So, while the appearance of the Challenger’s figurines and sprites can be any combination of different body parts, there actually appear to be a total of eight distinct “sets” of parts that belong together, creating eight “default” looks.
In game, these don’t have specific names or anything like that - but in the internal files of the game, they are seemingly given the titles “Wildling”, “Prospector”, “Enchantress”, “Gravedigger”, “Robot”, “Settlerman”, “Settlerwoman”, and “Chief”, based on the file names of their unique Death Card features.
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Some additional information on the Challenger’s appearance:
In Act I & III, the figurines of the Challenger have three variable body parts: head, arms, and body.
Also, the portraits of their Death Cards will match whatever head design they had - but it doesn’t seem like the eyes and mouth of the portraits are tied to the figurines’ appearances, too.
In Act II, the sprites of the Challenger only have two variable body parts: head and body. Their hands will now always match their head, rather than being a seperate piece.
And of course, the Challenger’s initial sprite in Act II will match the look of the figurine one completed Act I with, and the Challenger’s figurine in Act III will match the look of the sprite one completed Act II with.
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So, when you’re talking to the Melter in Act II, her dialogue is occasionally interrupted by another, seemingly terrified voice speaking in red text:
In addition to that, when the Melter throws herself onto the conveyor belt, you can actually make out what appears to be a skull inbetween her remains:
This implies that there’s another person trapped inside of the Melter’s frame, who’s unable to control her actions.
We don’t get any indication of who exactly they are, but -
The Melter does appear as a card in P03′s deck later on, and she’s inscribed with the Frozen Away sigil.
If the card is destroyed and the sigil’s effect is activated, the creature that spawns is a M3atB0t:
This could imply that the person trapped inside the Melter is in fact a M3atB0t, but it could also just be a symbolic representation of said person.
It took me until my latest replays of Act II to notice that the lights in the houses of the Scrybes turn off after you beat them, showing you which you still need to fight.
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Here’s a funny little detail in Act III that I love-
On the way to Western Botopia, there’s this one screen with two Sentry Drones positioned to stare at the lower edge of it:
And this is actually a subtle clue that there’s a hidden arrow there:
But that’s not all!
If you do follow the arrow and go to the screen below, you’ll find that it’s actually filled with Sentry Drones, all keeping their sights firmly on a single Rabbit jumping around a bear trap:
If you keep your eyes peeled, there’s actually several little bits of environmental storytelling like this in P03′s take on Inscryption- Like, no dialogue, but just bits you can piece together by looking at the world itself and its contents, it’s kinda cool.
Is the Challenger always referred to as female? (Spoilers: no)
Something you will sometimes hear folks talk about is that the localizations of Inscryption - for all the languages which have unavoidable “grammatical gender” - will always refer to the Challenger as female.
Well, turns out that’s not true!
The game and characters will actually use either feminine or masculine language when referring to the Challenger, depending on certain conditions.
I was curious about the specifics of this and looked into it some more, so here is what I could figure out while playing around a bit.
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First of all, just to show this off, here are two screenshots of Leshy at the start of Act I, from the German localization:
In the first one he’s using masculine language to refer to the Challenger, saying “Ein weiterer Herausforderer”, while in the second one he’s using feminine language instead, saying “Eine weitere Herausforderin”.
So, despite it not really being needed for the original English version, the game does clearly have a flag of sorts that determines whether the Challenger is considered feminine or masculine - and in turn what grammatical gender is to be used for them in localizations that cannot avoid this as easily.
There is at least one detail affected by this that’s also in the English version, though - the Challenger’s hands.
As you might know, there’s two types of hands the Challenger can have:
And as far as I can tell, the first one is always used when the Challenger is flagged as masculine, while the second one is always used when the Challenger is flagged as feminine.
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The question now is, how is this determined?
While I can’t tell what the actual mechanics are programming-wise, I did figure out that it’s apparently tied directly to the Challenger’s head.
In another post of mine, I talked a bit about the different looks of the Challenger’s sprites and figurines - and it seems that each possible head of the Challenger is considered either masculine or feminine.
Specifically, “Prospector”, “Gravedigger”, “Robot”, “Settlerman” and “Chief” are considered masculine, and “Wildling”, “Enchantress” and “Settlerwoman” are considered feminine.
This can most easily be seen in Act II, so here’s screenshots for all of them being addressed by Rebecha in German:
And yes, that does mean that whenever your figurine or sprite changes, either by starting a new run in Act I or using the mirror in Act II, the way the game refers to you can change.
It’ll always be based on what head the Challenger currently has.
For example: If one had the Enchantress head and then uses the mirror to get the Gravedigger head instead, the game will then automatically switch from using feminine language to using masculine language for the Challenger.
Even in Act III, when the Challenger’s appearance can no longer be changed, the game will still refer to them differently depending on their head:
So at that point, you will just be stuck with either one or the other.
Also note that while I’ve mostly shown screenshots of the German localization so far, I did check and confirm that these same mechanics do apply for the French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian localizations of the game, too.
Some of these languages have fewer instances where they come up, but they do all have them.
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However, there is one major exception to the rule.
For some reason, the intro cutscene of Act II has no variable text, it’s always the same no matter what. So, it’ll always refer to the Challenger the same way, regardless of what head they currently have.
But, to make things more complicated, which way they go with differs between languages!
The French and Spanish versions use neutral phrasings in this scene:
The Italian and Russian localizations use masculine language in this scene:
And the German and Portuguese localizations use feminine language in this scene:
So, even if one has a feminine head while finishing Act I, the intro cutscene of Act II will always refer to the Challenger with masculine terms if the game is set to Italian or Russian.
