Inscryption’s bespoke, two-player board game is a fusion of aesthetics and adaptation

Perhaps one of the most effective ways to make sure that your game is playable is to ask your grandparents for help. “I knew I was done [with playtesting] when I gave it to my grandparents, who'd never played any board games and never heard of Inscryption,” said Nathan Hockridge, the game designer and founder of studio CrypticCrafter, in a call with Rascal. “I didn't say anything. I just let them work out how to do it, and they could work it out. Then I knew that it was pretty set, [and] the rules were understandable.”

Hockridge was referring to CrypticCrafter’s board game adaptation of the Inscryption video game — to be specific, the video game’s first act. The  Inscryption board game is impressively well-made and lavish, furnished with a set of instructions that were specifically designed for two players, and handcrafted pieces that replicate the aesthetics of the first act (light spoilers: subsequent acts have a very different veneer altogether). This includes at least 200 cards, a wooden scale, and even a brass bell. These are all housed in a custom, weathered wooden chest. According to Hockridge, every part of the game is assembled by hand at his studio, from the stickers pasted on individual tins to the miniature pieces that he and his wife manually weigh and pack. “This is quite a labor intensive process,” he said. “I can't really get an accurate estimate for how long it takes because we do so many things, but it's a long process. It's probably about one to two months of getting the initial components, and then two months of solid making [the game] full time, and then one to two months of shipping out to everybody.”

CrypticCrafter’s resplendent recreation of Inscryption is only the most recent addition to an ongoing phenomenon. Since the release of the digital deckbuilding game five years ago, a community of fans has been replicating big chunks of it in real life, from printing the cards and totems used in the eponymous roguelike deckbuilder, to crafting the masks worn by its sinister game master, Leshy. One creator even forced players to sacrifice their cards by feeding them to an altar — essentially a paper shredder hidden in a box. Unlike many of these recreations, Hockridge wanted to create a version that’s “playable by two people, and as fair and balanced as possible”. This feat wasn’t as straightforward as playing the version of Inscryption portrayed in the video game. “It's designed asymmetrically where Leshy has the advantage, and you almost have to break the game to win,” Hockridge explained. “That doesn't work in a two player game.” Maintaining this sense of outwitting a more advantaged player, but still keeping the game playable and fair for everyone, proved a significant hurdle. 

At the same time, many rules don’t translate well from the video game to an analog one, even with Inscryption’s deckbuilder skeleton. The cards’ attack and health points are variable, and can change depending on the Sigils — an effect that imbues the card with unique properties — printed on them, as well as through certain in-game events. Even the Sigils themselves can render certain strategies unfeasible in real life, such as the “fecundity” Sigil, which lets players infinitely create copies of a card. CrypticCrafter tackled these challenges through several modifications to the board game. For instance, both players choose their preferred creature cards at the beginning instead of building their decks incrementally over the course of the game. 

Other significant changes to the game include limiting first-turn aggression to just three damage, and the removal of overkill damage — a feature that, in the video game, allows you to damage Leshy’s cards that will be played in his next turn. These are to prevent the other player from losing even before the turn begins. Events are not part of the playthrough, so there are no campfires, boss battles, or any other encounters. Certain cards are also omitted for being too strong and difficult to adapt into a fair two-player game, such as the Great White, Mothman, Grizzly, Ouroboros, and Starvation. These are reasonable adjustments to make. After all, the events will include too many variables to be tweaked in real life, and the sheer power of some cards can render the play too unfair; the Great White is essentially impervious to attacks with the Waterborne Sigil, which allows the creature to avoid damage, especially with the removal of overkill damage. As such, the board game focuses on distilling Inscryption to just the card game in act one.

Hockridge shared that he didn’t design this adaptation from scratch, but instead worked off a version of a free rulebook by Redditor huligan37. Subsequently, the process involved tweaking the rules, lots of playtesting with various groups of players, and readjusting the game until the instructions clicked. This led Hockridge to realize that the board game should be played across three rounds. When a player loses their first round, they are also awarded a powerful card called the Greater Smoke, and will start the next round to even the playing field. “I's sometimes quite easy to just have a powerful card and win really quickly. By turning the game into three rounds and giving the losing player an advantage, it becomes a bit of a back and forth,” he said. These, along with the prior tweaks, effectively make the game fair for the two players.

