copy Luke had", limiting us to Leshy's run as Hegemony and then a New Game and then P03's run as Hegemony ending in OUR version of the game being put up on Steam. Idk I have quite a lot of complicated thoughts on the matter that boil down to "meta is fine but you have to be careful". Pony Island was meta and so was Hex but Inscryption pushed the meta a little bit too far for my tastes and if Daniel Mullins pulls back after that and reconsiders the third layer of meta he applied to Inscryption in any further games, then I think it would do him well. But in the end I'm a video game enjoyer and he's a game dev and I've enjoyed everything he's made so far, so he can't be doing too much wrong.
very happy to see so much thought be put into the mechanics of a game in terms of how to tell a story and progress narrative I now look forward to any game made by daniel and welcome him as a new genius video game auteur
I've only played Pony Island, but it wasn't the kind of game I like. I find games that become too meta end up breaking my immersion more than they add to it. I'm happy that there is someone pushing the envelope for game design stuff out there though, there are too many games that are all the same
You should try the Hex, it toned down and focus on telling a story over mega robot hilter saying "I like to talk in different voices" and not revealing his secerts
IDK, meta writing is so hard to get right and it suffers from diminishing returns. Daniel Mullins' work has always come off as cheeky and cute but not especially meaningful (especially when the ARG explanation behind this corrupt card game invokes Godwin's Law). But my opinion on that matter is no doubt influenced by me playing metanarrative games before (like Undertale which got me hook, line, and sinker with how it got me to kill Toriel and question my own actions afterwards) and Inscryption suffering for the comparison. Kinda like how I was thoroughly unimpressed by Doki Doki Literature Club because I had played a short 2013 dating sim called "Save the Date" that invoked a little bit of meta filesystem mucking to tell a cutesy yet honest story about fate and free will. DDLC just felt like it employed its meta-ness for cheesy jump scares and it didn't cause me to reflect on anything. Inscryption left a similar impression - I loved the Archivist and even used another computer to remote into my PC and write empty 10GB files just so I could see how he'd react (spoiler: he didn't react any differently than when I selected a year old 1 GB video). But I don't know that I ever felt any ludonarrative cohesion or symmetry or flow or whatever with our self-insert Luke Carder - just felt like a cute and cheeky way to portray a protagonist that was ultimately consequenceless.
That’s not what Godwin’s Law means. Just say ‘I don’t like that when it referred to [famous occult bad group] it went straight for [the big one] instead of one of the dozens of lesser-known ones’.
Personally I hated Undertale use of meta as it was a cudel to keep you down the "right" path and reminds me of the Darkness 2 after you find out something isnt real but the game just keeps yapping about how it IS real... despite you literally seeing the illusion glitch out. Inscryption holds it tighter to the vest and actually lays out a good story with the Meta twists to add that sparkle instead of "hey i seeeeeeeee you player!"
This series is just AMAZING. The insight it provides is matched by how entertaining it is. Undoubtedly, one of my highlights in my feed. Every. Single. Time.
I loved this game. Even if I didn't dive super deep into the lore it was SO COOL to find secrets and having fun with the insanely addictive deck building game design
I would love to see more developers explore these types of meta elements in their games. The big fear however is if something catches on, the mainstream garbage studios catch it, then ruin it.
Sad to know that many people will just uninstall the game in ACT2 because it's much less interesting(mechanically) than ACT1. I wish there was more set up for the transition between act1 and 2 to make it clear that from now onwards it's about the lore and not the gameplay.
You got to be careful with any use of Meta but I like Inscryption over Undertale: Undertale feels like it just hitting me in the head with "hahahaha!" But Inscryption ties it together to a point where everything makes sense.
