Video games are always fun for me, especially in the way they immerse you and make you participate as a player. While with movies you only have to watch what the characters are doing, video games demand you to take action, and require you to move and make decisions for the character you control. This sense of control can be frightening, especially in horror games that put your character’s life at risk, where you must play for your survival, requiring you to kill enemies brutally. Inscryption (2021, dir. Daniel Mullins) is a horror video game that starts in a locked cabin where your captor Leshy introduces a nature based card game you are obliged to play. Leshy, as the game’s creator, has the power over the very game you play. He dictates not only what you are able to do as the player with the rules he sets but has control over the spirits of other living beings in the game. This sense of power is seen through the cards that Leshy deals out that represent various animals. As you collect cards it makes you contemplate if your deck is alive and what control Leshy has over the spirits that reside in the cabin. I will share my experience with this phantasmagoric aspect of the game through one of my playthroughs and explain why it makes me believe that I participated in the torture of animals through Leshy’s game of cards.
As mentioned, Inscryption is first set in a locked cabin and I find myself at a dimly lit table. Leshy reveals himself with a set of glowing eyes and teaches me how to play his card game. Cards enter my virtual hand and a board appears on the table. The cards are different kinds of animals that I can use to attack him or to defend myself from the creatures Leshy plays on his side of the board. On my left, a scale appears which tips with golden teeth depending on who gets attacked. If I am able to tip 5 teeth to his side, I will win. But I will lose if Leshy tips it all the way to my end first. Playing one game of cards is brief and after winning my first game Leshy introduces a map of a trail.
Leshy acts as a narrator and guide, immersing me in an eerie story as I go deeper in the trail finding cards to collect to play in the games. He uses this story for us to play his card game that underlies life threatening danger where I encounter ravenous wildlife wanting to eat me. Leshy also puts on masks, acting out as different figures with their own special decks and uniquely murderous personalities. Some examples are an insane prospector who wants to kill me for gold and a trapper with multiple personalities that wants to skin me to add to his collection of pelts. The card games we play and the story Leshy shares with me highlight the power that he has over me as the player. For as long as I am trapped in this cabin with him, Leshy will dictate the story he wants to tell and continue to play the card game he created. This cabin is Leshy’s domain and losing has a sense of serious gravity, because failing to overcome the threat in the story will have life altering consequences. In order to overcome Leshy, I will have to play many card games with him to make it to the end of the trail.
Me and Leshy share a wide selection of animals that we collect, from birds, reptiles, bugs, aquatic life, canines and many more. The cards have an accurate image of their form outlined and filled in ink. Some cards like bears and sharks are more lethal, while squirrels and cockroaches will easily perish when attacked. The characteristics of the animal species will impact the card’s abilities, while a beaver will build dams protecting the owner, a skunk will weaken others with its smell and an otter can hide underwater from predators.
In the game, there is a price to place cards on the board, requiring sacrificing numerous animals. The stronger the card is the more blood I will need to spill. There is a notable exception with squirrels that have no cost and are the weakest cards in the deck. They are useful however to sacrifice, to be able to get my stronger animals on the board. After a game ends, the cards that die from attacks or sacrifices return to my deck but Leshy states how “its suffering was real”. I originally chuckled, thinking that this was just a twisted comment to try to make me feel bad for killing the squirrels or the other animals I used to win the game. But after playing it a second time I realized that according to the story, the cards may be sentient and aware of pain and death while Leshy and I play our games.
While the animals are depicted as cards, they are able to express fear and pain silently giving you a sense that they are alive. In one game, I consider which cards to sacrifice to place my wolf on the board. My potential sacrifices start to shake and the squirrel’s eyes narrow in fear knowing that it will likely be the one that I select. I make my choice and the cards stop shaking, the squirrel’s eyes widen and a pool of bloody ink spreads throughout the card. The sacrificed cards make a shudder sound and disappear, allowing my wolf to go on the board. Normally when we play cards we do not have to be concerned about what the cards undergo. There is a sinister ambiguity underlying the game and whether the animals’ experiences are imagined or real.
