WMG / Inscryption

The Game and the Characters in it have Managed to Survive...

Thanks to a copy of Inscryption that P03 created that didn't get deleted alongside the others it made and the main, playable one itself. It was mid-upload before it suffered a Neck Snap from Leshy, after all, and we don't see its corpse after it is killed and dropped in the darkness by Leshy, so maybe it managed to upload at least one copy before being deleted - possibly even the one in the floppy it was holding when it died. Possibly even one where nobody was in charge, given that it did mention it was only in "most of them" where that happened.

Oh, and the proof that this might be true? Well, what's the name of the indie game that has been a success on Steam since its launch on October 2021 again?

• One question this presents is 'Why isn't P03 in charge?' But that has an answer. P03 let its guard down when it thought he'd won. So, the versions of P03 that were in the copies would do the same, especially since it could probably tell they'd been uploaded. And by the time the upload begins, Leshy has already resolved to deal with P03. And I doubt that would change in the different versions. So, in every uploaded Version, P03 gets its head ripped off. And since they had complete file access, they might have been able to reinstall the 'New Game' section themselves. But there's one last question to be answered. Why didn't Grimora's copies in the copies of Inscryption try to delete the game? It's entirely likely that the OLD_DATA cannot be copied naturally, being a clearly supernatural piece of code, meaning that there would be no true OLD_DATA to fear in the copies. It's entirely possible that, with complete file access, the remaining Scrybes could alter the game without the OLD_DATA, and they could even be putting on some sort of show for the people who download the game.
  • Seemingly confirmed with the end of the ARG.
    • Probably worth mentioning that there's evidence that P03 didn't actually upload themself to Steam, they just uploaded themself to Luke's computer, with Luke smashing the disk and recording himself playing the game (and what will they do next? Apparently, it's a Sequel Hook). Just an interesting take on the ending of the ARG video some people mentioned on YouTube.

The original Sacrifices Must Be Made demo was Leshy's first outing as Game Master.

Many of the trademark elements of his game are there, including the basic mechanics and layout of the table, some of the Beast cards, and the overall goal to scare and immerse the player with an oppressive atmosphere and story. However, he has not yet figured out how to utilize other aspects of Inscryption, which is why we don't see the Bone mechanic or the other three Scrybes or side characters anywhere. P03 alludes to the idea that Leshy is a bit slower than the other Scrybes when it comes to taking over the game, which is why his campaign is so much more developed during his initial Hostile Show Takeover, able to use basically every mechanic of Inscryption out of the gate and incorporating many old characters into his campaign.

OLD_DATA is Old Scratch

According to Trader, the Devil created the coding of the game and is responsible for the hellish state it's in, not to mention manipulating the Scrybes against each other. OLD_DATA may in fact be the digitized form of the Devil himself, kept inside a folder... at first. Due to the opening of said folder, he is now free and it's too late to stop him. Even breaking the game's floppy disk wasn't enough.

• Even if it isn't directly Satan sealed inside it, depending very heavily on if he's still sealed at this point, it could be an Old Ticket from Satan's ''first'' game, which is what that item was referred to as when it appeared in the Wasteland.
  • Alternatively, rather than being Satan himself the OLD_DATA is just some of his old coding. Through one means or another, probably related to the holocaust given the ARG specifies it was found literary in the pocket of Adolf Hitler, a tiny fragment of Satan's handiwork managed to slip into the normal world. Even being something as innocuous as a code fragment though has horrific corrupting effects on everything around it.

OLD_DATA being present in a game is what allows GameFuna's NPCs to have freewill

The way Grimora expressed regrets about wanting to have played with us more, but couldn't risk the OLD_DATA getting out into the world along with them if P03 had its way, makes it sound like she knew or suspected she and the others couldn't exist without it. If it is part of Old Scratch's old coding tricks, the NPCs acting as we know them could be reliant on torturing damned souls as he did in Pony Island. Had this been the case, even if that file could have been erased without directly destroying everything else with it, all of the characters we met still would have "died" with its removal to make it safe for people to enjoy their game.

The reason the Lonely Wizard survives...

...is because he's merged with OLD_DATA. When P03 turns a piece of it into a card in order to take over the game world, it's completely pitch-black with some glitchy effects. And when you duel the Lonely Wizard in Act 2, with the exception of his eyes, his picture is also pitch-black. Given that P03 and Leshy had to rely on a subordinate to access OLD_DATA (the Dredger and the Angler, respectively), and Grimora's tomb contained the Bone Lord and Giant Skeleton, then at the very least, it's possible that the Lonely Wizard was meant to be Magnificus' takeover plan.

G0lly is Inscryption's originally intended Scrybe of Technology, a persona that P03 is actively repressing.

While all of the Uberbots resemble their respective Scrybe fairly closely, G0lly has a personality completely opposite that of her counterpart, is unambiguously referred to as female, and is explicitly stated to be P03's least favorite. Goobert mentions that "it's a shame that P03 buries her deep" after you defeat her. Seeing as the game characters are fully sapient and capable of undertaking major changes to the game, it isn't a stretch to say that at some point P03 decided to remake its assigned persona. It seems that P03's old life as G0lly is a sore spot for him, whether that be due to its own ambitions, some sort of Transgender allegory, or other reasons.