Beat the game over a period of a week. Last week actually super fun. And just so cool with lore and world building My favorite characters is Goo Mage, Mycologist, and the Fisherman But let's be honest the entire cast of characters even PO3 when he is a stost card are endearing
I'm going to be honest with my playthrough. Act was utterly fantastic. I loved the atmosphere, the gameplay felt refined, and it was the right spooky to keep me invested. Act 2 felt a little more shallow. Sure you had more options, but the gameplay took a bit of a downgrade. The world seemed more interesting, but I don't think enough of it was fleshed out. Act 3 was a chore. I had no interest in anything gamewise at that point, and the gameplay seemed far more dumbed down. If I judge the game from all three acts then I say it is just a decent game. If I were the judge it on only the first act then it is an amazing game.
Great video and a great editing! Tho maybe you could cut out a bit more the breath taking? Each time I get immersed the breath taking gets me out of it ._.. Still great video:)
@@DesignDelve First thank you for answering and secondly I'm sorry for pointing it out. I hope my comment didn't come across as rude ._.. Wouldn't have said anything if I didn't enjoy the video in the first place:).
It's rubbish. You don't build card hands at all. Your choices are very limited to what can be played with very few cards each round. Having such few choices takes all the fun out of it. It's too linear, too much luck is involved and not enough skill is needed. Good card games rely on levelling up skills with your deck building. But not here.
Act 3 was pain but Act 2.. I wish there were more battles as i actually liked the damn battles in that part.. just sucks if you draw bad and get rid by a ghost ship.
I fell in love with Inscryption the moment I started the first "duel." As one who grew up playing Yu-Gi-Oh! almost religiously I've been keeping an eye out for a digital game to sink my teeth into of the similar style. Even so I found myself drawn in further not just by the card game element but how well every bit of meta content evolved it from merely a card game into a mystery to solve. This game had my friends and I talking about it for weeks.
Games like Super Hot provide an example of how meta narrative doesn't necessarily enhance the experience of a game. They're woven together fine in terms of pacing, but the tone of the gameplay just doesn't lend itself to that kind of narrative. When the story starts progressing and some force stops you from playing the game in order to try to make an impactful "meta moment," it just leaves the player annoyed that there's something in the way of running around and shooting like John Wick.
An action hero wouldn't sit and cower from this stuff, they'd bust through the screen and punch the antagonist in the face. That's what I want to feel like while playing Super Hot.
I do think that the meta elements greatly improve Inscryption, and I would like to see this kind of design delved into in other games, but as you mentioned if used haphazardly it could be jarring and immersion breaking. I wouldn't want to see more of this just to see more of it, but if other games were to come out that have the same thought put into using these meta elements I'm all for it.
Inscryption works great as a standalone roguelike deck builder (as you can see by playing Kaycee's Mod) and I'm sure if that was all the game had been I would still have loved it and played a ton of it as both the aesthetic and gameplay were right up my alley. When I encountered the meta elements in that already solid foundation, it really grabbed me and pulled me in deeper because I just *had* to know more. Why can these cards talk? What are they trying to tell me? Can they help me escape this place?
I think Daniel did an excellent job of incorporating those elements into the game and it greatly enhanced my immersion, pulling me deeper down the rabbit hole. The one thing that I think creates a weird dissonance is the face that at the Archivist you're pulling files from your computer, where the rest of the game is framed as though your gameplay is really the recordings of Luke Carder. Honestly, this didn't bother me at all during my playthrough cause I was just deep in it and loving every second, but I believe you were the one that pointed it out when you streamed it and now that I'm aware of it, it's hard not to notice.
Sorry for the wall of text, I absolutely adore this game and could talk about it forever.
I am honestly little bit confused by the mention of Daniel Mullins breaking game design conventions, as I can't tell what Inscryption breaks, beside by treating it as diagetic and/or part of the story as much as anything else.
Anyway, main thing I wanted to highlight which makes Inscryption's meta so interesting, that a lot of story ultimately seems to focus on the character of game designers and players. What drives them, what kind of tools they feel compelled to use, and what the end result of these seemingly hardwired decisions might look like. By making the story meta, Daniel Mullins has allowed us analyze the story by analyzing the game design of each Act. That's a rare treat, and something vital to these kind of meta-narratives. Ultimately what does going meta-allow us to examine and discuss that might be harder to grasp without breaking confines of the medium?