While all cards are silent, there are three exceptions. The Stoat (weasel), Stunted Wolf and Stink Bug are able to express themselves emotionally and speak to me directly. The Stoat is the first to speak to me, addressing how he feels tormented by Leshy who wants to watch him continuously suffer as he gets killed by different animals. After I find the other two speaking cards they speak to each other briefly. They have a light animosity towards each other but cooperate with me as they want to escape the cabin and the games that they participate in against their consent. Through expressing their thoughts it is clear that they are also being tormented by Leshy’s game. Arguably they are in a vulnerable position where they have to play under my whim as the player, deciding over their lives as cards. The three of them however encourage me to beat Leshy, knowing that I am their best chance to find a way to overcome him and to end the games we play.
But I lose many times and I hear the teeth clatter on the scale, moving it in an unhappy direction. After losing each time, Leshy forces me into a room with a flickering light where he intends to kill me. Leshy says that he wants to make me my very own death card, “the perfect memento of you” using his ordinary camera and magic film roll. He then starts to give the card its details, describing how strong it is, its health, its abilities but without an image. Before he takes a photo he asks me for my name. He aims the camera at my face through the screen; a resounding snap and a flash of white light shines. The light dissipates to show the table and Leshy’s face hiding in the dark. Leshy begins the story at the beginning, considering me as somebody new.
Often in games the player experiences death, having a “game over” moment only for you to restart and play again. It makes me think that in some ways the character I played with has died and a new person is now locked in the cabin. This is further emphasized when I find a card of a human ink figure with the name I previously gave. The next time I lose I will have to give another name for the new person I play as. My interpretation is that Leshy taking a photo may have captured the life of the character I played but I am in some sense completely oblivious to. Some games make it obvious what character you are playing but in this part of the game it is like you are playing an expressionless character. This technique allows the player to further immerse themselves in the game whilst you are playing. Being oblivious to the character that I embody has no scarring impact on me, but it does have an ominous consequence that each time I lose a game Leshy will kill a person.
Making it to the end of the trail Leshy reveals his face in the light as we play another game of cards, for potentially the last time. I win but Leshy does not seem concerned, thinking that he has my life in his hands. We go back to the flickering room and see a pile of clothes (most likely Leshy’s previous victims). Leshy plans to take a picture but I get the opportunity to take his camera first. He realizes what I am about to do and tries to seize the camera from my hand but it’s too late. I have taken a photograph.
Leshy is no longer there as a towering man. I move forward to see on the wall a card stuck in place. By using the camera the table has turned, with Leshy becoming a card, completely incapacitated in a powerless state. Taking Leshy’s photo shows the origin of where the cards come from. The pictures taken by Leshy capture the beings’ spirit and imprisons them in a card. With this realization, I perceive Leshy as a sadistic game master who enjoys the games we play at the expense of the lives within the cards, who involuntarily take part with no ability to resist. I also contribute to the harm that these spirits experience as Leshy gives me powers as his opponent. He gives me the opportunity to use animals to kill or die each time I play a game. Even when realizing the suffering I may cause I have to disregard the harm to them and play in order to get the opportunity of liberating myself from his imprisonment. We also play many games and with each attempt to overcome him, these spirits are continuously forced to be a part of a cycle of violence as he retells his story.
In many video games the player can easily take for granted the control they have while playing. There are basic rules and obstacles to overcome but normally you have authority over what actions you take. Inscryption complicates this notion. There is an illusion of control when I play this game that is phantasmagoric from what little power the player has when playing against Leshy. By being the gamemaster he defines the game that I play and can even bend the will of the spirits of animals, forcing them to possess his deck of cards. All of the cards that I end up collecting showcases who is in power, as Leshy is the one to deal out each and every life to my hand. I do have some aspect of free will in strategizing which cards to place and sacrifice on the board but it is at the expense of Leshy’s victims. You can play the game disregarding the experiences of the cards, but in the context of the story within the game, it’s hard to ignore as your animals tremble in fear when you contemplate which one of them to sacrifice.
Bibliography
“Inscryption [PC] Full Gameplay Playthrough (No Commentary).” YouTube, uploaded by fgw, 19 Oct. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFQaM6Hu4xs&ab_channel=fgw
Short Ends 