Inscryption: The Perfect Halloween Game Doesn't Exi...Oh

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GlyphGryph: Jun 23, 2013; Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.

I finished my writeup for the event. Could have taken a lot more pictures, but I'm terrible at remembering to do so. Would have been nice to get pics of some cards being shredded or cut, but alas!

https://imgur.com/gallery/7nbNdnB

I made a post about it in the art subforum, and copy-pasted it here because why not, and maybe this is where it actually belongs anyway.

GlyphGryph posted:

Note entirely sure if this belongs here, but pretty much all the "art" I do is experience based interactive stuff, and this is the first time I did something I could take some non-boring pictures of. My last major project would have just been photos of blindfolded people stumbling into stuff and falling out of trees, and who wants to see something like that? Even if I did make and embroider all the blindfolds myself.

But this one, as derivative as it may be, was not only fun but actually generated a few good in progress and during-the-event photos as well, so here goes. First, a glimpse of the final product:

But how did I get there?

I was going to LoveBurn in Florida, I needed an idea for a compact project to bring with me, and my brother had an idea. Why not make a live action version of Inscryption playable at the event? We both loved the game, and I jumped on it after getting the developers blessing. My primary duty was to make the cards. But I also had to 3d print the totems we were going to use. I used the files created and provided by Davision3d on Thingiverse https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4950134

Heads could be screwed on and off at will! How cool is that?

Unfortunately, 3 weeks in I made an unfortunate discovery while creating the final packing boxes. The modge podge I was using as gloss does not actually ever dry, despite advertising itself as a gloss that does? Meaning that once the cards were pressed together they could never be separated again. I probably lost over a thousand cards I'd printed, glossed, and cut out. I needed to start over completely.

And I did, this time without the gloss, and they were ready to go. It only took me a week to finish the second batch - I wasn't glossing anymore, and I cut some corners by not cutting the corners. A lot of the original time was spent compositing the cards on the computer from game assets and drawing myself anything necessary to fill in the gaps (thankfully there weren't many).

My son also enjoys the game, and wanted to participate. First, he created his own card, the "Man Men" and required me to print out many copies of it. Finally, he insisted on playing the game himself, losing, and getting this overpowered deathcard. It ended up proving crucial to at least one winning run at the event.

It wasn't just totems and cards, though. Along with all the shopping I was doing mailing props and lighting and stuff to my brothers address so it would be waiting for me when I arrived, I was also in charge of the maps. First, I had to practice with the symbols and maybe make some tweaks, so I made a reference sheet to use when drawing the maps. Then I started work on the maps themselves. I was running close on time by this point, and didn't have time to add the trees and decorative elements I wanted. But I still like how they came out.

I was also in charge of the music, but the speaker I bought I later realized couldn't be brought on the plane because of its battery, so we ended up running it out of an mp3 player - not the best, but hey, it got the job done.

Once I arrived in Florida, it was time to get all the props together and start creating my "Battle Boxes" - set up clusters of cards, dialogue hints, and instructions for how to run the various game encounters, from getting new creatures to the timing and placement of cards coming out in fights. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this earlier but I also went through and created two variants for every possible fight in the game (except the boss fights, for which there was only one)

My brother had been working hard as well. In addition to acquiring a large number of really amazing props, he'd built us clay masks. Unfortunately he was new to the medium, and the mistakes he made lead to them being unusable - we tried a few alternatives, but ended up abandoning the mask idea completely. If we run it again, we'll have them and they'll be amazing.

Once I arrived at the event, I found a nice spot between some big bushes to set up our table. Come night-time, I'd be nestled deep in shadow with only lighting provided by the candles we brought (plus some el wire trim and a concealed light aimed at the board itself). The crates were a last minute purchase and proved incredibly valuable to the experience, providing ambiance, organization, and an easy way to transport the goods too and from the table in the case of rain. It rained, off and on, a lot.

To the far right you can see our "sacrificial altar" - a manual paper shredder. We required players to actually insert and shred their cards for both the bone lord and the sacrificial stones. We also destroyed cards with the scissors, surgeries, and when devoured at campfires. We destroyed a LOT of cards. It was very fun, very satisfying, very tactile.

