I'm a modder of Inscryption, and in the code for the areas, each area is called a 'temple', including Leshy and P03s areas which don't really resemble temples whatsoever. Additionally card archetypes (ie, Beast, Tech, Undead, and Magic) are also called 'temples' in the code, so in the modding scene we use the word 'temple' instead of 'archetype'.
I truly envy your skills and abilities. I did some super basic quest and location mods for New Vegas and Skyrim over a decade ago, and that covers the depth and breadth of my modding ability. You truly have an awesome skillset and should be recognized for such.
Oh my god I just realized, "p03" as in, "player 03", cause he's introduced third, which implies the order by which the scrybes became scrybes, grimora being the oldest and having the most time to come to terms with death, and magnificus being the youngest and most immature, explaining why he tortures his students and explains his actions in the end of act 3
Ooooh that's a very interesting extrapolation. It would explain Grimoras wariness of her existence. You've then got the warring middle child's, then mag the youngster who tortures his toys like how we rip the heads off of barbies. Good stuff!
@@flawedpeacock I was just coming back to this comment section to ask what the P in P03 stands for, but I noticed it because I went back and beat the game and noticed that in Act 2 on the center island, P03's headstone is in the 3rd position. That suggests that Grimora is P01, Leshy is P02, and Magnificus is P04
It is interesting, what I noticed personally is that he is properly introduced “first” in act 1, then he appears secondly in act 2, I wonder if he will appear 3rd in act 3.
I think I actually got jumpscared seeing this pop up. I didn’t expect this for at least another week or two but I guess that’s the real power of getting floppy with it
A fun detail is that if you restart act 2 after Rebecca has finished the bridge, she will mention it when you talk to her next, saying it's a pain to have to rebuild the bridge every time the player wants to try a new starter deck
I'm a bit late, but it seems to me like "Does not hold a grudge" likely has to do with the fact that the bone hound he starts the fight with is probably the dog that killed him. As much as he seems to be afraid of dogs, it says a lot that he has this bone hound as his opening card.
I’m even later, but when I was playing the game my immediate thought was that dogs are too cute to hold a grudge against. The instinct thing… is much smarter. My current opinion is that he doesn’t hold a grudge because the dog (was cute and) wasn’t acting maliciously, and he then adopted the dog posthumously to fight us with. (…Which doesn’t really make sense because he seems to still be scared of them when we talk to him, but shush. Maybe he’s just scared on the off-chance that we’re some kind of weird new dog that wants to maul him. Skeletons don’t have eyes, after all.)
This may because the stoat in the previous game was just another beast, and respectable because of it, while in this game the stoat is actually PO3, who's not very respected by Leshy
1:00:06 About the goo mage, I consider him to be like a polymer that some people use to clean keyboards: like that semi-solid semi-liquid that you just pour on the board and then can yank off again, collecting dust and grime.
Ah, Act 2! I am so very very very very normal about this one. I swear I only replay it once a week. And I've only worked on one mod and designed half a truckload of cards. And only memorized half the NPC's dialogue. Very normal. As Elected President of the Amber Fan Club, this one is very dear to me, and I just figured I'd throw in a few cents here and there, mainly on the Crypt and Tower. 1. Grimora's boss epitaphs are just a minor gimmick- she'll only play the three cards (four in phase 2), and whenever they die she'll replay them after a bit. If you destroy them with overkill, they don't come back. Funnily enough, if you play Mrs. Bomb, you can force her to use respawn and replay the Tech cards. No wonder she's the only one to consider the other Scrybes friends. 2. The Bone Lord's a funky guy. My personal theory for what's up with him is that he's actually at least partially related to the Daemon programs. (Perhaps Baphomet, perhaps not, since PI Baphomet seems to have flesh). The reason is fairly straightforward- he's obviously demonic in nature, and likely the one closest to the OLD_DATA out of all the characters in the whole game. Much like how the Daemons guarded Lucifer's most important files, the Bone Lord rests atop the DATA, like a dragon does its hoard, or perhaps as a bodyguard protects their VIP. 3. I'm fairly certain the washroom at the top of the tower is there to show how Goobert trawls for DATA. The presence of the Kraken's tentacle implies a direct tie to seawater from the plumbing, so Magnificus can just drop him in and let him swim through the ocean directly. Perhaps they're even connected directly to P03's network of pipes visible on the main map? It would certainly explain how familiar he is with them by Act 3. 4. Magnificus' unknowable plotting is fascinating, because whether through foresight, malevolent force, or sheer magickal power, the guy is not confined to the limits of the game. He's directly linked to almost every secret room besides the Kaycee photo, even hiding a sigil in one. He has the strongest connection to the mysterious clock, hiding the codes to unlock the bottom half in both 3d acts. Heck, the guy can paint on the options menu and even add the "don't open" text for Goobert mid-Act 1. No wonder everyone is terrified of him, he's probably the most powerful of all the Scrybes in a fair faceoff. 5. To play Christmas Tree's advocate, I think he's not just torturing his pupils for no reason, or at least for reasons besides just the cycle of pain. - Green's special cards are all about buffing stats/"improving your own body", and Goobert is tasked with keeping his body from melting. - Orange cards are defensive, they need to be able to take a hit and endure through their magic, and Amber's trial is all about taking the pain. (Actually, James probably failed that because he was way too kinky to torture, and thus could never succeed as an Orange Mage.) - Blue cards are all about the mind and ignoring physical limits, dodging or nullifying opposing cards (the Blue Mage's sigil is even called Mental Gemnastics!), so it only makes sense that the Blue trial would remove all outside stimulus, forcing you to ignore things around you and meditate. 5.5 This training actually even paid off for Goobert (and maybe Stimmy, if you think the credits void is canon) since he was able to survive the takeovers of others and possibly even the deletion if the few frames of what might be him in the PI 2 trailer are actually him. 6. Random, mostly unrelated thought: you ever notice how only the Scrybes get their full bodies in 3D? Whether they're skulls like the ghouls or bone lord, just random heads/masks, or a smaller amount of goo, only the Scrybes have full bodies. I personally chalk this up to their sprites sticking out of their dialogue portraits, while everyone else is properly inside the box. Overall though, great analysis! Watched the whole video in one sitting, and loved every last second of it.
Seconding all of this stuff! Goobert and Lonely Wizard both evaded deletion and James Cobb's head managed to live on inside the Melter even though it should have died (especially since his soul went into Plasma Jimmy instead of sticking with the head). I used to dismiss the theory that Magnificus's training is harsh *because* it gives his pupils enough power to live on through things that should have killed them and he actually cares deeply about them, but it seems more and more likely the more evidence I see for it.