Ever since OneShot, I've been really interested in these 4th-wall breaking games. I feel like they heavily utilize the major aspect games have over other mediums; that being interaction.
Being the one to search through your own computer files to advance the game instead of watching someone else do it adds a tie to you and the game.
Though there are 'choose you own adventure' books and TV shows, they only provide you with set options to take. Inscryption's way of forcing you to sift through your own files, private or not, really draws you in, whether you wanted do to not. Well that my take anyway.
Do you have the full interview available? I'd love to hear more from Daniel about his design decisions in this game
Not the full interview but we have an episode of Design Delve here on The Escapist with Daniel that goes into greater detail 😁
Thanks for watching guys 😁 what games or topics would you like to see me cover on this series next?
While i think that layers of the meta narrative design (namely the FMV sections with Luke and the ARG - though this can be ignored, there's something to be said about how my reaction to one plot point in the ARG was "Okay you could've just used Satan again and I would've hated it less" ft a small salty sprinkle of "if you're gonna tie in GameFuna, maybe talk about that one question we all have about Hex regarding Sado and what the fuck she is" but that's me and my own personal dissatisfaction with completely optional elements of the plot) are deeply fascinating, I think it's really more telling how, when I recommend this game to my friends (and i have, frequently) I always say "the plot is good and the meta-plot is fun, but the meta-meta-plot you can just ignore". That is: Inscryption does meta well, and then it has an unfortunate habit of continuing on when it would've been fine stopping.
Now the kaycee's_mod beta that I've been happily playing introduces more meta-plot and actual confirms some fan theories that I've had and agreed with in the community, but that's because it steps back from the meta-meta-plot for a second to talk about how the copy Luke got was the way it was when he got it. Does it concern the OLD_DATA? Yes, but in a similar vein to how Act3 started because of the OLD_DATA falling into P03's hand, it just clarifies how the game WOULD have worked, had we not had the meta-meta narrative of "this copy is the copy Luke had", limiting us to Leshy's run as Hegemony and then a New Game and then P03's run as Hegemony ending in OUR version of the game being put up on Steam.
Idk I have quite a lot of complicated thoughts on the matter that boil down to "meta is fine but you have to be careful". Pony Island was meta and so was Hex but Inscryption pushed the meta a little bit too far for my tastes and if Daniel Mullins pulls back after that and reconsiders the third layer of meta he applied to Inscryption in any further games, then I think it would do him well.
But in the end I'm a video game enjoyer and he's a game dev and I've enjoyed everything he's made so far, so he can't be doing too much wrong.
The editing in this video is hilarious. Glad I didn't treat it as a podcast type thing to listen to in the background.
Glad you enjoyed it boss 😁
Aw dang, that's exactly what I did
Inscryption is my favorite game from last year, and might be my favorite sub 15 hour game of all time.
very happy to see so much thought be put into the mechanics of a game in terms of how to tell a story and progress narrative I now look forward to any game made by daniel and welcome him as a new genius video game auteur
I love you Daniel!!!!!
I've only played Pony Island, but it wasn't the kind of game I like. I find games that become too meta end up breaking my immersion more than they add to it. I'm happy that there is someone pushing the envelope for game design stuff out there though, there are too many games that are all the same
You should try the Hex, it toned down and focus on telling a story over mega robot hilter saying "I like to talk in different voices" and not revealing his secerts
@@Subject_Keter Cheers for the recommend, I'll have a look
its nice that first act holds up by itself too, if people don't really care for the overarching plot
IDK, meta writing is so hard to get right and it suffers from diminishing returns. Daniel Mullins' work has always come off as cheeky and cute but not especially meaningful (especially when the ARG explanation behind this corrupt card game invokes Godwin's Law). But my opinion on that matter is no doubt influenced by me playing metanarrative games before (like Undertale which got me hook, line, and sinker with how it got me to kill Toriel and question my own actions afterwards) and Inscryption suffering for the comparison. Kinda like how I was thoroughly unimpressed by Doki Doki Literature Club because I had played a short 2013 dating sim called "Save the Date" that invoked a little bit of meta filesystem mucking to tell a cutesy yet honest story about fate and free will. DDLC just felt like it employed its meta-ness for cheesy jump scares and it didn't cause me to reflect on anything. Inscryption left a similar impression - I loved the Archivist and even used another computer to remote into my PC and write empty 10GB files just so I could see how he'd react (spoiler: he didn't react any differently than when I selected a year old 1 GB video). But I don't know that I ever felt any ludonarrative cohesion or symmetry or flow or whatever with our self-insert Luke Carder - just felt like a cute and cheeky way to portray a protagonist that was ultimately consequenceless.
