Three-act indie horror game Inscription is full of secrets and lore, weaving a complicated story that goes deeper than the game itself.
Players are dragged into the campaign of a mysterious Game Master and must survive long enough to try and escape the cabin in Inscription, which at first appears to be a simple but intriguing horror deck builder.
The inscription is a strange tabletop game, but as the game progresses, it becomes clear that something far more horrifying lies hidden deep beneath the data. As Inscription’s twists and turns continue, players are left with even more questions unanswered than when they began.
The plot of Inscription, which is divided into three acts and encompasses a wide range of genres, deepens with each new section of gameplay.
There are also found footage videos that follow the story of Luke Carder, who discovered and played the mysterious game for his Youtube channel, which is also interrupted by each act. Inscryption’s hidden secrets only become more elusive as players piece together the story, and the true nature of the mysterious OLD DATA remains a mystery throughout.
When Inscription’s ARG was first released, players began decoding the codes and clues hidden within the game, leading to an even more complicated meta-narrative that is still unsolved to this day.
As far as I can tell, this ARG is primarily focused on deciphering the Karnoffel Code, and several real-life floppy discs are involved in the quest. Inscryption’s connection to OLD DATA is not explained in the ARG either, leaving players to speculate about how all of the pieces of this elaborate puzzle game fit together.
Inscription Act 1 Story Explained – The Cabin In The Woods
It’s Luke Carder’s voice that greets Inscription players when they first start the game. Before the game begins, it’s time to figure out what’s on this thing. However, because the New Game option is broken and inaccessible, players must start the game from scratch by opening the Continue file.
Shadowy Game Master greets them and immediately begins teaching the player how to play the card game rather than introducing himself. Game Master’s campaign begins after a brief introduction to the rules and mechanics of the game.
Throughout the first act of Inscription, the Game Master wears a variety of masks to describe the various encounters and bosses that the players encounter. After solving safe puzzles and collecting cards, players can leave the table in Inscription and explore the Game Master’s cabin, where they can continue their quest for freedom.
In their quest to defeat the Game Master, they unearth a slew of secrets hidden throughout the cabin, including a slew of talking cards. Stinkbugs, a shutterbug, and a Stunted Wolf all change their appearances throughout a campaign. A Death Card is created each time a player dies in-game, and the Game Master takes a picture of the card with his camera to add custom stats and sigils.
Luke Carter is featured in a series of found footage videos after the cuckoo clock puzzle in Inscription’s first act and defeating the Game Master in the final boss fight. One of Luke’s Inscription trading cards he bought at a yard sale contained this set of coordinates, which led him to a mysterious location.
Luke discovers a floppy disc containing a copy of the Inscription video game after locating the coordinates and excavating a box buried at the location.
Inscription Act 2’S New Game File
Using Inscription’s New Game file, players can begin a 16-bit RPG adventure that introduces them to four Scribes, all of whom have their unique abilities and abilities. There are four Scribes: Grimora (Scrybe of the Dead), Magnificus (Scrybe of Magicks), and P03 (Scrybe of Technology).
Players will recognise Leshy (Scrybe of Beasts) as the Act 1 Game Master. Scribes appeared as talking cards, with Grimora as the stinkbug, Magnificus as the Stunted Wolf and P03 as the Stoat.
Players must choose a Scrybe to challenge and replace in Inscription, taking their starting card deck from the pedestal at the beginning of Act 2. Each Scrybe has its method for creating cards.
Players will learn that the OLD DATA is being sought by each Scrybe as they battle for supremacy on this new map and its four Scribes. They know they’re playing a video game because the characters in this game are not only sentient, but they even mention that the physical disc has been lost.
Many of the game’s supporting characters will warn the player not to get too involved in the Scrybes’ intrigues. In addition, they frequently warn players away from attempting to learn about the OLD DATA and appear to be afraid of it, saying that it’s an evil, corrupting force if they reveal anything about it.
He tries to warn the players about something after they defeat Magnificus, but Luke’s camera battery dies, so he shows them another set of videos. Inscription developer GameFuna receives an email from Luke asking about a digital copy of the game in this act.
There was no such game, and they demanded he returns the disc and threatened him with legal action for not doing so, so they deny it exists. It wasn’t until the following week that Luke’s house was visited by a GameFuna representative who tried to reclaim the disc by handing him her business card.
The Dredger, an NPC found in P03’s electronics lab, is on the prowl for something buried deep beneath the surface of the ocean. As it moves along the conveyor belt, he finds a piece of OLD DATA from Inscription that glitches wildly.
After defeating all four Scribes and returning to the starting area, P03 will interrupt before the battle can begin and fight players instead. Playing a glitched card from the Dredger’s OLD DATA causes Inscription to break down, leading to Act 3 – the final act of the game.
Inscription Act 3 – Welcome To Botopia
A new campaign begins in Botopia in Act 3 of Inscription, with P03 taking Leshy’s place as the Game Master and requiring players to work toward the Great Transcendence. P03, in contrast to Leshy, places a greater emphasis on combat strategy and mechanics than on story or theatrics.
Unlike Act 2, the map’s Scribes have been replaced by Uberbots, the game’s third-act bosses, for the fights in this chapter. Players will be able to leave the table once the game board’s battery has run out, and P03 will allow them to go to the next room and get a new one. Puzzles and secrets await players in P03’s lab, just like Leshy’s cabin from Encryption, to thwart P03’s plans and stop The Great Transcendence.
The memory card of Luke’s camera will be full after a fight with one of the Uberbots, preventing players from returning to the game with a new set of videos. Upon speaking with the woman from whom he bought the Inscription cards again, Luke learns that her daughter, Kaycee Hobbs, was an Inscription developer who passed away a few years ago.
Luke is heartbroken. When he digs a little deeper, he learns that she perished in a fire at the facility one night while she was working late. A video taken after the break-in shows him laughing deliriously as he tries to put weights on a scale while he is awakened by the sound of intruders breaking into his home.
The Trader, like the previous acts of Inscription, can be found throughout Botopia, but he is hidden in a secret room in the laboratory. Information about the OLD DATA and Inscription’s creation can be obtained by trading Holo Pelts for information from the Trader.
Disc of Inscription was smuggled overseas by someone known as “Big Ear” concealed in a box full of empty discs according to Kaycee Hobbes’ tarot cards. When asked about the Karnoffel Code or the OLD DATA, she says that it is impossible to delete because of its evil nature, but she does not say much else.
Although the OLD DATA cannot be deleted (as stated by the Trader), players can unzip it after removing everything else. That’s not all; as mysterious images and redacted text appear on the screen, Luke can be heard crying out, and the game cuts to another video of him smashing the disc with his hands.
When Luke is on the phone with a journalist about the secrets found on the disc, the woman who previously came to his house returns and shoots him, putting an end to his quest for information about Inscription. The final video for Inscription can be seen below.