Maybe you mention this, I haven't actually seen the whole video yet, but one thing I find interesting about act 2, is that Magnificus' deck is basically the least synergistic with all the others. It's basically running on an entirely different, almost incompatible system to the other Scrybes. If you look at the rest, they all play really well together. Tech cards can be played the most frequently, because energy is the most consistent form of economy, coming back each turn at the next level. Being able to get more of them out then feeds the Beast deck, because being able to consistently get out multiple tech cards per turn means it's easy to get sacrifices to fuel the stronger, 2+ blood cost Beasts. And sacrificing cards for the Beasts will slowly accumulate bones, which then gives you Skeletal cards to supplement your late game. Then, alongside this quite effective gameplay loop, you have Magnificus and the Mox system. There's some direct synergies, cards that tie two systems together, sure, but ultimately those are the minority. Mox can't be sacrificed, and losing them will always put you in a worse position. Magnificus doesn't like making sacrifices. Having Mox on the board restricts your ability to play beasts, because you have one less potential sacrifice. Because you're disincentivized to let them die, you also slow down on bones. If you build for Mox, it cripples your ability to pivot and use any other card type. Leshy's whole thing is sacrificing because that's the rule of nature, for stronger creatures to survive, the weaker ones must be consumed. Grimora understands the value in sacrifice, because she understands that death is a natural and crucial part of life PO3 recognizes that optimal gameplay sometimes requires removing what's already on the field Magnificus is the only one who doesn't like sacrifices.
A few thoughts I had during the investigation: The explanation of Rebecca, that the bridge will be fixed in the exact time it takes to defeat one Scrybe, made me think of world states, and how every change in the game world is dependant on the player hitting specific triggers and flags. Without playing, no plan of the Scrybes can advance. Here we witness P03's power grab, Leshy's putsch was during Kaycee's playthrough, and we will see this theme again specifically in act 3. If 7 is the number of the devil in Karnöffel, than the 77.7% in the loading screen of act 2 IS a reference to the 66.6% in Pony Island.
When I was really young I was always beefing with this kid from school. And this one time he followed me home, all ready to fight me and shit, and when he followed me into my backyard my mom came running out. She demanded to know what he was doing there. So this kid said "I live here". And we just stood there for about 10 seconds, in absolute silence, until my mom asked "In... In my backyard?" And the kid didn't say anything, but simply turned around and walked away. That kid is my hero. I'm not sure yet if that personal anecdote has anything to do with the the video (I'm about 8 minutes in), but I bet it'll be relevant to at least a part of this behemoth.
Want to point at how each Scrybe seems to be the opposite of the other three: Grimora is the *death* to Leshy's life, the *peace* to Magnificus' chaos, the *stillness* to P03's perpetuity Leshy is the *life* to Grimora's death, The *organic* to P03's mechanic, the *wild* to Magnificus' civilized P03 is the *perpetuity* to Grimora's stillness, the *science* to Magnificus' magic, the *mechanic* to Leshy's organic And Magnificus is the *chaos* to Grimora's peace, the *magic* to P03's science, and the *civilized* to Leshy's wild
Note for the goo mage, we see him in the third act swimming around the pipes of PO3's factory. Now, I don't know if he can swim to find the OLD_DATA, but this ability strikes me as more of an espionage skill. Sort of spying on the other scrybes. The ability to fit into tight cracks and crevices would be quite useful for that, don't you think? Also, the reason he might be in a jar in Leshy's cabin could be that Leshy caught him spying on the angler, or even attacking him when the angler fished up the OLD_DATA. Considering Magnificus's personality and slightly underhanded tactics, I wouldn't call it a stretch for him to wait for the others to do the work then try and snatch it from them. He clearly gets a kick out of people's suffering after all. EDIT: Each Scrybe has their own motivation for retrieving the OLD_DATA, right? Leshy wants it so he can create the perfect game and give the player a challenge, but he needs to get it first for that to happen. PO3 wants the Great Transcendence, something he seems near giddy about. However, again, he NEEDS to get the OLD_DATA before the others. Grimora is tired of this never ending cycle of power grabs, transformation, death, and reincarnation, so the sooner she can get the OLD_DATA the better. These three all have motivations to race for the OLD_DATA, since their plans all revolve around "winning" and finding it first. But Magnificus doesn't really have a plan. He wanted power, he wanted to relish in the cycle of suffering, but he didn't really have a laid out idea of what he'd do after. So, instead of racing the other three Scrybes, he decides to play smart and wait for them to do all the work. Then, Magnificus uses his eye to figure out where to go, before releasing Goobert for a small bit. Like little missions, only immediately after he's yeeted back into his torture void. It could also explain why he knows about PO3's Great Transcendence and tries to warn Grimora about it.
I've heard this in other places but I wanna regurgitate it here: magnificus and his lot have all been trained to survive ways of the game being deleted, changed to no longer resemble itself and presumably the only one that worked nothingness
Honestly? Amanda wearing sunglasses and wearing blue brings to mind Irving from the Hex. Perhaps she is also an agent of GameWorks? Extra interesting if KamWerks is an extension of GameWorks, somehow allowing the viewing of everything Luke records before he even uploads it.
I picked up on that too. I feel like he was a bit too quick to assume that the Irving that we saw die was the only one who existed, as opposed to being copied alongside the software. I do think that there's a potential for her to be another amalgamation of two characters - Irving and Sado sharing a body with one another
realizing the percentage in 6:22 being 77.7% now because 7 is the devil's card in karnoffel as you explained it at the end of the video... watching flaupy has expanded my capacity to keep things in mind by 400%
I'm sitting here playing Warframe and this video auto played after the video I was listening to was over. I reached for my phone thinking it was RUclips serving me up something I already watched and I was going to see if anything new is in my feed. As I grabbed my phone I was like, "wait, this doesn't sound familiar..." Well, I guess I know what I'm doing for most of my night. Actually, my next few nights since I have to watch these several times before everything finally seeps into my little dumb dumb brain.
This coming out saved my day, I got in a car accident this morning that didn’t hurt anyone but my car and I’ve spent all day figuring out how I’m gonna get around, put me in a real sour mood. Thanks so much for having such consistently great videos
This is a whole mood I twisted my ankle last night and I’ve had nothing to do alll day but I saw this video and I’m so glad for the perfect distraction
Speaking about the coputer data stuff at the half-hour-ish mark. I guess other people already have pointed it out, but i'll add my bit anyway, just to flex a bit and maybe someone will find this interesting. The computers we use now (and have been for a long time) are built using the von Neumann architecture. It means that all the data can be treated as code and any code can be treated as data. Usually, any piece of data has a header infront of it that describes what it is and how it was "intended" to be treated. What this basically means is that you can try to run a picture as a code (and with any luck even get out a few instructions from a photo of your cat) or vice versa. Those headers can be treated as "directions" to how to use a piece of data or what other pieces it belongs to, but they aren't "rules" and can be easy ignored, when you right-click on your favourite somg and try to open in with Paint. The QR codes, for example, are the direct consequence of such a thing, encoding the lines of code or a link to a website inside of an image (there was a video on youtube about a guy who jammed the code of the nokia snake game inside a qrcode, pretty interesting stuff). So, if we follow the theme of "pictures" (data) being "inscribed" (written/drawn/printed) on a "card" (memory), it technically can be said that you make a qr-code of sorts that when used (played in the game) works as a piece of code extracted from another type of data and executed.
