I’ve played a lot of great horror games this year. Resident Evil Village delivered one of the most terrifying sequences in the entire series with House Beneviento (I’m still thinking about that fetus) while Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife stole the crown from Layers of Fear for scariest VR game. We also got underappreciated gems like Chernobylite, Little Nightmares 2, and Mundaun, as well as remasters of two classics, Alan Wake and Doki Doki Literature Club. Of all the great horror that came out this year, none got under my skin quite like Inscryption. Not only is it the scariest game of the year - it’s probably the scariest roguelike deckbuilding game ever made.
Inscryption’s creator, Daniel Mullins, has plenty of experience making creepy games. His previous projects, Pony Island and The Hex, aren’t exactly in the horror genre, but there’s definitely something unsettling about them. His games are never what they appear to be at first, and as they start to unfold, telescoping out into something bizarre and unrecognizable, they leave you standing on unstable ground, unsure if every step forward will further deconstruct the world around you. They’re difficult games to talk about without ruining the surprises, but if you’ve ever played one, you probably know what I’m talking about. Every Daniel Mullins game has a moment where reality proves to be nothing but a thin facade, and Inscryption is no exception.
Unlike Pony Island and The Hex, however, what Inscryption starts out as before “the reveal” is itself a strange and unnerving experience. You begin trapped in a dark cabin where you’re forced to play a macabre card game against your captor. Using talking playing cards (who want to escape the cabin just as much as you do) you build a board and deal damage to your opponent, represented by weight being added to a scale. Sacrifice is the name of the game as you’ll need to kill your own cards in order to play more powerful ones. Similarly, if the scale ever tips too far in your opponent's favor, there’s a quick and easy way to tip it back. Yanking a tooth out will add a bit of weight, but cutting out an eye will add even more.
Your enigmatic opponent plays the role of merchants and bosses you encounter along the way by putting on different masks and adopting dramatic affectations - a performance to keep his prisoner entertained. Should you ever lose, he’ll take your picture with a magic camera that turns you into a card, ensuring you’re forever trapped in his game.
It’s a bloody, violent, and gruesome take on the deckbuilding genre, and without giving away all the twists and turns - that’s just the beginning. As you might expect, the walls of the cabin eventually fall away to reveal something even more terrifying that recontextualizes everything that’s happened so far. Through FMV found footage, the story breaks through the screen and takes root in the real world, evoking viral creepypastas like Petscop and Marble Hornets. It’s a gripping journey that had me staring at the screen slack-jawed on occasion, and looking over my shoulder to make sure the game hadn’t somehow crept into my actual room constantly. Don’t let the deckbuilding tag fool you, Inscryption is secretly this year’s most terrifying horror game.