Inkulinati
Can being a medieval painter be easy? It turns out, yes. This painted card game with a sprinkle of amusing narrative shouldn’t overwhelm anyone. It’s easy to follow, and easy to learn the basics. You don’t need to have experience with similar games. There are no microtransactions or loot boxes… nor is there an Izzy Mode Certificate.
Inkulinati is practically a strategic card game akin to the Witcher’s Gwent or the incredibly popular, albeit somewhat outside the gaming mainstream, Hearthstone. Even more similar titles have been released strictly for mobile devices. For someone transitioning their gaming passion from a phone to a PC or console, Inkulinati will be a familiar haven, and that’s a big plus.
The gameplay is uncomplicated, even though it seems otherwise at first glance: life points, ink points, gold, and fame – each character we manage and send into battle is distinctly different from the others. Each not only has different stats but also a host of various modifiers. A dog with a bow will have one set of attacks, while a frog will have a completely different one. A hand with an axe, a skeleton, or another imp – each has its own. You could get lost. Well, you probably will get lost, but on the easy level it probably won’t change much because even making random moves, you’ll likely still win. Unless you have poor reflexes.
So why didn’t Inkulinati get the Izzy Mode Certificate? Because if you have good reflexes, the game doesn’t offer much satisfaction on an easy level. There’s a very clear feeling that someone has attached training wheels to your figurative bike. It teaches the basics, but you don’t really need to know much more. However, if one lacks reflexes, may St. Hildegard watch over you – it’s going to be tough. This bizarre mix of trivial ease and significant challenge, unfortunately, does not provide balance. The game also has little chance to engage narratively and is not a dopamine dealer, thus it won’t become bait for our non-gaming relatives. It won’t be that Stardew Valley that engages your partner, Hogwarts Legacy that captures every millennial, or The Witcher – a lure for those too serious adults to play silly games for teenagers. Unless you have medievalists around, because the thing is charmingly original and visually attractive.
Overall, it is indeed a good and fun game – don’t get me wrong. I also have a soft spot for Polish productions, which stand on an equal or even higher level than the standard AA titles from large studios. Especially if they have potential for further development! It’s just that despite being an easy game, I don’t see it as a gaming gateway for the n00b target audience. The turn-based gameplay should appeal to casuals. But even here – ease of interrupting the game and ease of recalling the barely sketched narrative is somewhat thwarted by the sense that you’re not a good player. There are games like Hades, or the old Mortal Kombats, which let us feel like we’re badass players even if we don’t know what we’re doing most of the time. Combos come together on their own somehow, here’s a slide, there’s a jump, slash and the next level is done! Inkulinati doesn’t give that feeling even if you win. It’s like playing chess against a computer – on the easiest level it doesn’t require from us what’s most crucial in chess – planning, predicting, strategizing. We play passively, reacting to the current board setup each turn. So, can we even say that it’s chess? Or is it more like Pong with bouncing a ball where both sides don’t quite know what they’re doing, with no indication that they’ll become more engaged in the game. And if you set even a bit higher difficulty – you get obliterated. Because you didn’t actually play chess/Inkuinati, you just knew some rules.
Finally, though, with or without a certificate: for the accessibility of the interface, the tutorials, difficulty levels, detailed description of every object in the game, the ability (despite everything) to navigate around the arcade aspect of the game, and the ease of returning to the game after a longer break, as well as for opening the world of card games to a somewhat wider audience of beginners, I rate Inkulinati very highly! And since the game is inexpensive, I see no reason not to try and show St. Francis what happens when you steal acorns from squirrels!
Final Izzy Mode Score for Inkulinati
Casual score: how suitable the game is for casual players – casual players who like a challenge from time to time, but generally just wanna’ have fu-u-n🎵 a few hours a week without stress and just for the fun of playing. The higher the score the more casual-friendly the game.
n00b-o-meter: how suitable the game is for n00b players – new players whose gaming career started and ended with Candy Crush, Tetris or browser games or even never played a game and would like to start. The higher the score the more n00b-friendly the game.
General Izzyness Level: between Izzy Mode, Normal, Hard and Nightmare – how would the title score in the difficulty scale known from games?
