Card horror Inscryption's free mini-expansion turns Act 1 into an endless rogue-like

Inscryption, the acclaimed deck-building horror game from Pony Island and The Hex developer Daniel Mullins, is getting a free new mini-expansion that will turn its devilishly enjoyable opening act into an endless, rogue-like experience.

As with Mullins' previous creations, Inscryption - a dizzyingly strange blend of deck-building rogue-like, escape-room puzzler, and psychological horror - loves to surprise, which inevitably means some deviation away from its opening portion, a engaging combination of sharply designed card battling and Slay-the-Spire-style map progression.

Here, the goal is to play cards - each depicting a woodland animal - onto a board. Each card will attack and take damage from any adjacent enemy cards at the end of a turn, but if there's no card to block an incoming attack, players will take damage directly. Do enough damage to your opponent and you win. Throw in some sinister convolutions - players must sacrifice their animals to acquire the blood needed to get new cards, for instance - and it's a fiercely compelling experience in its own right, even without Inscryption's later contrivances.

It's so good, in fact, that plenty of players have lamented not being able to enjoy this initial portion of the experience in a more traditional rogue-like endless format, and that's where Inscryption's new Kaycee's Mod mini-expansion comes in.

"Kaycee's Mod is a free mini-expansion for Inscryption that hacks Leshy's Cabin into an endless, and increasingly challenging, rogue-like," explains Mullins on Steam. "Apply different skulls to your run to ascend the Challenge Levels. Reaching new levels unlocks new cards, challenges, and logs inscribed by the late Kaycee Hobbes."

At present, Kaycee's Mod is available in beta form - anyone can opt-in by following the instructions provided - and Mullins is already planning a number of additions as beta progress continues. These include balance changes, two more Rare Cards, two more items, a final encounter for players that clear Challenge Level 12, and the remainder of Kaycee's logs.

And if you haven't yet experienced Inscyption, it's well worth checking out. As Eurogamer's Robert Purchase put it in his Essential review, "You can feel an assuredness of touch and a strength flowing through the ideas in Inscryption, and they combine to deliver such a wallop of an impression it's hard to stop thinking about it. It's no wonder developer Daniel Mullins has already cultivated an eager following for the equally strange games Pony Island and The Hex. Inscryption is a wonderful nightmare, and it plays a vividly memorable game of cards."

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