Something that only struck me on a second watch--the scales themselves could be death/afterlife symbolism. In Egyptian mythology, Anubis weighs the soul of a dead person against a feather, with only the soul that is lighter being worthy of a peaceful afterlife. By ensuring that your side of the scale is lighter than your opponent's, you prove that you are worthy to survive and continue the game.
One thing with the mycologists cards is that each card seems to have a theme of "searching". The Gravedigger looks for bones, the blue mage allows you to gain a new card, and the sentry "searches" for an opposing enemy. Now the main issue here is that Gravedigger and blue mage have very clear thematic connections with EITHER sentry or field mice but an issue comes about when trying to connect all four. The field mice isn't really searching, it copies itself into your hand. And likewise the sentry is incompatible with the interpretation that all these cards are united by their ability to "create" more of something, as it is defined by it's ability to destroy rather than create.
You could argue that the Field Mice have "searched" for a mate and found one, and that the Sentry "searches" for a target and shoots them down. Alternatively, maybe the sentry "creates" a hole in the enemy lines?
Not quite done yet, but this was exactly what I needed after a crappy work shift. Your use of the Goo Mage's "The pain is unbearable!" line never fails to crack me up. You've already covered a bunch of things I totally missed on my own playthrough, I can't wait to play again with fresh eyes after this series is finished!
Interesting that P03's Inscription already seems less narrative-focused than Leshy's, since Leshy gives detailed, lovingly-crafted descriptions of where you are and what you're doing, whereas P03 seems to be making it up on the spot
I honestly think thats such a cool aspect of their individual characters, showing what they focus on more as DMs of sorts! It makes me wonder how Grimora or Magnificus would run their individual acts.
sawyer patel "doesnt hold a grudge" because he doesnt blame the hungry dog for eating him and doesnt hold it against the dog. i don't think there's any story relevance
Your key gen beef invoked an old memory of me visiting a one piece forum back in middle school and being shocked at theorists beefing with one another about a characters power who we wouldn’t find out about until I was in my junior year of high school. Anyways thank you for reminding me of a funny memory and for this video I can pop on during work!
I'm so glad I found you through the who's lila video, a game I had neither played nor ever heard of before then. I don't think I've ever enjoyed 7+ hours of my life as much as the first time I watched it a few weeks ago, yes I've watched it twice and will keep rewatching many more times waiting for more of your flaw(less) pea-content. The voice, delivery, analysis, knowledge and wit delivered through the video game and horror genre is such a perfect combination of things that intrigue my curiosity, with such thought-provoking conclusions I could've never achieved on my own, it feels unreal. I could not thank you enough for what you do here and I wait in anticipation for more!
I feel like the reason Kaycee is the procurer of old data has to do with her being more closely related to it as a representation or possible incarnation of someone who worked directly with the old data in some way
Another great video which was absolutely worth the wait, with those whiteboards even having me notice two things which could just be me getting too floppy. First is the roles of Grimoras ghouls, while Kaycee is basically confirmed to be her Procurer via pulling up things from the well, I belive that Royal is in fact acting the one as her Seeker for the Old Date as he travels the sea in his ship, meaning Sawyer would be left as her Metalurgist. "But how does Sawyer fit with the other Metalurgist and how would he even convert the Old Data?" To answer the first, Sawyer shares three themes with the other Metalurgists - the theme of heads (being just a head on a pile of bones) - the theme of deconstruction (with his body being nothing but a pile, probably being taken apart by the dog that ate him) - the theme of being part of a pair (The Trapper and Trader, the Melter and Meatbot, the Pike Mage Amber and the Red Mage she replaced...and Sawyer and the Bone Lord) Why do I think Sawyer is connected to the Bone Lord? Well first he is the one blocking the path to him, but second is that I belive, and maybe Im getting way too floppy here, the Bone Lord is a part of Sawyer that came in touch with the Old Data...the Karnoffel Code, with the ribcage in the Bone Lord room being Sawyers own, but since the Bone Lord seperated from Sawyer AND got in touch directly with the Old Data could explain why the Bone Lord has a presence in all acts while Sawyer is only within act 2, this could also give a reason for the "does not hold a grudge" on his Tombstone, thinking his death was a blessing after coming in contact with that cursed code...only to eventually end up stuck as a pawn in a much bigger game, which is why he is helping Grimora try to end it all. And the other thing I noticed was that each of the four Scrybes has another Daniel Mullins game you could link them with - Leshy just wanting to make an enjoyable experience with his beasts matches Catch Monsters - Grimora being stuck in a cycle and just wanting it to end matches Bloop - Magnificus seemingly wanting a cycle of endless torment is just Pony Island (with him further linked to it by his battle theme sounding a lot like its from Pony Island and his paint being the light blue and red which are predominantly used for Hopeless Soul, Satan and the glitches - PO3 meticulously following his plan to achive the Great Transcendence almost perfectly mirrors whats happening in the Hex I may am way off the mark with all of them, but the fact that Sawyer is seemingly so out of everything and Grimoras other Ghouls are of so much importance (Kayce being integral to the story and Royal being added in Kaycees mod as a boss) just makes me feel Sawyer is hiding something really big really well, and he is RIGHT THERE by the Bone Lord aswell, there just has to be something there
Here's what I think about the ghouls. I think that all three of them have the names of devs who worked on the game. The first two lines of their epitaths are fairly straightforward in that they represent how their ghoulsonas died. But, none of the third lines of the epitaphs make a lot of sense with how the ghoulsonas died. Instead, I think that they represent the eventual fate of the devs after they finished working on the game. "The defibrillator failed." - Kaycee Hobbes Floppy was right. Defibrillatiors are useful for heart arrhythmias, which head trauma would not be likely to cause on its own. If the heart stopped entirely due to the head trauma, that wouldn't be a shockable rhythm. There is evidence that Dev Kaycee died in the context of a fire at her workplace. Severe burns could certainly be an explanation for a potentially lethal heart arrhythmia. Severe burns put significant stress on the heart, and it may fail to keep up, which could cause all sorts of things to go haywire. This is a reach, but the defibrillator failing could indicate that there was some sort of foul play involved in her death. If Sado is doing glitchy chicanery IRL already, it might not be hard for her to make a piece of medical equipment malfunction long enough to ruin resuscitation efforts. "There was no cure" - Royal Dominguez Here's the thing, scurvy does have a cure. It's Vitamin C, ascorbic acid. That's what all the citrus puns are about. There is a bit of a difference between something not having a cure, and just not being able to get the cure. So, I think that the line is referring to what might have happened to Dev Royal. Royal Dominguez the character expresses a wish to be a boss, a wish that Grimora grants (to the best of her ability) in her section of the finale. Dominguez is also a hidden final boss within Kaycee's Mod, fully bringing his desire to life. My personal theory is that Dev Royal died before Dev Kaycee, of a terminal illness. Both were still employees of GameFuna. I think that's why Royal has the full-fledged final boss battle in Kaycee's Mod. Dev Kaycee put his character into her mod of game as a final boss encounter, as a tribute to her colleague. "Does not hold a grudge" - Sawyer Patel Who would Sawyer Patel have a grudge against? The dog? The character seems like kind of a timid, mild-mannered guy. If anything, holding a grudge would be unusual. I think this makes more sense for Dev Sawyer (Dev Patel?), even though it makes his eventual fate unclear. For one thing, he could still be alive, and just not bear any ill will towards anybody involved in the project. That could explain why he doesnt have any presence in the game outside of Act 2, the closest to the vanilla Inscryption. Grimora (and by extension the other Scrybes) just wouldn't be that interested in the one that doesn't fit the theme as well. Although, considering how actively malevolent GameFuna's upper management is, I wonder if the epitaph means that he doesn't blame the other members of the dev team (like Kaycee) for their actions, even if they might have led to GameFuna killing him.