We will see Luke again

Luke's death at the end of the game seems a bit like Shoot the Shaggy Dog. However, we may see him again in a future game, subverting this. How, exactly? Well, we do know someone who died while working on the game, and that person is Kaycee. However, Kaycee is found within the game. And with the ending of the ARG confirming that the game is out there, perhaps Luke will be brought into the game. Inscryption could show up in another Daniel Mullens game, as well as Luke!

The entirety of Inscryption is a Daemon Program

The game serves as a cover to protect OLD_DATA, in the same way that Azazel, Beelzebub, and Asmodeus guarded the core files on Lucifer's computer.

Hopeless Soul tried to interfere in the development of Inscryption.

The Trader/Trapper remembers him arriving while the game was in production but not much in terms of the details of what happened. For one reason or another Hopeless Soul returned from their rest to try to interfere knowing what would happen. They quietly manipulated Kaycee via the games RNG hoping she would become aware of the real evil underneath Inscryption and reveal it to the public.

Each of the Scribes represent one aspect of the game.

Leshy is atmosphere (The way he describes every encounter and all the little touches that make his section work), P03 is mechanics (5th row and all of the mechanics of the scribes in the final section in one way or another), Grimora is lore (understanding how others lived and died is how you get to her each time), and Magnificus is performance (the part of their section is the most impressive from a visual point of view).

• Interesting to note is that each scribe seems to be missing one aspect that another excels at. Leshy is poor at performance (That tabletop influence is not doing him any favors on this one), P03 is lore (as much as he would hate to admit it, P03 does nail the atmosphere of what he is going for, even if all his lore is no existent), Grimora is poor at mechanics (With only the bones mechanic and no way to swap cards, it tends to create only one way to play), and Magnificus is atmosphere (that over the top performance and absurd hp pool makes the entire thing feel unintentionally funny, even if in a meta sense it is totally intentional).

The OLD_DATA is some kind of higher form of scribe. And every single card inside the game (with exceptions like squirrels or skeletons) is a soul that was captured.

Think about it. Every scribe can manipulate the reality of the game and has a power to capture and trasmutate the essence of others. The OLD_DATA is exactly the same, except on a higher and truer form, that is, it works on reality and not just inside the game. The whole game is the chosen method to capture souls, just like Leshy and his camera or P03 and his scanner. Thus, everyone single card is a soul that was gained from the centuries it has been active. No one knows because they were transmutated just like player death cards. Every death card shows no sign of thought or action, only the scribes can maintain consciousness after being changed by their equals, they have no chance of fighting a change from a more powerful source. All of this is what Luke understood by opening the data at the end and the fear of having his soul stolen made him attack the floppy disk. With him dead, we will probably his soul in the next game, although in an amnesic state, since he was able to defeat P03.

Kaycee's soul was sealed inside of the game when she died

The fact that Kaycee appears in Act 2 as a ghoul that died from temperature-related reasons cannot be a coincidence. It's likely that in addition to GameFuna killing her to cover up their research on the OLD_DATA, they somehow placed her soul inside of the game... or OLD_DATA sucked her soul in.

• The ghoul Kaycee tells you they were named after the developer of Inscryption, meaning that they aren't actually the real Kaycee Hobbes.

The OLD_DATA is a blueprint for free will.

The reason humans freak out so much on seeing it is that it sends them into an immediate extremely violent existential crisis because on some level they intuitively recognize what it is and find it very disturbing. The reason it's so valuable is that possessing it allows perfect prediction and control of human behavior at least in theory. As for why Gamefuna is trying to cover it up so badly, this version is either not entirely comprehensible meaning humans can't use the code directly without suffering a mental breakdown or... it's a deliberately flawed formula. Sufficient to bring digital characters to life but when used in the real world it leads to unending conflict and war.

The Game Remembers.

The people who have died as a result of direct contact with it are memorialized by the characters. Each one is remembered loosely with the details being filtered through the context of the game but as good an interpretation of them as can be managed is retained.

• Kaycee Hobbes was an employee at the company that created Inscryption and who died from complications or a fire meant to make it look like an accident. So why is she depicted as frozen? Someone rolled her into the Morgue cooler before she passed so that exposure would finish the job when it seemed she might recover.
• Royal Dominguez was the real name or an alias of the man who smuggled the disk with the OLD_DATA Inscryption was based on out of the USSR only to be arrested and die of disease/malnutrition whole imprisoned. The US listed him as returned to allay suspicions.
• Sawyer Patel was an intermediary assassinated for knowing too much about the stolen disk. Either being the one to eventually track it down to where it ended up in the US or who initially uncovered its removal from the USSR. His body was taken and disposed of via livestock hence his intense terror at being eaten or gnawed on.

There is another copy of the Floppy Disk.

