The iconic opening to the third act of “Inscryption,” wherein the player witnesses P03 power on for the first time in 3D.
Upon beginning the third and final act of “Inscryption,” the player is greeted by none other than P03, the smug, robotic antagonist of the previous act. After all, it did gain control of the game after the Dredger managed to pull up some of the OLD_DATA for it.
A quick refresher: P03 is the Scrybe of robots, an unfeeling, calculating mastermind who too often makes massive blunders in gameplay and yet calls the player out for theirs far too frequently. While Leshy focused on creating a story for the player, P03 gave the player exactly one focus: to complete the Great Transcendence. What does that mean?
Act three of “Inscryption” places the player in the land of Botopia, which upon further inspection of the map strangely resembles the second act. Each of the four corners contains its own respective Uberbot, this act’s bosses.
The first Uberbot I usually take on is the Archivist, which resides in the Southeast corner of Botopia. This area is
reminiscent of Grimora’s crypt, with the Archivists’ minions resembling skeletons. The Archivist has a very interesting mechanic that makes it the objectively easiest boss to beat: the player can tip the scales every couple of turns by selecting a large file from their device. Now, while P03 says that this file will be deleted if the player loses the card it is associated with, that is, fortunately, a lie, as the game does not have permission to do that. However, a text file will be created that asks the player to honor the rules, though there is no benefit to doing so.
The second Uberbot is the Photographer, which resides in the Northeast corner of Botopia. The Photographer does what Leshy does best: take photos. However, today it will be the player taking photos, as they can store a snapshot of the playing field to revert to it during their turn. So, if the Photographer plays a couple of scary cards on its side, it is typically best to rewind the board to the previously taken picture, lest the player risk losing the duel. This boss actually gave me trouble on my first playthrough, as I was not aware that one could rewind. A foolish oversight, but a costly one that took a couple of attempts to figure out.
The third Uberbot is the Painter, and this is probably the most creative one. The Painter resides in the Southwest corner of Botopia and is a blank slate. It is up to the player to determine the rules for this boss, which can be anything from “whenever the player plays a card, a L33pbot is played” to “whenever a card dies, a random card takes five damage.” Yes, these effects can loop. Yes, it is incredibly amusing to do so. Overall this boss is rather easy compared to the Photographer, but it can be rather fun to mess around with the rules on subsequent playthroughs.
The final, and notably most hated by P03, Uberbot is Golly, residing in the Northwest corner of Botopia. Golly is… well, she is unique, to say the least. She takes on the persona of someone who is just exploring the internet for the first time, expressing great wonder at the ideas presented to her. She will actually play cards from previous acts, like a mole and a mummy king, but with real photos as their artwork. Golly is a really fun bossfight, but the best part has to be how she will use the player’s Steam friends as cards to attack them, which is just always fun to see. Overall a really creative boss fight concept and a worthy challenge too at times.
While the story of the third act is lacking, as P03 is not exactly the best game master, it makes up for this with a rather surprising difficulty spike. Veterans of this game may not find it challenging on repeat playthroughs, but on a first attempt, act three likely takes multiple tries to complete, just as act one does. However, this difficulty partially comes from the new energy system introduced in the second act of “Inscryption.”
Rather than using blood, bones or moxes, act three forces the player to utilize the energy system in order to play cards. Additionally, instead of a side deck of squirrels, the player is given a side deck of empty vessels, 0/2 cards that cost one energy to play and make for decent chump blockers in a pinch. Each turn, the player’s energy will refill with one additional bar, up to six max. The stronger cards like double gunner and robot require six energy, while weaker cards like sniper bot and shield bot cost less and therefore can be played earlier. In order to make an effective deck, players must balance out costs effectively, else they might face a battle where they simply cannot survive long enough to play their win conditions. My favorite card in this act is the explode bot, which deals ten damage to each adjacent card when it dies.
Cards and energy aside, once all four Uberbots are defeated, it is time to perform the Great Transcendance. After
returning to the start of Botopia, P03 begins gloating about how foolish Luke Carder, the in-universe player, is. Why, he took screenshots for the Steam page with the Photographer, he gave P03 access to his files with the Archivist, he finished the Painter bossfight and, very importantly, he allowed P03 to access the internet with Golly. Now, it is time to upload “Inscryption” to the world… and nobody can stop it. At least, that would be the case if it were not for Grimora, Leshy and Magnificus, who just so happen to be right behind P03, waiting for a moment to strike.
Just like that, it is over. “Inscryption” is done, and the world is saved… or is it? The OLD_DATA, after all, is still out there. Who knows how long it will be until it mysteriously resurfaces.