Something tells me Sawyer and Royal are seeds that DM has planted for possible future lore. This is a very good take on the third epitaphs. I hadn't thought to apply that to Sawyers and Royals thirds.
i am entranced by your skits and pixel art. dude you're really a jack of all trades... comedic script writer, editor, and artist! loved the ending skit especially. great video!
Something i noticed about the scrybes remembering events prior to the reset, along with the ever-looping nature of their cycle, one scrybe gaining control, losing it, then another taking up the mantle of leader, is the connection back to what was said before: the game forgets, the ouroboros does not.
I feel like there's more to the rhyming of Grimora's underlings and Mag's underlings, but i can't quite discover it. Except, Sawyer: "Dont look at me!" Lonely Wizard: "STIMULATION!" *stares more*
1:37:00 theres also a bit of dialogue you get if you talk to Kaycee again after you beat her that im not sure if you bring up in the video where she directly says to you that she is named after one of the developers of the game. Great video so far btw im loving this
Another banger from Mr. Peacock. I've been on another big Disco Elysium kick recently, so I really appreciated the references. Congrats on 1 year/*almost* 50k subs, by the way! Gonna cross that bridge any day now.
@@PhantomGato-v- there's a theory going around that the sans in deltarune is the exact same as the sans in undertale, which is unlike every other character, such as Toriel, which is another version of her. Evidence of such is his knowledge of multiple timeliness in undertale, how his house in deltarune still has snow on the roof, like it was ripped straight from undertale, similarly to grillby's bar, which he uses as a supermarket, to name a few.
I'm sure someone's already mentioned this, but both the Melter and the Inspector are actually female! In every translation of the game where people use self-gendering language, those two characters consistently refer to themselves with female language, especially the Inspector who uses a hyper-feminine pronoun in Japanese. This could strengthen the Melter's connection with the Trapper/Trader as being dualistic in gender (the female Melter with the male James Cobb) and with Amber as both being fire-associated women (maybe there's some mythology about a figure like that out there? Who knows). I also have an answer for you about the strange pipes in Magnificus's tower - it's for Goobert to travel around in! That's how he ends up in the pipes in Act 3, and it's also how he searches for the OLD_DATA. He enters from the first floor and travels down the pipe into the sea where the pressure of the deep water probably feels very nice on his melted body as he searches around for the DATA. Probably the reason that he's never actually found it is that Magnificus keeps thinking of plans to get them out of the next Scrybe's takeover and he keeps tasking Goobert to travel out across the sea to get where he needs to be to help facilitate the reset. My long comment about Magnificus on the previous video probably didn't sound too feasible to you, which is fair, but while I totally agree that Magnificus's plan with the OLD_DATA would involve never letting anyone else take the power from him again (which would also be a consequence of Magnificus always being the person who resets the game), I don't think it's out of malice. Grimora choosing death for everyone regardless of what they want sounds far more sinister to me personally, and I'm also not convinced Magnificus ever *did* have the OLD_DATA. That's what he seems to imply with his dialogue, and I don't think the glitchy image of Reginald's certificate thingie is solid enough evidence considering stuff glitches in and out of the game all the time for unrelated reasons. Anyways, I hope some of this helps for your next part(s) and I can't wait to see what you come up with next! I've been adoring this series and putting the videos on repeat in the background as I animate. Very good stuff. Stay floppy!
I just realized: every Kraken tentacle is "holding onto" a uniquely advanced method for calculating attack. Are these remnants of fledgeling mechanics meant to be introduced and expanded if Inscryption the physical game had gotten more sets?
I've pondered on the character of Magnificus a lot, he is the most mysterious out of the scribes that's for sure but something clicked in my head when you mentioned him wanting to continue the cycle of pain. Spoilers ahead for any curious readers. Taking context clues from act 3/the Final and interesting hints from Magnificus' dialogue we can be sure of two things. One. He has never been Hegemon before despite having a piece of Old Data and Two. It appears he is incomplete, or at the very least his segment of the game was lacking. In Act 3 we finish the unfinished boss for P03, the one obviously based on Magnificus. With the other two P03 has obviously ripped parts of Leshy and Grimmora. From Leshy he gets the camera, from Grimmora he can read your computers files[reading names/epitaphs though it could be flimsy] But from Magnificus what does he get? A blank canvas that needs to be filled. In the final when you battle him it is on a grand stage but the surroundings are completely blank, he tries to draw the battle out for as long as he can, unable even to shake Luke's hand at the end because of it. Magnificus is a artist seeking perfection, but due to this he NEVER finishes anything. He wants the cycle to continue in the hopes that he will eventually create a masterpiece but he is simply incapable of being satisfied with his work and leaves it unfinished. The broken apprentices left languishing in pain, the unfinished painting in his study, repainting your cards and his own, he can't finish telling you what to fear, he cannot finish the final battle and he cannot shake Luke's hand. Either Magnificus himself is incomplete or he is incapable of completing anything, you could say he's in his own artistic cycle of pain and so he pushes it on to the others around him. Though in the end it's not him that perpetuates the cycle and releases the old_data into the wild. I haven't finished Kaycee's Mod so i don't know what all the lore reveals in it are but since we know Inscryption was never released[before getting uploaded to the internet] it's not difficult to say it was also never finished. tldr Magnificus and his area is unfinished so he wants to prolong the cycle in a vain attempt to eventually complete himself/his deck/area, but he's a perfectionist and is therefore incapable of being satisfied with his work and therefore only capable on prolonging it further
I really like that interpretation of Magnificus. I, too, was always curious about him since we never truly learn what his deal is. There is a lot implied, but we never truly get enough to sink our teeth into. That in and of itself lends some credence with this interpretation. He was so focused on obtaining a power he feared or keeping it out of the reach of others, that he never had a real idea of what HE would do with it. Perhaps with his prophetic vision, he never saw himself obtaining it, so thought it a needless distraction, failing to realize that having that plan in place would have given him the drive to grasp it. A self defeating prophecy, especially when his peers fear his plans, which often succeed.
