Inscryption is a strange game. It's primarily a card-battling experience akin to something like Slay the Spire, but like Dan Mullins Games' past titles, such as Pony Island, there's much more to Inscryption than meets the eye. What's more, its card-battling gameplay is pretty robust and well-developed, even if fighting and winning card battles is only the means to allow you to explore its strange world and narrative.
Getting started in Inscryption can be a bit daunting, since the game throws you into the deep end with little explanation and you'll need to explore it carefully to begin to understand it. To get you started, we've put together a few handy tips that'll help you win battles, find better cards, uncover secrets, and get into the swing of Inscryption's gameplay.
There's a lot more going on in Inscryption than is immediately apparent. Before long, you'll realize that you can leave the table where the card game is played and wander around the dark and spooky cabin in which you find yourself. Most of the puzzles you'll be solving, especially in the first part of the game, are found in the first-person portion of the game, scattered around the cabin.
The puzzles you can find and solve around the cabin will advance the plot of Inscryption--it's not all about winning--as well as reward you with some extra cards for your deck. Later in the game, it'll be solving these puzzles that unlocks some of the best cards you can find, so make sure to get up frequently and wander around to see what you can uncover. There are secrets everywhere in this game, so explore thoroughly and don't be afraid to just try clicking stuff.
The main mechanic in Inscryption's card battles, at least at first, is "sacrifice." You'll see that lots of cards have blood droplets in the top right corner that dictates how much "blood" they cost to play--with most sacrificed cards providing one blood. The point of all this is that better cards cost more blood to play, and that you shouldn't be hesitant to sacrifice weak cards to get better ones on the board. It's all about strategy, of course--you don't want to leave yourself open to attack by sacrificing key blockers at the wrong moment--but especially in tougher battles, relying too much on weak cards will hamstring you in the late game as your opponents start bringing out creatures that can steamroll your characters. Keep squirrels and cats handy and play weak cards with a plan in mind to cash them in later.
Occasionally, you'll encounter opportunities to give cards away or trade them for special items. When you stumble on these moments, expect to be a little hesitant--you won't know what you're getting, most likely, and you probably won't want to part with your cards. It's important to take these opportunities when they come up, though. Using certain items and unlocking certain cards will help you solve puzzles that will advance the narrative, so feel free to take chances. As mentioned above, you're probably going to die a few times anyway, so don't get too precious about a given run. Instead, use your opportunities to learn more about the world around you. And to that effect...
What's more, some items will lead to interesting opportunities to unlock new secrets, so make sure you use them here and there to see what happens. The knife, for instance, gives you a big advantage in a losing match, but using it will also have some interesting unexpected consequences.
Apply your own strategy to creating death cards, but if you can grab some rare ones from defeating bosses such as the Prospector or the Angler, you can give yourself some seriously good options. We managed to create a devastating death card by combining the low cost of something like the Wolf Cub with the massive power of the rare Urayuli. With that thing on the board, you're pretty much unstoppable. The more you die, the more useful death cards you'll be able to create, and while they won't all be winners, the chances of them being very useful is high.
After you progress a little way into the game and have met both the Trapper and the Trader, you'll want to pay attention to your opportunities to earn gold teeth in battles. You can do this by dealing more damage than necessary to win in a match--every point of extra damage gets converted into teeth you can then spend when you meet the Trapper. For that reason, you might not want to allow your opponent to concede too many matches, since you'll have the opportunity to earn more teeth.
Teeth are spent with the Trapper, who will sell you pelts. These cards aren't too useful in your deck except as blockers, but if you meet the Trader, you can swap the pelt cards for some much more useful ones to power your deck up. It's a bit of an involved system, but worth taking the time to visit both characters and to spend your extra teeth.
Finally, you can also grab a random number of free gold teeth on every run. Get up from the table and head to the wall beside your opponent, where you'll find a brown skull. Click the teeth in the skull and you can pry them out and keep them for yourself. There will always be at least one tooth per run, but you might find as many as four, so make sure to check for them.