And on the flipside, even if one had a masculine head at the end of Act I, the Act II intro cutscene will always refer to the Challenger with feminine terms if the game is set to German or Portuguese.
I don’t know anything about the game’s programming, so I have no idea why it’s like that, but it is.
Now this next bit is only speculation, but since the versions differ from another, I doubt this would be a programming error or the like, though.
My assumption would be that for some reason this specific cutscene can’t have variable text, so they all had to settle for just one phrasing per language.
It’s interesting though that we end up with a pretty equal distribution here: two neutral, two masculine, two feminine. Maybe this was a compromise of sorts?
Well, your guess is as good as mine.
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With all that said, you have to wonder why people are under the impression that the Challenger is always referred to as female, when that’s not the case at all.
I think the reason for that is probably because masculinity is just (unfortunately) considered the default, and thus less likely to catch anyone’s attention.
Meanwhile any instance of femininity feels unusual as a result and sticks out.
So, that’s what people are more likely to remember.
Plus, the the copy of the game being played was, in-universe, previously owned by Kaycee Hobbes. Thus, a lot of people were led to believe that this would be an intentional detail alluding to her, if it was a thing.
Because of that, few people had reasons to doubt this idea, I feel.
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Speaking of Kaycee though, I also want to go over how Kaycee’s Mod handles the Challenger in this regard.
As far as I can tell, Leshy will still refer to the Challenger with either masculine or feminine language depending on what their figurine’s head is:
Same as in the main game.
However, unlike the main game, the Challenger’s hands are not affected by this in Kaycee’s Mod.
Even when the Challenger is using a masculine head, their hands will always use the feminine style:
(They’ll also be wearing the ring right from the start, but that’s less relevant right now.)
This is something you can see for yourself in English too, of course.
And I do feel that this right here likely is a deliberate detail alluding to the fact that we are playing Kaycee’s modded file in this mode.
That’s nice at least.
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And that’s about all I could figure out on my own regarding this topic.
Like I mentioned, I haven’t looked into the game’s programming or anything, so this is just my observations from playing the game itself.
Don’t know if anyone else would find this interesting, but I did. Especially considering that this means the game was actually programmed to support these different ways of referring to the Challengers and all.
It suggests that Daniel Mullins and Co. did take the localizations into consideration when making Inscryption, which isn’t always a given with games like this.
I decided to write down a complete chronological timeline for the events of Inscryption, based on all instances of actual dates or timeframes we are given.
Most of these are taken from the in-game file names seen throughout the story, like the Luke Carder videos and the Act Select.
I thought it would be interesting to see all of them listed in their proper order to get a better feel of how these events went down.
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around 1992 or later:
-The video game Inscryption is developed by Kaycee Hobbes and her co-workers under GameFuna
(Note: The ghoul named after Kaycee Hobbes found within the game is written to have died in 1992, and also speaks in a manner that seems contemporary for that general timeframe, so the game was likely developed around that year or afterwards.)
-
2006:
June 6th:
- Luke Carder discovers an old photograph of one of his first Aquaromans cards, and is reminded of his sister El
June 9th:
- Luke continues to document old photographs of him and El
June 10th:
- Luke finishes documenting his old photographs, ending with the last picture taken of him and El together
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2009:
January 4th:
- Luke documents a photo of his reaction when his video channel hit 100 subscribers
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The year during which the events of Inscryption occur:
(Note: The exact year is never specified in-game.
Because of the meta story aspects, one could assume the story takes place in 2021, though Daniel Mullins has also mentioned he was more thinking of it taking place around 2010.)
September 15th:
-Luke records a Catch Monsters pack opening video and pulls Birchkin and Bandog, but chooses to scrap the footage after getting interrupted by a phone call
October 2nd:
-Luke purchases four vintage Inscryption card packs from Mrs. Hobbes at a garage sale
-Luke records the Inscryption pack opening video and finds coordinates scribbled on one of the cards
October 3rd:
-Luke follows the coordinates and digs up the disk containing the Inscryption video game
-Luke purchases a floppy disk drive online
October 10th:
-Luke starts playing Inscryption
October 11th:
-Luke starts his 3rd or 4th run in Act I
(Note: Leshy's dialoge if this file is loaded in the Act Select would indicate that it's the 3rd run, but a lack of the Woodcarver tutorial would indicate it's the 4th run or later.)
October 12th:
-Luke sends an e-mail to GameFuna, asking about Inscryption
October 13th:
-Luke starts Act II
-Luke records a video asking his audience about Inscryption
October 14th:
-Luke receives a reply e-mail from GameFuna
October 16th:
-Luke starts Act III
-Amanda shows up at Luke's front door
-Luke calls Mrs. Hobbes on the phone to ask about the card packs
-Luke investigates the incident surrounding Kaycee Hobbes' death as well as other things relating to Inscryption in depth
October 17th:
-Luke finishes Act III and Inscryption is deleted
-Luke attempts to record a Secrets of Legendaria pack opening video but stops himself
-Luke hears someone in his house as he attempts to sleep
October 19th:
- The halted upload of Inscryption resumes and is completed (Note: based on Secret Ending title)
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And that’s all of them, as far as I can tell.
Obviously there are more events that occur, but these are the only ones I can safely tie to a certain date or timeframe like this.
Note that for some of the events that take place during the same day, we can’t be certain in what order they occured on that day.
In any case, I did enjoy putting this together.
Some of these really do feel different after realizing in what context they happened - like for example, Luke being unable to bring himself to finish that video, and him hearing someone in his house at night both happening on the same day where Inscryption was deleted.