Dude I can’t express how happy I am seeing your videos on Daniel’s games, especially inscryption. I will never forget the amazing experience that I was playing this game late at night in the dark on my pc, almost feeling like I was there in the room with leshy. Thank you so much for these deep dives
This was a great video, so great it got me thinking. I wanted to share my thoughts/theories on how to understand the four inscribers, or two pair of inscribers. I think part of the reason you were having trouble finding connective tissue for all four of them was because they were meant to be though of in pairs (leaning heavily into the ideas of duality). The parallels between Leshy and PO3 are fairly strong and straight forward (both their underlings have very close roles/themes, directly serving their goals, both used their old_data to transform inscription into their image, in a very active way). So in contrast we can think of Magificas and Grimora are the inverses/parallel to these goals (both of their sets of underlings are more closley related to there desired state of things rather than achieving the goals (note how both of their parties seem to have unfit members in some of their respective roels), and both haven't seem to have made a move on their goals for inscription, despite both having a bit of old_data themselves (PO3 used it immediately upon getting his)). Given this parallel between these two I think this can give us some insight to what macgnfiicas' goal is. Seeing as Grimora wants things to end, I suspect that Magnificas want everything to last forever; to be in stasis, to CRYSTALLIZE (like his gem cards) if you will. He wants the struggle that all four of them are in to remain and for nobody to win (this is part of the reason I think he is passive in his goals because if he were to take over, then the struggle would be over too, so I suspect he is collecting old_data in a defensive move to keep it from the others rather than to use it himself). Grimora also mirrors this idea nicely when she talks about not wanting to be stuck forever behind her tombstones (i.e. not wanting to do something eternally). This is also reflected in his minions, all three of them being kept constantly in some transitory state (goo mage complains about melting but never seems to finish, Pike mage is a disembodied head that never dies (also makes illusions to melting like an ice cube, but again never being melted), and the lonely wizard is being kept in a kind of stasis (deprived of stimulus; deprived of change)). If this were the case I can also see why his goals would be kept from the player, as they might instinctively side with him on the game staying the way it is. Just to round out the though, I suspect that Grimora's passive attitude to bringing an end to the game is in part due to the fact that she knows she really can't. This is the more speculative part of my thinking but she might be aware of the game works and how they would be recycled if inscription were to end. It would explain why she seems the most content with everything; she's come to terms with the fact that she can't get what she wants. Anyway, thanks for all the hard work you always put in, keep it up.
Thank you so much, Flaw! You have just SAVED my work shift tonight, I'll definitely be watching this throughout the evening! I thought this was still a couple days or even weeks off judging by your post about it being almost done!
I'd say that the timeline of games (outside the game jam games) seems to be Pony Island (For being an arcade) then Inscryption (Floppy disk home entertainment) then the games in the Hex (digital distribution.) But there are things in Inscryption that kind of are interesting when you put in that way, mostly about characters that game release wise show up in Inscryption. I wonder if it was a kind of "grandpa paradox" thing. That said, what we see of Inscryption's videos are after the Hex events happen so the "data" of the worlds itself seem to be thin.
The bar I worked at shuttered today. This video helped me get through it. Great people there, shame to see it go. Old, old bar, people's families going there for 3+ generations old. Thanks for this video. It helps.
You are one of the best long form content creators on the site! The amount of time and effort that’s been put into these videos are evident, great work!
can i just say that your drawing of leshy in the scrybes' whiteboard is legitimately really good?? i legit did a double take. i know you said this felt like one of your weaker analyses but i thought this one was a lot of fun, full of that bounciness and excitable theorycrafting tangents i so enjoy. i also really enjoy you digging into the meat of the sets' mechanics, i was always leery about straying from bone or blood sets because i could NEVER get that gem crap to work for me
2:56:15 I would also love to bring up a parallel between the Old Data card PO3 plays and the static covered Gliched/Random card you can get in act 1. In PO3’s factory the Old Data shard transforms between different assets in the game extremely rapidly and randomly, but by the time it reaches the card state it seems to have been refined somewhat, just being a black blob of pixels. Seems to me like the glitched card in Act 1 could be a further refinement of this idea too, it’s a little more boiled down and instead of grabbing from random assets in the game it grabs random assets from just your deck. The binary you get from picking it up the first time translates to DEEPBENEATH, further linking it to the kraken, old data, and I believe it was a part of the arg. Food for thought! Stay floppy
If I could elucidate a bit just about how each Scrybe's mechanics seem to relate to their personality, at least how I've seen it. Leshy has been pretty covered by this point, but I feel he's the sort of game master who has a good sense of what's fun but an atrocious sense of what's balanced. He'd write the sort of campaign that feels good, but tends to fizzle out in unfortunate moments, like a boss encounter that was so easy as to kill the mood. To focus more on Magnificus, as you mentioned, Mox is a lot like Mana, and in Magic the Gathering that works well. That said, Mox or Mana is a lot more awkward in an environment where you can only have 4 cards on the field period. Magnificus is the sort of person who dreams up wild mechanics without concern for limitations. The GM who world builds a massive world for a one shot game unnecessarily. He dreams big without concern to the restrictions placed on him. He seems to recent those restrictions without a care to anyone else playing. If he were to get his own section, well, I feel like it'd have 20 slots on the board with 4 different sections each with different mechanics, and a MASSIVE over arching narrative. It'd be interesting, but also it would be A LOT. That said, his wider scale view seems to allow him a better awareness of what's going on, for better or worse. Grimora definitely has a more...narrative bent, but at the cost of the card mechanics. Bones work with the other mechanics, but bones on their own as a resource feels, haphazard and lacking. It's throwaway in a sense, and you need to basically cheat to make it functional on its own. Comparatively, only her minions seem to have names. One might say this is because she cares about them, but I think it's something else. Grimora doesn't care as much about mechanics at seems, but she sure seems to definitely care about the stories involved. I get the sense her goal to destroy the game is less of a mercy and more of a spiteful table flip. I get the sense that a card game isn't really what she wants to be associated with, and she'd prefer a different structure for her stories. At the very least, even if her result may be the best outcome, I can't see it as something intentionally benevolent. P03 probably has the best mechanical grasp of all the scrybes. His mechanic Energy definitely forces longer games, especially when made the primary gimmick. Unfortunately, he also has a part I don't want to dive into him...too much into him for obvious reasons, but he definitely gives the least about immersion and plot. You are here for cards, it is time for cards. TLDR, I think they are all assholes.
I'm pretty late to comment, but I always assumed that the slime mage could travel through the pipes in the washroom near magnificus, and that he could look for old data that way. Maybe even through the pipes shown coming from p03's temple because of where you find the him in act three.