Props from roughly top left to bottom right: Extra candles, totem pieces, bag of genuine coyote meta-tarsal bones to count as bones, an actual crocodile skull for sticking boss candles in, the candleabra and player life candles, a bowl for teeth, a spare mask base for ambiance, and some mood lighting. Then the map and battle board, the players squirrel deck and regular deck, a coffin to hold damage tokens and teeth (the teeth were resin, not real, but people still reacted viscerally to them). The ding bell for ending turns. Our "scale" - a simple track with a coyote bone moving back and forth between the players. A pair of "scissors" (shears), plus the Angler's hook (used as both a player item and for the boss fight to hook and drag cards). A "chest" that contained rare card rewards, and below that is where discarded cards went.

Here's a quick view from behind the box, with the battle boxes and rolled up maps, plus the Moon cards that didn't fit anywhere else and a marker for drawing sigils and changing stats on the fly. You'll notice some small items on the right - these were sacrifices people made to the game. Sacrifices would grant various bonuses, like extra candles or starting items. We also had a bunch of lucky tokens to allow redraws, but never ended up using them.

Here were various items the players could earn. Bottled critters, scissors, hooks, and our replacement for the knife and pliers, the "blood needle" - which required players to actually draw their own blood to use. And it did get used, some of these people were crazy committed to winning. (most of them still perished, in the end)

A better look at the bone bag and totems, plus the items inside the right box - my matches, the mp3 player, and the instant polaroid camera used to make...

Here are some examples of death cards we made in the game. This was still early on, so Mega is our only event player - the others were our playtesters. Many more death cards were created as the event stretched on.

You could "rescue" a death card, saving the soul shard of the associated player, if you won. It only happened once by the person in this picture, the same one I linked above, and required them to create a victory card in exchange.

We mostly ran the game at night, mostly. But we still played during the day a bit too.

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Feb 16, 2022

# ? Feb 16, 2022 04:29

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# ? May 9, 2024 07:50

Talorat: Sep 18, 2007; Hahaha! Aw come on, I can't tell you everything right away! That would make for a boring story, don't you think?

What a cool thing to do. I'm sure your players had an amazing experiance.

# ? Feb 16, 2022 04:36

Dammerung: Oct 17, 2008; "Dang, that's hot."

GlyphGryph posted:

I finished my writeup for the event. Could have taken a lot more pictures, but I'm terrible at remembering to do so. Would have been nice to get pics of some cards being shredded or cut, but alas!

https://imgur.com/gallery/7nbNdnB

I made a post about it in the art subforum, and copy-pasted it here because why not, and maybe this is where it actually belongs anyway.

This is absolutely amazing! I'm so glad that you and all the participants had a great time. What a beautiful way to celebrate an amazing game!

# ? Feb 16, 2022 19:14

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

God drat this is incredible.

# ? Feb 16, 2022 20:47

Tenebrais: Sep 2, 2011

So, not quite as cool as making the game happen in real life (wow), but I've been building a little tool for playing the card game by itself, including fleshing out the other two Scrybes.

...I might need to reconsider the way Exploding Corpse works.

It's one of the sigils shown in the rulebook in the finale that never appears on any card. It fills the board with "Guts" but doesn't define what Guts is, so I made something up. It's a bit too easy to end up in a stalemate, though.

It occurs to me that something similar could still happen in act 1 though - potentially the board could be filled up with eight cards that can't do any damage, and there's no hammer to let you clear space for yourself. Does the game do anything special in a deadlock like that?

# ? Feb 19, 2022 14:18

Sokani: Jul 20, 2006; Bison

Leshy can concede but I don't know exactly when it happens, if he has no damage on board and no cards coming that may be a trigger.

# ? Feb 19, 2022 16:46

Dr. Stab: Sep 12, 2010; 👨🏻‍⚕️🩺🔪🙀😱🙀

Sokani posted:

Leshy can concede but I don't know exactly when it happens, if he has no damage on board and no cards coming that may be a trigger.

Having no cards for him to play is a necessary component. It tries to check whether you have more damage than him on board (with some edge cases where this doesn't exactly work), and it also won't offer the concession if you have so much damage that it thinks you can win right now by attacking.

e: I think there's no particular check for deadlocks, and it will get handled by the starvation mechanic.

Also, it's not obvious, but the game cheats your opening hand for you. It might be a good idea to model that. Basically, it tries to ensure you have at least one card in your opening hand that you can play by turn 2.

Dr. Stab fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Feb 19, 2022

# ? Feb 19, 2022 17:01

Tenebrais: Sep 2, 2011

Dr. Stab posted:

Also, it's not obvious, but the game cheats your opening hand for you. It might be a good idea to model that. Basically, it tries to ensure you have at least one card in your opening hand that you can play by turn 2.