That’s not what Godwin’s Law means. Just say ‘I don’t like that when it referred to [famous occult bad group] it went straight for [the big one] instead of one of the dozens of lesser-known ones’.
Personally I hated Undertale use of meta as it was a cudel to keep you down the "right" path and reminds me of the Darkness 2 after you find out something isnt real but the game just keeps yapping about how it IS real... despite you literally seeing the illusion glitch out.
Inscryption holds it tighter to the vest and actually lays out a good story with the Meta twists to add that sparkle instead of "hey i seeeeeeeee you player!"
This series is just AMAZING. The insight it provides is matched by how entertaining it is. Undoubtedly, one of my highlights in my feed. Every. Single. Time.
This comment made my day David thank you 💕
So good jm8 keep it up
I loved this game. Even if I didn't dive super deep into the lore it was SO COOL to find secrets and having fun with the insanely addictive deck building game design
I would love to see more developers explore these types of meta elements in their games. The big fear however is if something catches on, the mainstream garbage studios catch it, then ruin it.
Sad to know that many people will just uninstall the game in ACT2 because it's much less interesting(mechanically) than ACT1. I wish there was more set up for the transition between act1 and 2 to make it clear that from now onwards it's about the lore and not the gameplay.
You got to be careful with any use of Meta but I like Inscryption over Undertale: Undertale feels like it just hitting me in the head with "hahahaha!" But Inscryption ties it together to a point where everything makes sense.
Beat the game over a period of a week. Last week actually super fun. And just so cool with lore and world building
My favorite characters is Goo Mage, Mycologist, and the Fisherman
But let's be honest the entire cast of characters even PO3 when he is a stost card are endearing
I'm going to be honest with my playthrough. Act was utterly fantastic. I loved the atmosphere, the gameplay felt refined, and it was the right spooky to keep me invested. Act 2 felt a little more shallow. Sure you had more options, but the gameplay took a bit of a downgrade. The world seemed more interesting, but I don't think enough of it was fleshed out. Act 3 was a chore. I had no interest in anything gamewise at that point, and the gameplay seemed far more dumbed down. If I judge the game from all three acts then I say it is just a decent game. If I were the judge it on only the first act then it is an amazing game.
Great video and a great editing! Tho maybe you could cut out a bit more the breath taking?
Each time I get immersed the breath taking gets me out of it ._.. Still great video:)
Sorry Josh it’s just how I talk 🤷♂️ shame it takes you out
@@DesignDelve First thank you for answering and secondly I'm sorry for pointing it out. I hope my comment didn't come across as rude ._..
Wouldn't have said anything if I didn't enjoy the video in the first place:).
You need a Deesser plug-in for your narrations, dude... I can hear my headphones drilling into my ears whenever you say anything with an S in it.
Meta Man
It's rubbish. You don't build card hands at all. Your choices are very limited to what can be played with very few cards each round. Having such few choices takes all the fun out of it. It's too linear, too much luck is involved and not enough skill is needed. Good card games rely on levelling up skills with your deck building. But not here.
Such a shame the game turned into liquid shit after Act 1.
Act 3 was pain but Act 2.. I wish there were more battles as i actually liked the damn battles in that part.. just sucks if you draw bad and get rid by a ghost ship.
enscript me