I personally saw the 4 scrybes as the composing elements of the game taken form, emerging (maybe through the old data) into a personification 1) Gramora, the story indicated by its quill, the writing of the life, death, and life story of his underlings. 2) Leshy, the theme or ambiance, with his afiliation to nature, but also, the only the music player on his cabin. 3) P03, the gameplay or mechanism, represented by both his direct mention and his robot persona 4) Magnificus, the art, represented by his painting and brushes. I also wonder (and maybe floppy), if the age order Gramora > leshy > PO3 > magnificus, represents the cycle in which daniel approaches games, we know he hires mostly artist, so it might be the case. Also if the separation of the islands. Gramora and Leshy vs PO3 and Magnificus mean something. Story and theming tend to go hand by hand, merged maybe in the The Mycologists. But I dont quite see the relationship between gamplay and art so directly, maybe design (right) vs execution (left).
1:50:00 Luke's shirt changes color between 2 shades of blue during the redaction, Amanda's glasses and general suited outfit remind me a lot of Irving And also the fact they both have the job of seeking and retrieve assets for gamefuna
There are a TON of steambot willie references in ibscryption, not only the card, but its head is on the conveyer belts, was it just a reuse by Irving and the gameworks, or was it dredged out from the asset pool by the Dredger into the scanner and turned into a card? Can game characters reach the gameworks engine directly? The Hex showed they can, even with Irving not knowing
The wierd switcharoo betwee Royal Domingues and Kaycee Hobes makes even more sence when the Angler and the Dredger relate so much to water, the dredger even having a pirate accent, smoking a pipe, like youd expect Royal to do, and Goobert literaly being liquid like water And the melter, literaly melting stuff (with the frozen within sigil), Amber melting ice line (and melting swords), Kaycee mentioning she is freezing, needing to melt Ill use this to mention the deaths/lifes of the ghouls is wierd, most fitting with the time when the original inscryption game would happen (long ago), but Kaycee lived during the time the real Kaycee lived, considering her direct family is still alive and well (meaning she died very recently)
Another thing linking the Impaled mage head and the melter. When you meet the Impaled mage, they mention frying an ice cube in the pan (or something along those lines) and the melter sigil is an ice cube that melts into the head.
1:24:53 the idea of a dancing figure being used as a code was the basis of the sherlock holmes story "the adventure of the dancing men". unfortunately i don't think the dancing men cipher and the lonely wizard match up too well but I'll do my best based on that sprite sheet. from left to right, top to bottom: C, M or S, Y, M or S again, O or R, U, 3. im not confident on any of these guesses but it was fun to try :3 my mom used to be a ballet dancer so i'll ask her if she can see any meaning in their dancing and update this with her answer. Edit: my mom said that the arm positions in the middle row are the 5th, 4th, and 2nd positions. nothing else really stood out to her though
Seeing the slime mage's function in kaycee's mod, maybe magnificus's plan was for them to, in a sense, "Monkey typewriter" their way into the old data? We know from PO3's scanner that the data isn't unique, you don't need THE old data in order to invoke it's power, so maybe their role was to simply create, and create, and eventually stumble upon something of value? Spitballing here, because I also don't see how being made of slime can help with the procuring of forbidden computer code.
As I'm rewatching this video I had an idea. What if Magnificus is just trying to brute force getting OLD_DATA? The Goo Mage IS the spawning pool. Maybe the idea was that if the "deep" was created it could be controlled, thereby granting Magnificus the data as he could have an acolyte simply reach in and grab what he wants.
Huzzah! Time to watch this video approximately 500 times until your next video comes out! I adore having your voice on in the background when I play games, ive watched each video at least a dozen times
i’m really invested in your skits in these videos, they’re cool as hell and i can see how much fun you have with them!! never stop getting floppy with it ❤
Just found this channel a few weeks ago. Been obsessed since then. I love how in-depth you get with your investigations and explanations. Insane amount of effort.
I am pogged out of my gourd to see a new inscryption video, I have been waiting with bated breath! Another fun non-floppy MTG parallel in this act are the Moxes. Early MTG has several Mox that would all tap for 1 mana of their particular color, similar to how Mox work in this! It's great to see all these fun references.
man, i gotta go to birthday dinner with the fam in an hour or so, but I'll 100% be here later tonight. after watching the first Inscryption video, i went back and played it again, and wow, you sure notice a lot more subtle things the second or third time through it. Inscryption has been my favorite indie game ever since the day it released, and i'm so glad that someone as thorough and talented and thoughtful as you is making these deep dive videos on it. 💙
mr peacock this video is phenomenal but i need you to know that in one of my serious big-girl university courses I said "if you want to get floppy with it" before introducing a slightly off-the-wall idea and i considered dropping out right then and there
The first time I read that act 2 intro I didn't comprehend how horrific Magnificus card inscribing process was. He doesn't just paint a portrait of his disciples, he paint his disciples, as in he turns them into paint and put them on the card. And the process is apparently excruciatingly painful.
I love your work so much, Mr. Peacock, the thing that convinced me to comment was the joke at 1:56:13, very clean cut, sir, that was something I could really appreciate I've seen your content since when you started making it, but I really connected to it with your Pony Island video, and I just gotta say your stuff is really brilliant Your humor, your editing style, the way you explain things, it's perfect for the types of video I want to be watching Really excited for your video on Act 3, if it's like *any* of your other videos it'll be worth the wait
Nooooo wayyy I am rewatching that and the Fnaf 2 Hallway sound was supposed to play when it zooms in on my face. That must mean that somewhere in the rest of the video the sound might randomly play! Damn. Well I'm glad the joke still hit! Maybe the silence even helped it!
First of all, again, i love your humor so much. This was an incredible video and i love the way you interpret everything. Second im currently playing inscryption so its fun to catch things i miss in your video. And finally, and i dont know how much this means to you, but i literally cannot have your videos play in the background. Like they need my full attention and i want to give it.