Ah, this is a useful idea. It's even got mechanics for undead/magic! Nice and easy to imitate.
Interesting that the blood/gem cost checks are looking for a card you can play this turn, and not accounting for the fact you can draw from your side deck next turn to get another squirrel or mox. I guess it's running on the idea you should be able to play it on turn 2 and draw a new main deck card if you want to.

Tenebrais fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Feb 19, 2022

# ? Feb 19, 2022 17:40

Dr. Stab: Sep 12, 2010; 👨🏻‍⚕️🩺🔪🙀😱🙀

It is pretty abusable. Eg, act 2 is easily conquered by a deck of 19 bones and an oroboros. But it does make the game play a lot better if you don't know it's there. Also, this is the same code for every act, so it's taking into consideration that you don't have the option to draw a squirrel in act 2. Though, maybe if it was different in act 1 you couldn't as easily steamroll the game with a 2/1 mantis god.

# ? Feb 19, 2022 18:28

Fintilgin: Sep 29, 2004; Fintilgin sweeps!

Got a geck with unkillable and the ant sigil, in Kaycee's mod, which is an infinite board fill. :lol:

gg leshy

# ? Feb 23, 2022 01:20

Samovar: Jun 4, 2011; I'm 😤 not a 🦸🏻‍♂️hero...🧜🏻

That irl Inscryption set up is en pointe. Well played!

# ? Feb 23, 2022 10:09

Talorat: Sep 18, 2007; Hahaha! Aw come on, I can't tell you everything right away! That would make for a boring story, don't you think?

Dr. Stab posted:

Also, it's not obvious, but the game cheats your opening hand for you. It might be a good idea to model that. Basically, it tries to ensure you have at least one card in your opening hand that you can play by turn 2.

This is exceedingly clever, more games should subtly cheat in the player's favor.

# ? Feb 23, 2022 23:37

Dr. Stab: Sep 12, 2010; 👨🏻‍⚕️🩺🔪🙀😱🙀

Talorat posted:

This is exceedingly clever, more games should subtly cheat in the player's favor.

Just about every game does. A famous example is that platformers just feels bad and punishing to gamers unless they still let you jump for several frames after you walk off a ledge. Or how hitboxes are always tuned so that your shots have a larger hitbox than the visual, and their shots have smaller hitboxes. It just feels unfair otherwise. Or how enemy ais in shooters sometimes prioritize getting in front of the camera before shooting.

Despite all the complaining about getting screwed by rng, new xcom cheats the rolls in your favour. It tracks bad luck streaks and will cheat even more if you have been missing shots. Difficulty scaling is very frequently used in games, but you don't really see it because it's designed so the player doesn't know it's there. It's just kinda built into every decision in the design of a game. You want to make the player feel good. If you can fudge things in the player's favour without them noticing, do that.

Dr. Stab fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Feb 24, 2022

# ? Feb 24, 2022 00:19

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Vroom Vroom, BEEP BEEP!; Nap Ghost

Another fun one is that shots from enemies not in view do less damage - getting shot in the back hurts you less than shot by something you can see, because it's frustrating to die to something you couldn't react to

# ? Feb 24, 2022 01:00

ScootsMcSkirt: Oct 29, 2013

GlyphGryph posted:

I finished my writeup for the event. Could have taken a lot more pictures, but I'm terrible at remembering to do so. Would have been nice to get pics of some cards being shredded or cut, but alas!

https://imgur.com/gallery/7nbNdnB

I made a post about it in the art subforum, and copy-pasted it here because why not, and maybe this is where it actually belongs anyway.

this fuckin owns, amazing work

I cant tell through the picture, but please tell me you didnt have players sharing the same "blood needle"

# ? Feb 24, 2022 01:14

The Cheshire Cat: Jun 10, 2008; Fun Shoe

DarkHorse posted:

Another fun one is that shots from enemies not in view do less damage - getting shot in the back hurts you less than shot by something you can see, because it's frustrating to die to something you couldn't react to

Bayonetta takes this one step further in that enemies not in view literally cannot attack. They're allowed to move around and will try to get back on camera so they can attack, but they will never fire a projectile or start winding up an attack when you can't see them.

# ? Feb 24, 2022 01:17

Talorat: Sep 18, 2007; Hahaha! Aw come on, I can't tell you everything right away! That would make for a boring story, don't you think?

Dr. Stab posted:

Just about every game does. A famous example is that platformers just feels bad and punishing to gamers unless they still let you jump for several frames after you walk off a ledge. Or how hitboxes are always tuned so that your shots have a larger hitbox than the visual, and their shots have smaller hitboxes. It just feels unfair otherwise. Or how enemy ais in shooters sometimes prioritize getting in front of the camera before shooting.

