Inscryption started very strong, with a lot of mystery, and an immersive presentation. The wood pieces, sound design, and the simple yet dangerous feeling approach to deckbuilding roguelike gameplay all supported its woodland horror atmosphere. And the concept of having to play a game with a terrifying and enigmatic shadowed figure and slowly outwitting him is a really engaging one, albeit the limited interactivity hampered that a bit.
However, nearly everything about Inscryption after that good impression disappointed me. The gameplay revealed itself to be very questionably balanced, with some lucky early results trivializing the whole game, and most of the rest of it after the initial roguelike part being very easy. But the narrative itself is what leaves such a bad taste in my mouth about the game. After all of the setup of mystery, all it gives you is a few twists for shock value, with not only no satisfying answers, but fatally, no reason for me to care about any of it. Looking back on the story of Inscryption is a bit baffling, I'm not experienced with the developer's previous games, but this feels like a script not even half finished.
Inscryption is a game with definite merits, but the more I think about it, the more I can't get over my disappointment with the whole last 2/3rds, and how the work as a whole lost the cohesion I'd need to be able to really appreciate it.