Alright, the fact that PO3 remembers being a stoat and magnificus stays eyeless reminds me a bit of Alan Wake 2! Whenever the "Inscryption" game resets it is not a loop but a spyral whereas theres eventually an end and thus the cycle is not infinite
So I've played this game, did some of my own research (read: quick googling), watched other reviews, summaries, and playthroughs, etc. But when I saw that this video was out, my genuine reaction was "aw sick, I'm actually going to learn all the details." These videos have to take a ton of work. Just wanted to voice my appreciation of your style and how in depth you go. Looking forward to Act 3
Just want to take a moment to give you credit for performing and narrating in such a brilliant manner. It's practically perfect for this form of content - to the point where I cannot tell if it is meticulously cultivated and practiced, or simply your excellent conversational nature coming out (probably as in all things, a mix of both). You are able to invite us, the viewer, into the discovery process with the 'floppy' moments that are engaging in a way that I've barely seen anyone else in this medium do, all without ever coming across as preachy or boring. (I mean, of *course* you'd be excellent about integrating viewer persepctive into the narrative delivery) Accuse me of hyperbole all you want, but I feel like you apply the same wit, logic, delivery, and excitement as the old Socratic debates- sitting about in the distant past also discussing inane yet fascinating puzzles, celebrating in the act of simply understanding a cultivated and elegant system. I'd never accuse anyone of perfection, but... to make a video seem so convesational and natural is a feat in all aspects must require a tremendous amount of work and dedication, and it's showing (In fact it's working so seemlessly imho it's coming across and effortless) Wherever your mind meanders next, I'll be there for it! (Also your videos are absolute garbage for sleeping or background noise, they are too engaging even when it's content I am already familiar with)
I don’t know if this is talked about in the video but I noticed that the themes of the scrybes on each side of the bridge almost function as opposites eg: Leshy=life Grimora= death and PO3= tech magnificus = magic. This might be why leshy uses grimora’s mechanic of bones in his section and po3 uses magnificus’ mechanic in his section
Yesterday, I commented on Flaw Peacock's stream video congratulating him on a year and leaving a silly remark about us hoping to not wait too long for Inscryption - Part 2. And 1 day later, here we are. I mean it when I say that you are THE MAN. Thanks for all your hard work in these videos, they are truly amazing ❤️
2:55:40 The name of the obscured card is !CORRUPTED for anyone wondering. You can just barely see it written underneath the messy text, and I confirmed it by checking the code. Weirdly, this style of naming things is usually used for internal names. Basically, each card in the game has two names, its internal name and its 'display name'. The display name is just what is written on the card, and can change, which is why you can have cards in Act 1 gain an 'Elder' prefix or how translations work. Internal names are usually almost the same, but for important or weird cards Daniel puts a ! at the beginning, and writes the name in all caps, for instance the moons internal name is !GIANTCARD_MOON, and the static card in act 1 is called !STATIC!GLITCH. !CORRUPTED is the only card in the game where its display name is written in this debug format. Not necessarily noteworthy, but an interesting detail.
28:40 there is a very common programming object called a pointer which basically "points" to existing data, letting you access it indirectly, and if anything changes on the object it points to it will be reflected when the pointer is used to access the object (also, they're pretty tiny too since it's just a memory address). It's less like a photograph and more like if the photo came with a live geolocator and was quantum-entangled with the actual object. They might just be referring to copying in general, which for computers is almost always duplication, in that there's no meaningful difference between the "original" and a "photo" copy. When the player collects an object, the data usually gets duplicated into the player's inventory and the original one deleted.
Given Magnifico's tool is the paint brush, I feel like the state of his pupils is not purely out of sadism. It's also a statement of ethos: *Art is Suffering*. Magnifico talks much about the aching of his lost eye, but as a path of prophecy rather than simply a source of pain. He also claims that his failures to acquire the Hegemony also made him wiser, that it may have been better that he did not gain power. I think, where Grimora represents death and peace, Magnifico is about how suffering is a part of life, and that overcoming it is a path to greater knowledge, wisdom, and creativity. This better puts him at odds with Grimora's belief in peace and death, the same way Leshy and PO3 represent opposites. This would also put him better into Spring in your seasons analogy, again setting him opposite to Grimora. On a more personal opinion, I'm also very much not a "kill everyone to bring them peace" kind of guy. That's some JRPG shit.
So this is jumping a head in the plot but I wanted to share a theory I had about the scrybes, and what they all symbolize. I believe they all relate to mortality and our reactions to mortality. The game Iscryption itself represents preserving life through cards, the same way how the disk preserves the people in the game, so already the video game and the card game of Iscryption is a reaction to mortality, and all the scrybe's philosophies reflect this. Leshy and Grimora embrace mortality, although in different ways. Grimora literally embraces death and things ending, Leshy embraces mortality as something that give us purpose, and are pursuit to avoid mortality is how we truly live. However gaining dominance over life or death we can literately cross the bridge to the world of P03 and Magnificus, who's goal is to transcend beyond mortality. Were Leshy and Grimora represented the natural world, P03 and Magnificus both represent human creation and triumph over nature. (Weather that be magic or science.) What differentiates the two is that P03 represents raw evolution, with things progressing endlessly getting more and advanced without looking behind, his growth mimics our own, as our goal as the player is to keep advancing further and further, he is also pursuing his goal of continuing further. This is why the other scrybes disdain P03 in particular, because his goal is to create a world that has progressed beyond a need for death, nature, or magic. But Leshy particular hatred for P03 comes from his fear of the erasure of the need for survival that comes from an always advancing world, and is what leads to his taking over the game; and P03's hatred of Leshy comes from his fear of survival and restrictions a world never advancing, leading to to him also taking over the game. Magnificus also wants to continue to transcend beyond death, but his philosophies is routed within the creativity that comes with the pursuit to rise above mortality, making him more like Leshy in that they are both creators of the their nature, as appose to Grimora and P03 as products of there nature.(Grimora being a product of the end, and P03) Magnificence's art is Magic, which isn't something that can exist within our world, unlike technology, and his goal is to achieve the unattainable. And I think this puts him in opposition with Grimora in particular, especially at the end of the game, because the end of the game is a representations of ego death, and the end is Leshy (and P03 if you pay attention to the stuff that happens after the game finishes) is letting go of their ego's, which Magnificus can't do because he is the personification of ego itself.
I'm a modder of Inscryption, and in the code for the areas, each area is called a 'temple', including Leshy and P03s areas which don't really resemble temples whatsoever.
Additionally card archetypes (ie, Beast, Tech, Undead, and Magic) are also called 'temples' in the code, so in the modding scene we use the word 'temple' instead of 'archetype'.
I was not expecting to see you outside of the EtG community.
Dude thats so neat! Thank you for sharing the information your skill gave you access to!
I truly envy your skills and abilities. I did some super basic quest and location mods for New Vegas and Skyrim over a decade ago, and that covers the depth and breadth of my modding ability. You truly have an awesome skillset and should be recognized for such.
Oh my god I just realized, "p03" as in, "player 03", cause he's introduced third, which implies the order by which the scrybes became scrybes, grimora being the oldest and having the most time to come to terms with death, and magnificus being the youngest and most immature, explaining why he tortures his students and explains his actions in the end of act 3
Dude .. the insight. The knowledge that comes from this channel. The wordplay. Keep it up Cock and all the rest of you.
Ooooh that's a very interesting extrapolation. It would explain Grimoras wariness of her existence. You've then got the warring middle child's, then mag the youngster who tortures his toys like how we rip the heads off of barbies. Good stuff!
@@flawedpeacock I was just coming back to this comment section to ask what the P in P03 stands for, but I noticed it because I went back and beat the game and noticed that in Act 2 on the center island, P03's headstone is in the 3rd position. That suggests that Grimora is P01, Leshy is P02, and Magnificus is P04
It is interesting, what I noticed personally is that he is properly introduced “first” in act 1, then he appears secondly in act 2, I wonder if he will appear 3rd in act 3.
i was just wondering why in the french translation of inscryption, p03 is translated to j03. i guess it's because "joueur" is player in french
I think I actually got jumpscared seeing this pop up. I didn’t expect this for at least another week or two but I guess that’s the real power of getting floppy with it
A fun detail is that if you restart act 2 after Rebecca has finished the bridge, she will mention it when you talk to her next, saying it's a pain to have to rebuild the bridge every time the player wants to try a new starter deck
Another layer of self awareness written into the world... love it in the way it gives me shivers
I always took the "does not hold a grudge" to mean he got eaten by a dog, a beast. There was no malice behind the act other than instinctual survival.
