The story ofInscryptionis a difficult-to-understand one. The game, which was an unexpected combination of card game and horror, also has one of the strangest endings. In order to explain this ending, players need to be a little bit more familiar with both the developer and some of the hidden secrets in the game itself. This article contains spoilers both forthe genre-defyingInscryptionandThe Hex.
The Story of Inscryption
Inscryptionis anindie game developed by Daniel Mullins. For those unfamiliar with his work, Mullins has created several other games, including the cult classicThe Hex.Much like the entirety ofInscryptionand some of his other games, the story of the end ofInscryptionis not spelled out for the player, but there are some theories about the meaning of the ending floating around on Reddit and the Mullins Games' Discord for fans to dive into.
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To begin with, themeta story ofInscryptionfollows a young man, Luke, who has come across a disk in the middle of the woods. It was buried there by Kaycee, a woman who was responsible for the creation of the digitized version ofInscryption. Kaycee can also be seen as a Death Card during the first Act and a minion of Gimora in the second.
After learning of the corruption of her work by something called the OLD DATA or the Karnoffel Code, which appears to be a way to influence the real world through the video game, she tried to get rid of the game and was killed, perhaps by a falling piece of ice as mentioned inInscryption’s Grave Marker Puzzle, or in a fire, as Kaycee’s mother tells Luke over the phone. Luke Carder, a YouTuber, comes across some old packs of the physical card game that Kaycee owned. One of the packs contained a set of coordinates that lead Luke to the disk.
Luke plays through the whole game while trying to figure out more about Kaycee, GameFuna, and the OLD DATA. While players are trying to figure out thebest possible deck inInscryption, Luke is digging into how Kaycee died while having his computer taken over by hostile AI Scrybes who either want to transmit the OLD DATA to the world or to delete it completely.
It becomes fairly obvious pretty quickly that there is something wrong with the game. The Scrybes, four AI beings orbosses that live inInscryption, have been altering the code inInscryption. And it seems that some of these changes are affecting the real world as well through the OLD DATA. A woman named Amanda from GameFuna, the company where Kaycee worked, comes to Luke’s door to demand the return of the propriety disk in an attempt to get the OLD DATA back. As Luke speaks with her at his door the first time, a glitch happens in real life, changing the color of his shirt and the time of day in the middle of their conversation.
Kaycee was given special tools to make the game as perfect as possible, including an object only referred to as the Triangle (00000011). The Triangle is a coding project called GameWorks made by GameFuna to help with the coding of games, and it was invented by a GameFuna programmer named Irving, who is referred to as the Blue Man inside of theInscryptiongame. It appears that GameFuna, a company that appears in boththe HexandInscryptionwas hired to make the game by some kind of CIA operation trying to spread the OLD DATA across the world. This would spread this technological superweapon throughout the internet, from one computer to the next, like the world’s worst virus.
In the end, Amanda shoots Luke and kills him, heading into his home to take possession of theInscryptiondisk which Luke had just smashed with a hammer. This is after Grimora has taken over Luke’s computer in an attempt to get rid ofInscryptionand the OLD DATA by erasing all the code on the disk herself.
What Does the Ending of Inscryption Mean?
During the scene where Amanda shoots Luke, eagle-eyed players might have noticed that Amanda’s face is covered by a white, cartoon-style face for a frame. This face will be familiar for anyone who has played Daniel Mullin’s last game,The Hex. It’s the face of Sado, the video game entity that not only learned how to travel between different games, but also managed to get into the real world as well. She is after Luke because she most likely wants access to the OLD DATA in order to expand her ability to manipulate the real world.
What is the OLD DATA?
There are a lot of hints that the OLD DATA or Karnoffel Code has existed for as long as the world has existed; it is the coded version of evil. There is some information in the hidden, OLD DATA information inside that game that suggests that the code was found by humans in WW2. A deck of Karnoffel cards in Hitler’s pocket spelled out the code, and the power it had was unimaginable. There’s a lot of information, both in English and Polish, about the connections between the OLD DATA and demons or the Devil, but the OLD DATA’s uses, origins, and powers are never fully explained.
The ARG Secret Ending
Thesecret ending ofInscryption, which was decoded by a bunch of very clever fans on the Discord, features a link to a hidden YouTube video. This secret ending shows the Stoat, or P03, who wanted Transcendence (to upload the OLD DATA andInscryptionto the Internet), finally successful.
While this ending video answers a lot of questions, it leaves many more questions that players will not be able to answer. Is P03 actually Sado? If not, who is P03, and why is he so desperate to upload the OLD DATA to the world? The lack of answers in the ending gives fans a lot to mull over and the hopes of a sequel or DLC in the near future. One thing is for certain: thanks to the genius of Daniel Mullins,Inscryptionis more than just a simple creepy card game.