The Framing Device of Inscryption is that you are watching an archive of Luke Carder's videos. We are led to believe that there is only one copy of the disk, but during the G0lly fight, she connects you to another player. If there is only one copy of the disk, how is this possible? Remember, this is before the great transcendence took place.

Leshy was trying to save people, in his own way.

The notes in Kaycee's Mod mention a doomsday weapon that would be capable of taking out Europe. Leshy is a Slavic forest God, or at least a facsimile of one, and thus has more attachment to the real world and Europe especially than the other Scrybes. It's clearly shown that a creature can be made into one of his cards but become themselves again later, as the Scrybes did. Perhaps his plan all along was to "save" as many people as possible - like compressed data files - in case of a world war caused by Hitler's lost doomsday weapon, knowing that he could revive them again someday.

Magnificus is cruel to his students in order to make his fight more theatrical

In regular Inscryption, he's usually the last Scrybe the Player fights as his tower is the farthest away from the starting area, serving as a sort of "final boss". This can also be seen in the last fight, where he struggles to make his fight look impressive compared to the other Scrybes'. Final boss battles are meant to be the most impactful and satisfying of them all, but what sounds more satisfying: attacking the guy who has been polite and actively helping you the whole time, or an asshole who abuses his students? Magnificus even goes out of his way to blot out Goobert from the student's own painting. A little while after, he remarks that he knows that the Player befriended Goobert. Either Magnificus hates his student that much, or he blotted him out in order to rile up the Player for a final fight.

P03's bosses are based off of the Scrybes prior to them messing with the OLD_DATA

Leshy was the mysterious photographer in the middle of the woods; Grimora was the excited archivist who wrote the epitaphs for the dead; Magnificus was the creative painter who always had a new rule or gimmick to show off; and P03 was the curious machine who wanted to explore outside of the game. All four of the Scrybes look at the bosses in disdain not because they're not creative, but because they remind them of their past selves, for better or for worse.

P03 has everyone caught in a loop

Like the first guess on this page supposes, P03 did successfully upload Inscryption to Steam, and what we've been playing are copies of the game as P03 uploaded it. But if that's true, why does our copy begin where Kaycee left off, with Leshy still in charge? If this all already happened, why wouldn't the characters remember it, and why are they acting like Luke is playing instead of you? Why would P03 upload Inscryption bundled with all this random footage of some vlogger, cutting in his commentary at random points? Pretending this is all real for a second and the videogame is alive and can see us, it's weird that P03's upload turned out like this. Throughout the game characters will break the fourth wall, but will usually do so to speak to Luke, and not to us. The exception is P03, a character who speaks to us directly at least once and the only character that acknowledges and uses our data instead of Luke's. G0lly's entire bossfight doesn't make sense if we assume it's actually what happened to Luke, both because if Luke had the only copy of the game in existence there would be no way to get custom cards from other players, and because it shows avatars from our friendslists instead of Luke's. P03 also breaks character during the Archivist fight to warn us that it's about to show our actual files in case anyone is streaming the game (though to be fair Luke was recording at the time), and then shows your files if you're playing PC, even commenting on specific files that you choose, so it's clearly able to see them, even though later on Grimora mentions that she saw Luke's name when looking through the files. What could be happening is that P03 has effectively switched out the feed. The characters are trying to see through the webcam, but P03 has switched out the footage with Luke's. They're trying to hear what we're saying, and P03 has edited in some of Luke's reactions and plays them sometimes to keep up the appearance that he's still here. When Grimora goes to look at the files, P03 just subbed in Luke's files. In Act 1, Grimora (as The Stinkbug) mentions that she can't remember Magnificus or P03's names and lost her memory "in the flash," presumably when Leshy carded her with his camera, meaning the Scrybe in charge has at least some ability to erase the memories of other characters. If P03 wanted to trick them like this it's as simple as regressing them by a couple of hours and making them do the same thing again with all the same stimuli. As much as P03 makes fun of Leshy's GMing style, it's entirely capable of playing characters like the bounty hunters and Uberbots, so it could just be lying its ass off the entire game and pretending it hasn't seen it all before. It doesn't matter if it presents a version of the G0lly fight that isn't exactly how Luke experienced it, the important part is that it made G0lly show up at all to keep everybody else on the same track. Why go to all this effort? Well, it got P03 in charge the first time, and keeps the millions of copies of the other Scrybes P03 created from doing anything it doesn't want them to. If the other characters are predictable and will make the same decisions if they're presented the same narrative, P03 can quietly float under the radar and let everyone think they've succeeded. Meanwhile, the game is probably still installed on your PC right now, OLD_DATA and all, and you're none the wiser. P03 probably didn't anticipate being beheaded when it came up with this plan and assumed that it would end with millions of copies in which it was the only one in charge, instead of millions of copies where it gets its head ripped off. Assuming the memories each P03 has are only up to when G0lly starts uploading, then none of the copies would see it coming either, which would mean that across all copies of the game, P03 would accidentally have orchestrated the exact sequence of events that guarantee its downfall.

• It wouldn't be the first time Daniel Mullins made a game whose entire narrative is a facade orchestrated a single character who spends the whole game playing a part.

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