Despite the emphasis on fair play, one crucial aspect Hockridge still wanted to preserve was the dizzying euphoria of collecting a powerful card (all hail the Mantis God) as players pick their cards at the start of the round. “Working with that, to allow people to actually be able to counteract [this card] and not be unfair, was quite tricky,” he said. Another challenge was getting the aesthetic — and tactility — of the game right. While the video game uses a weighing scale to keep score, with points awarded via placing teeth on its plates, the device was admittedly too fiddly to physically recreate. Instead, Hockridge replaced it with a magnetic wooden scale made by fusing three layers of walnut wood and with magnets embedded inside. A golden tooth is then placed on the scale, with the token snapping to laser-engraved numbers for score keeping. 

“This was the hardest thing to work out,” Hockridge admitted. “It’s not only choosing the type of wood, the laser engraving, the stain and the finish we have on it, but [also] getting the right level of magnetism that will hold the token in place and feel satisfying to move, but isn't too soft that it'll just fly off. Or [if it’s] too hard, when you move it, sometimes the whole scale moves because it's got too much magnetic strength. We did so much testing with just trying to get the magnetic strength feeling the way it's meant to feel.” Then there’s the Kaycee’s Mod expansion, which adds more cards to the board game. Hockridge has packaged these additional cards into foil packets that can be torn open, similar to that of booster packs for trading card games. Rules for the expansion’s new Sigils are also incorporated, alongside an extensive Sigil reference guide, a custom 10-sided die, and metal tokens.   

This amount of consideration and effort invested in designing a bespoke board game is aptly reflected in its price tag: Inscryption is currently being sold at AU$444 (around US$318). Yet, the price hasn’t deterred fans from purchasing copies en masse. It’s already sold out online, with the current batch being the fourth one that Hockridge has produced since his announcement in 2023. “I'm not as interested in making another board game that can go on the shelf with the other board games,” he said. “I definitely prefer to focus on the premium because it allows me to do things that most board games can't do, such as having the wood and metal components and big heavy boxes. I really would like to specialize in that and just make an object that's really special, that people want to treasure.”

Hockridge was nevertheless surprised by the overwhelming popularity of the Inscryption board game. It’s selling so well that he’s contemplated securing additional help to assemble the pieces. Moreover, this venture into bespoke board games was far from planned, as Hockridge initially just wanted to re-create the game for himself as a “fun weekend hobby”. But his video on bringing Inscryption to life went unexpectedly viral, with many people asking if they could purchase a set for themselves. For a start, Hockridge got in touch with Inscryption creator Daniel Mullins to ask permission, but even then, he didn’t believe he would sell more than five sets. “It has taken off, and it's become much bigger than I ever could have imagined,” he said. While he’s not working on CrypticCrafter full time (he’s currently freelancing in the film industry), he wants to eventually launch it as a full-fledged business and “build out a bit of a catalog”.

Fans may be pleased to learn that he’s working on translating other aspects of Inscryption into analog. One of them is a faithful adaptation of the first act as an event-heavy RPG, with one player taking on Leshy’s role as a game master. But like the board game, this adaptation isn’t quite as straightforward as simply aping whatever the taunting antagonist does in the game. “[There’s] a lot of boring manual work, like calculations of numbers and putting down cards in the correct order when you're playing as Leshy,” he said. “It's been quite challenging to build a system that makes it easy for anybody to roleplay as Leshy and create a battle that's fun to play.” To this end, Hockridge had looked into the game’s code to figure out the certain algorithms, such as the frequency of cards being played, for the RPG. 

Then there’s the third act of Inscryption, which features the android P03 as a new game master, whose game is “even more broken than and more asymmetric than Leshy’s version”. That’s because P03 has a lot of cards that are fiendishly, ridiculously strong — a reflection of P03’s disdain for the player and sheer lack of scruples — which can seem impossible to defeat. One instance is the Fishbot, which can potentially generate a powerful fish card that lets you choose the target card for inflicting damage. “I want to keep those in because they're fun to play with, but it's hard to have that be fair for both players,” he said.

Lucky Inscryption fans who have pre-ordered their sets face a five to seven-month wait, although Hockridge has pointed out this may change depending on the production schedule. Meanwhile, the rest of us can download the digital version of this game here, perhaps purchase a deck from Etsy from other creators, or print a set out for yourself with these files. It’s faster (and cheaper) than waiting for the next preorder window to reportedly open in 2027.