Despite all the complaining about getting screwed by rng, new xcom cheats the rolls in your favour. It tracks bad luck streaks and will cheat even more if you have been missing shots. Difficulty scaling is very frequently used in games, but you don't really see it because it's designed so the player doesn't know it's there. It's just kinda built into every decision in the design of a game. You want to make the player feel good. If you can fudge things in the player's favour without them noticing, do that.

drat that makes perfect sense and I can't believe I didn't know this was a thing! Thanks for the info!

# ? Feb 24, 2022 08:53

Smiling Knight: May 31, 2011

Monster Train, a deck builder, secretly ensures that your starting hand and second hand both contain a creature.

# ? Feb 24, 2022 16:47

GlyphGryph: Jun 23, 2013; Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.

DarkHorse posted:

Another fun one is that shots from enemies not in view do less damage - getting shot in the back hurts you less than shot by something you can see, because it's frustrating to die to something you couldn't react to

And you tend to do more damage to enemies when you shoot them in the back because assassinating people is fun. When these two clash, like in a number of multiplayer games, the bonus back damage tends to win because as little fun as it is being shot in the back its more than worth the satisfaction you get when you "get the drop on someone". And getting the drop on someone only to have them turn and wreck you feels real bad.

# ? Feb 25, 2022 14:17

Lucca Blight: Jun 2, 2009

GlyphGryph posted:

And you tend to do more damage to enemies when you shoot them in the back because assassinating people is fun. When these two clash, like in a number of multiplayer games, the bonus back damage tends to win because as little fun as it is being shot in the back its more than worth the satisfaction you get when you "get the drop on someone". And getting the drop on someone only to have them turn and wreck you feels real bad.

I wish this applied to Tarkov because I'm just that bad

# ? Feb 26, 2022 09:32

Arcanuse: Mar 15, 2019

For folks not in the inscryption discord, or just missed it, this might interest you.
...Yar? :allears:

# ? Mar 3, 2022 11:16

ninjewtsu: Oct 9, 2012

Is that gonna be part of kaycee's mod or is that some new thing?

EDIT: oops it says it in the video description

# ? Mar 3, 2022 15:38

Chainclaw: Feb 14, 2009

Arcanuse posted:

For folks not in the inscryption discord, or just missed it, this might interest you.
...Yar?

There's a bunch of other videos uploaded to that youtube account 2 hours ago.

# ? Mar 3, 2022 19:03

Omnomnomnivore: Nov 14, 2010; I'm swiftly moving toward a solution which pleases nobody! YEAGGH!

I played and enjoyed this game and while I don't have anything particularly original to say about it at this point (Act 1 is the strongest part, the stuff with Luke Carder is a little too goofy to me), I'll add that I like the soundtrack quite a bit. Nice mood setting stuff.

# ? Mar 3, 2022 23:19

paradoxGentleman: Dec 10, 2013; wheres the jester, I could do with some pointless nonsense right about now

I can't seem to make the ant deck work in Kaycee's mod. Do you have to win with it to unlock new decks?

# ? Mar 4, 2022 08:05

ninjewtsu: Oct 9, 2012

not sure, though something that helped me a lot with that deck was gunning for an early campfire and double powering the starting skunk. if it gets both stat buffs, great, you have a cheap high value card now! if it dies, oh well! it's not like it was an important card in the first place, now your deck is thinner

# ? Mar 4, 2022 16:53

Zoobtro: Aug 22, 2003; Got miself a nice little earner, isn't it

Zoobtro posted:

just give me the full pirate fight damnit

yar

# ? Mar 4, 2022 22:58

Arcanuse: Mar 15, 2019

New kaycee mod beta update. New challenge available. You can now fight the pirate. It's great.

Arcanuse fucked around with this message at 07:57 on Mar 8, 2022

# ? Mar 8, 2022 07:39

Samovar: Jun 4, 2011; I'm 😤 not a 🦸🏻‍♂️hero...🧜🏻

Where does one find this mod, exactly?

# ? Mar 8, 2022 09:28

VolticSurge: Jul 23, 2013; Just your friendly neighborhood photobomb raptor.

Samovar posted:

Where does one find this mod, exactly?

It's less a mod and more a special branch of the game. As detailed here.

