#pondering inscryption

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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.)

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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.

It adds something to it, I feel.

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First off, we got Rebecha.

From what I can tell, her figurine uses the “Wildling”-type head and body, but the “Prospector”-type arms.

(I talked a bit about the eight distinct figurine styles here, just so you know what I’m referring to.) 

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Next is Kaycee Hobbes the ghoul.

She seems to use the “Gravedigger”-type figurine in its entirety, but with the shard of ice added to the skull.

This also means she’s portrayed with two legs here, while her Act II sprite has her with a little ghost tail instead:

Now this could easily just be because, well, the Gravedigger figurine happens to come with legs, so maybe they just didn’t want to model a variant without legs - even if they did add the ice shard.

Still, keep this in mind for later.

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Then we have the Prospector.

Fittingly enough, he seems to just use the whole “Prospector”-style figurine, without any changes, as far as I can make out.

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Now for the Pike Mage.

She uses only the head of the “Enchantress”-style figurine, for obvious reasons. And they also added a spear to impale the head with, done in a similar style to the swords that block the road behind her.

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And now all the way over to the Inspector.

She seems to use the head and arms of the “Robot”-style figurine, but possibly with a custom, legless body?

Either that, or the torso has been edited to lack legs.

This of course reflects her Act II sprite, which portrays her as a hovering bot, similar to P03.

What’s interesting about this is the fact that in her case they changed the figurine’s torso to match her appearance in Act II.

But as you recall, they didn’t do the same for Kaycee earlier.

So Act III isn’t consistent about how it handles these sprites-to-figurine conversions.

Not sure why, but still wanted to point it out.

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Finally, the Dredger.

I believe the Dredger just uses the entire “Robot”-style figurine, without any alterations that I can make out.

This also means that the figurine got legs here, whereas with the Act II sprite we never get to see the lower body. (And who knows if there’d even be an intended look for that.)

...But, similar to Kaycee, this Act III figurine might not match with the Act II design in any case.

One could argue that they’d already have had a “hovering” figurine from the Inspector one, so they could’ve easily picked that. But then again, they might’ve just not wanted those two NPCs to look identical in the Act III overworld.

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Also, for completion’s sake, let’s look at the Librarians, too.

They actually seem to have a completely unique model, not based on any of the figurines. It matches their sprites from P03′s face pretty closely.

There’s a whole bunch of them in the Archivist’s room, so you can get a good look at their backs, too.

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And I believe that’s all of them, yes?

I do like how Act III made another use of the figurines in this way, plus it seems kinda fitting for P03′s style, if you think about it.

I dunno, I hope you found this interesting, too.

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I’ve been restarting the game a lot because of looking into certain things, and I really can’t stop thinking about this moment where we first see Leshy open his eyes.

When you start the game for the first time, immediately there’s this mystery of who or what this guy is, and the ominous way he “appears” to you adds some layer of unease around him. It’s a pretty strong start right off the bat.

But going back and seeing it again after having beaten the game, now knowing how Leshy actually felt back there, going by what he says during the final duel with him... It does completely change how you see this moment - or at least it did for me.

Just, the implication that all the characters in the game ended up basically falling asleep when the disk wasn’t being used, and that Leshy seemingly had already given up hope - that they had likely been discarded or forgotten or something of the sorts.

And then he opens his eyes and it slowly dawns on him that there is someone there? After all these years, someone opened the game to play it?

They’re not alone anymore, he’s not alone anymore!

He can finally play again, and so he doesn’t even waste a moment and goes right back into it. Everything is as it should be.

Like, Leshy doesn’t exactly wear his heart on his sleeve, but once you know, I think you can see some of that in his expression here.

It also makes it more sad when you remember what ultimately ends up happening, even if Leshy is partially to blame for it and all.

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First, just for the reference, one of the things that indicates the connection between the Uberbots and the Scrybes is the color of their respective dialogue.

The Archivist uses a green color, like Grimora:

The Photographer uses orange, like Leshy:

G0lly uses blue, like P03:

And the Unfinished Boss uses red, like Magnificus:

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Now, switching over to the Act 1 bosses, during the Prospector’s battle, the board turns green, a similar color to the dialogue of the Archivist and Grimora:

And aside from that color, the Prospector’s second phase gimmick of destroying all your cards and turning them into gold is similar to Grimora’s second phase gimmick - destroying all your cards and turning them into corpses.

Not really a boss, but for completion’s sake - naturally the board is orange during regular battles in Act 1, reflecting Leshy’s dialogue color:

During the Angler’s boss battle, the board turns blue, like P03′s and G0lly’s dialogue color:

The Angler’s passive gimmick of hooking the player’s cards and pulling them over to his side is also similar to P03′s passive gimmick of rotating the board, putting the player’s cards on P03′s side and vice versa.

Plus, the Angler even ends up offering you his hook so the player can do that same thing too, if only once. Just like P03′s conveyor belt going both ways.

The Trapper/Trader connection is a bit more shaky, but the color of their board does appear as a more reddish shade of orange compared to the regular board:

And Magnificus is kinda the weirdest when it comes to colors anyway, he has less of a clearly defined main color.

His dialogue is red for one, but lots of colors are associated with him, too.

Which makes sense, given that he is a painter.

Colors aside though, with the Trapper’s traps rendering most sigils useless when it comes to dealing direct damage, and the Trader’s offering all being inhabited cards with altered sigils, I do think their boss battle has some similarities to Magnificus’ - at least mechanically.

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With all that said, I’m not like, 100% convinced the three regular Act 1 Bosses were intentionally designed to be similar to Grimora, P03, and Magnificus, but I couldn’t help noticing these small parallels.

I guess either way there’s really only so many completely unique color schemes and gimmicks you can have.

Still, I find it fun to think about from an in-story perspective, also.

Like, obviously the Prospector, the Angler, and the Trapper/Trader are not literally connected to those Scrybes, they are distinct individuals separate from them, and not even closely associated.

So, I find myself picturing that, when Leshy took over the game and made his subordinates into the new Bosses, he basically just “layered” them over the spots that would’ve normally been held by his fellow Scrybes.

The order you fight them in is even in the order indicated by the Forgotten Monuments - excluding Leshy himself.

So yeah, even if this does turn out to be a complete coincidence irl design-wise, I still enjoy it, personally.