After the initial launch of Inscryption on PC in late 2021, the coveted indie game had rolling reviews of 10s and extreme praise across the board. One of them was from us in the original review, which you can read here.

Developed by Daniel Mullins’ Games and published by Devolver Digital, this puzzle-based rouge-like title has made the leap to the Nintendo Switch and sees you pitted against a mysterious dungeon master-type in a card game that is a matter of life and death, quite literally. Since the original review covers the bulk of the details, I will be covering how it feels to play on the Switch first and foremost, with a little splash of my own experience in the mix for context.

One of the elements that drew me into the game immediately came from the presentation of the title, starting at the Switch’s main menu. I know this may seem insignificant, but the display thumbnail on the Switch interface stood out from the rest as an 8-bit floppy disc icon that offered no other information – not even a name. The reason it was so interesting to me was that I went in completely blind to what this game was. I hadn’t seen any trailers and had no prior knowledge, and I was already caught pondering the deeper meaning of this.

The opening of the game followed suit as the retro-style design felt like I had just booted up my old family PC with a crackling CRT screen. Choosing a pixelated texture to overlay on the design of the game helped to disarm me at first glance with a minimalistic approach, but the devil in the details stood out even on the Switch. The “world overview” that would roll out on the parchment in front of me, the play space snapping into action with all the tools, cards, and golden teeth that would drop into place was quick and responsive.

Even moving around the cabin that I was locked in was a seamless and snappy experience, and I would desperately scamper around the dimly light room that hid behind veils of darkness, looking for the next piece of the puzzle.

The sparingly ominous background music and polyphonic style gibberish tones the “characters” make, added to the atmosphere. The clinking of the teeth on the scales and the flick of the cards as they were drawn to my hand, in an attack animation, or being sacrificed, was pleasing to listen to as well. It gave a bit of depth to the environment. What I found, though, was after I took it out of docked mode, the speakers from the Switch made all the sound effects seem even more of a throwback. That’s not to say that it was dated though, it just felt perfect with the slightly grainier display and dialed back sound.

There are certain events that unfold that lead to a larger meta experience, and without diving into spoilers, the intentional glitches or narrative shifts felt right at home on the Switch. The game itself isn’t as demanding with a turn-based card game being the core experience, and the controller options were as simple as using the left thumb stick to highlight an item and A to use. The only hiccup I had was more of a user error as I scrolled too quickly before choosing an item and sometimes selected the wrong thing.

The limitation of the console’s hardware was never challenged, so no dropped frames or game-crashing events in my playthroughs. The only notable instance that I could point towards was the initial load times between runs were longer than you would expect on the PC, but once in the game, everything continued to roll uninterrupted, which I can comfortably live with.

For anyone even remotely interested in puzzles, mystery, and an engrossing deck-building card game, Inscyption is a must-have title for the Nintendo Switch. The very nature that rouge-like games offer re-playability in itself, and it made my last few days with this game hard to put down. I took my Switch with me everywhere I went for a few quick hits before I could immerse myself fully when I got home.

Written by: Shane Fletcher