{"id":1221,"date":"2022-03-11T14:40:56","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T14:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/11\/real-deal\/"},"modified":"2022-03-11T14:40:58","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T14:40:58","slug":"real-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/11\/real-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/22960552\/real-deal-inscryption-creators-gaming<\/a>
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I was watching a stream of the card game Inscryption<\/em> the other day. Leshy, the mysterious game master, had just grabbed a mask of a grotesque angler fisherman. \u201cYou give me good fish,\u201d he said menacingly before laying out a card for his opponent. As foreboding music played in the background, Leshy and the player pitted their intricately designed cards against each other in a long battle until the player finally achieved victory.<\/p>\n

Except I wasn\u2019t watching the Inscryption<\/em> video game<\/a>. Instead, two actual humans were playing the card game from the video game using real props and an elaborate streaming setup. And they\u2019re not the only ones; just months after the game\u2019s October 2021 release, there\u2019s already a growing community putting their efforts into bringing the digital card game to life.<\/p>\n

First, a brief overview of Inscryption, <\/em>or more precisely, its first act, which is what a lot of the IRL community is trying to replicate. You begin the game in what appears to be a dimly lit wooden room. Leshy, who serves as a Dungeons & Dragons-<\/em>like game master, sits across the table, and most of the time, you can see only his eyes. He plays the game with you, weaving a tale for your journey, laying out maps with branching paths, and even taking on the roles of different characters using masks. The game has a lot of strategy, and once you grasp the rules, it\u2019s quite fun. But there\u2019s a dark undertone to it all, as one of the primary mechanics is sacrificing your cards so you can play others.<\/p>\n

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\nA screenshot from <\/em>Inscryption. Leshy\u2019s in the back.<\/em>
\n<\/figcaption>Image: Daniel Mullins Games<\/cite><\/p>\n

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The thing is, there are some aspects of Inscryption<\/em> that work best because it is a video game. The number representing health on each card ticks down as opponents attack, which isn\u2019t something you can easily do with a physical card. One item, a pair of pliers, gives you an extra point, but your character has to pull out a tooth. A dagger gives you even more points, but at the cost of cutting out an eye. (Your character even loses part of their vision.) And one of the game\u2019s signature mechanics lets you make a card whenever you lose against Leshy \u2014 but it\u2019s a card of you, the player, and it can appear for later runs of the game.<\/p>\n

Those challenges haven\u2019t stopped people from trying to bring the game to life in physical form, though. With the blessing of game creator Daniel Mullins, Kevin McKayven and his brother hosted live Inscryption<\/em> games at Love Burn, an event that describes itself as \u201cthe official regional Burning Man event in Miami, Florida.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

To re-create Inscryption\u2019s<\/em> cards, McKayven told me he extracted files right from the Inscryption<\/em> game. One card in-game is made up of many individual assets, including things like the card\u2019s main picture, symbols on the cards, and the design on the backs of the cards, so he composited those files together to make cards he could print out. In a few places, he even had to fill in gaps where he couldn\u2019t find an asset and redraw them himself.<\/p>\n

The first batch of cards took about three weeks to put together, and they were ruined by a gloss that didn\u2019t dry and caused the cards to stick to each other. Sanding the cards down didn\u2019t work \u2014 they were still stuck \u2014 so McKayven had to reprint them all again. The second batch was much easier to create, without the gloss and the rounded corners he added to the first batch.<\/p>\n

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