# ? Mar 8, 2022 09:32

paradoxGentleman: Dec 10, 2013; wheres the jester, I could do with some pointless nonsense right about now

ninjewtsu posted:

not sure, though something that helped me a lot with that deck was gunning for an early campfire and double powering the starting skunk. if it gets both stat buffs, great, you have a cheap high value card now! if it dies, oh well! it's not like it was an important card in the first place, now your deck is thinner

That seems like a good idea. I also had some luck by giving the flying ant the double attack sigil, but not enough to beat Leshy...

# ? Mar 8, 2022 11:55

GlyphGryph: Jun 23, 2013; Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.

Samovar posted:

Where does one find this mod, exactly?

Its DLC and currently still in development, you can get it by signing up for the beta branch

# ? Mar 8, 2022 16:16

President Ark: May 16, 2010

Dr. Stab posted:

Just about every game does. A famous example is that platformers just feels bad and punishing to gamers unless they still let you jump for several frames after you walk off a ledge. Or how hitboxes are always tuned so that your shots have a larger hitbox than the visual, and their shots have smaller hitboxes. It just feels unfair otherwise. Or how enemy ais in shooters sometimes prioritize getting in front of the camera before shooting.

Despite all the complaining about getting screwed by rng, new xcom cheats the rolls in your favour. It tracks bad luck streaks and will cheat even more if you have been missing shots. Difficulty scaling is very frequently used in games, but you don't really see it because it's designed so the player doesn't know it's there. It's just kinda built into every decision in the design of a game. You want to make the player feel good. If you can fudge things in the player's favour without them noticing, do that.

Fire emblem also lies a lot. Namely, the hit chance is off - how it would seem to work is it's a d100 and if you roll under your hit% it hits, but what it actually does is roll two d100s, average them, and then check that. The end result is a weird S-shaped curve where the only accurate chances to hit are 100%, 50%, and 0% - every other number is skewed to be further away from 50% (i.e. 60% is actually ~68% and 40% is actually ~32%). This is both usually in the player's favor (your units will be a lot stronger than enemy units, so you'll usually have a higher-than-listed hit and enemies will have a lower-than-listed) and also helps with the brainworms humans have where we think 85%+ is basically guaranteed and things under 15%ish seem like they should never happen.

# ? Mar 11, 2022 04:48

Samovar: Jun 4, 2011; I'm 😤 not a 🦸🏻‍♂️hero...🧜🏻

Apparently Kaycee's mod is out of beta now?

# ? Mar 18, 2022 16:14

Khanstant: Apr 5, 2007

Tried Kaycee's mod for the first time... first thought it was pretty funny when he admonishes you for restarting a run, although I kind of prefer not starting with pelts and trapper anyway so I kind of want to surrender 2x just to cut out the pelt start. Does Ringworm campfire thing not work in Kaycee's mod, I tried three times, twice in one run, to get it devoured and it just survived. Fortunately got fecundity for bugs the round with quad-strength ringworm, but just funny I got so lucky when I wanted it to be eaten all along.

Also is fecundity the only way to make an ant deck really work? I think kaycee mod messes with fecundity, maybe just lets its happen on draw rather than infinite ants. Been a while since I played OG so maybe always been this way.

# ? Mar 20, 2022 09:35

The Cheshire Cat: Jun 10, 2008; Fun Shoe

The ringworm thing does work, but I think the odds of getting eaten are 50% on the second try, so not getting eaten even across several campfires is just something that happens sometimes.

# ? Mar 20, 2022 20:47

Tenebrais: Sep 2, 2011

Khanstant posted:

Also is fecundity the only way to make an ant deck really work? I think kaycee mod messes with fecundity, maybe just lets its happen on draw rather than infinite ants. Been a while since I played OG so maybe always been this way.

Fecundity in Kaycee's Mod is different from the base game in that the new card it gives you doesn't carry on the Fecundity sigil. So you only get one free card out of it, unless you're comboing it with other sigils that give you new cards like Unkillable.

# ? Mar 20, 2022 20:54

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Man I'm not great at this game haha. I have yet to complete a single Kaycee run.

# ? Mar 21, 2022 01:20

ScootsMcSkirt: Oct 29, 2013

strange request but does anyone know where I can listen to the song that starts around 30 seconds into this trailer?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRFC-biNfWA&t=29s

been trying to find just the song for the past few days but Google has been failing me

# ? Mar 22, 2022 19:01

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# ? May 9, 2024 07:50

Tenebrais: Sep 2, 2011

ScootsMcSkirt posted:

been trying to find just the song for the past few days but Google has been failing me

It's "Scrybe of the Dead" from the soundtrack.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 19:04

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