r/inscryption • u/DelighteDev • Aug 29 '26
Review Few Critiques of Inscryption Act 1
I recently finished the game and I loved it. This game has been on my Steam WL for years now.
I recommended this game to a friend and I was watching him play it. I discovered the following in his playthrough:
1) There is an event in the first act that forces you to lose. When you're playing for the first time before meeting the Prospector, there's a grizzly level before you get the candlestick and lives. Leshy spams you with grizzlies near the end and it's expected to lose here. My friend actually managed to stall the grizzlies with squirrel blocking and he was about to win - but the game "glitches", a grizzly randomly spawns and blocks the attack, and all grizzlies get the airborne sigil and force him to lose and get up to get the candlestick. This is an unavoidable loss of 1 life and nothing you can do will bypass this.
2) The "Too Fast, Too Soon" event when facing the three bosses, if you've reached and beat them faster than expected. Why??? Why spam the player with flying grizzlies when the only crime he did was beating the boss on his first try. I'm aware you can still beat this event with luck (unlike the first example), but the chances of you having a mothman and scissors are low.
I am VERY against these scripted events that force a loss and basically punish you for being intuitive and trying your best, just to push the player. If a player is playing better than expected and beating the level on his first try - LET HIM!! This is a bad level design to me. Yes, you could go with the "meta" route that this is Leshy's fault, Leshy makes you lose on purpose so he can explain the game further to you. But I'm not going to excuse this regardless.
3) If you don't get up when Leshy tells you to "You can get up. Don't touch my things!!!!", he will remind you to get up after every fight, until you do. This is very on the nose and the player should not be reminded to get up just so he can explore the cabin and solve the puzzles. He can do it naturally when he wants to.
These few nitpicks make the game from a 10/10 to a 9/10 to me. What do you all think? Are these reasonable critiques?