Maybe it is a reference to how Grimora lost to Leshy, but doesn't hold a grudge towards him.
I'm a bit late, but it seems to me like "Does not hold a grudge" likely has to do with the fact that the bone hound he starts the fight with is probably the dog that killed him. As much as he seems to be afraid of dogs, it says a lot that he has this bone hound as his opening card.
I’m even later, but when I was playing the game my immediate thought was that dogs are too cute to hold a grudge against.
The instinct thing… is much smarter.
My current opinion is that he doesn’t hold a grudge because the dog (was cute and) wasn’t acting maliciously, and he then adopted the dog posthumously to fight us with.
(…Which doesn’t really make sense because he seems to still be scared of them when we talk to him, but shush. Maybe he’s just scared on the off-chance that we’re some kind of weird new dog that wants to maul him. Skeletons don’t have eyes, after all.)
I love how Peacock's artstyle is slowly turning into the Hex.
In Sacrifices Must Be Made, Leshy calls the stoat "Noble", and yet here, the stoat is a "Lowly Creature".
hmm... maybe noble is the reference of stoat pelt often wore by nobles in Europe?
I think it mainly signifies Leshy’s respect for beasts, he sees the nobility in even the lowliest of creatures
@@bonefortune Perhaps because the stoat wasn't actually a beast.
This may because the stoat in the previous game was just another beast, and respectable because of it, while in this game the stoat is actually PO3, who's not very respected by Leshy
contrary to what the others are saying, I'd argue it implies Leshy has opinions about PO3 that he doesn't want PO3 to know
1:00:06 About the goo mage, I consider him to be like a polymer that some people use to clean keyboards: like that semi-solid semi-liquid that you just pour on the board and then can yank off again, collecting dust and grime.
Ah, Act 2! I am so very very very very normal about this one. I swear I only replay it once a week. And I've only worked on one mod and designed half a truckload of cards. And only memorized half the NPC's dialogue. Very normal. As Elected President of the Amber Fan Club, this one is very dear to me, and I just figured I'd throw in a few cents here and there, mainly on the Crypt and Tower.
1. Grimora's boss epitaphs are just a minor gimmick- she'll only play the three cards (four in phase 2), and whenever they die she'll replay them after a bit. If you destroy them with overkill, they don't come back. Funnily enough, if you play Mrs. Bomb, you can force her to use respawn and replay the Tech cards. No wonder she's the only one to consider the other Scrybes friends.
2. The Bone Lord's a funky guy. My personal theory for what's up with him is that he's actually at least partially related to the Daemon programs. (Perhaps Baphomet, perhaps not, since PI Baphomet seems to have flesh). The reason is fairly straightforward- he's obviously demonic in nature, and likely the one closest to the OLD_DATA out of all the characters in the whole game. Much like how the Daemons guarded Lucifer's most important files, the Bone Lord rests atop the DATA, like a dragon does its hoard, or perhaps as a bodyguard protects their VIP.
3. I'm fairly certain the washroom at the top of the tower is there to show how Goobert trawls for DATA. The presence of the Kraken's tentacle implies a direct tie to seawater from the plumbing, so Magnificus can just drop him in and let him swim through the ocean directly. Perhaps they're even connected directly to P03's network of pipes visible on the main map? It would certainly explain how familiar he is with them by Act 3.
4. Magnificus' unknowable plotting is fascinating, because whether through foresight, malevolent force, or sheer magickal power, the guy is not confined to the limits of the game. He's directly linked to almost every secret room besides the Kaycee photo, even hiding a sigil in one. He has the strongest connection to the mysterious clock, hiding the codes to unlock the bottom half in both 3d acts. Heck, the guy can paint on the options menu and even add the "don't open" text for Goobert mid-Act 1. No wonder everyone is terrified of him, he's probably the most powerful of all the Scrybes in a fair faceoff.
5. To play Christmas Tree's advocate, I think he's not just torturing his pupils for no reason, or at least for reasons besides just the cycle of pain.
- Green's special cards are all about buffing stats/"improving your own body", and Goobert is tasked with keeping his body from melting.
- Orange cards are defensive, they need to be able to take a hit and endure through their magic, and Amber's trial is all about taking the pain. (Actually, James probably failed that because he was way too kinky to torture, and thus could never succeed as an Orange Mage.)
- Blue cards are all about the mind and ignoring physical limits, dodging or nullifying opposing cards (the Blue Mage's sigil is even called Mental Gemnastics!), so it only makes sense that the Blue trial would remove all outside stimulus, forcing you to ignore things around you and meditate.
5.5 This training actually even paid off for Goobert (and maybe Stimmy, if you think the credits void is canon) since he was able to survive the takeovers of others and possibly even the deletion if the few frames of what might be him in the PI 2 trailer are actually him.
6. Random, mostly unrelated thought: you ever notice how only the Scrybes get their full bodies in 3D? Whether they're skulls like the ghouls or bone lord, just random heads/masks, or a smaller amount of goo, only the Scrybes have full bodies. I personally chalk this up to their sprites sticking out of their dialogue portraits, while everyone else is properly inside the box.
Overall though, great analysis! Watched the whole video in one sitting, and loved every last second of it.
all hail the amber president
oh brother we got ourselves a chatterbox
Seconding all of this stuff! Goobert and Lonely Wizard both evaded deletion and James Cobb's head managed to live on inside the Melter even though it should have died (especially since his soul went into Plasma Jimmy instead of sticking with the head). I used to dismiss the theory that Magnificus's training is harsh *because* it gives his pupils enough power to live on through things that should have killed them and he actually cares deeply about them, but it seems more and more likely the more evidence I see for it.
@@discomacabre1 🤨This is a 3 hour video, we yap here
Dude you made a mod? Where can I play it? Also how DO you mod? Like, what app or program or whatever do you use? :^0
Maybe you mention this, I haven't actually seen the whole video yet, but one thing I find interesting about act 2, is that Magnificus' deck is basically the least synergistic with all the others. It's basically running on an entirely different, almost incompatible system to the other Scrybes.
If you look at the rest, they all play really well together.
Tech cards can be played the most frequently, because energy is the most consistent form of economy, coming back each turn at the next level. Being able to get more of them out then feeds the Beast deck, because being able to consistently get out multiple tech cards per turn means it's easy to get sacrifices to fuel the stronger, 2+ blood cost Beasts. And sacrificing cards for the Beasts will slowly accumulate bones, which then gives you Skeletal cards to supplement your late game.
Then, alongside this quite effective gameplay loop, you have Magnificus and the Mox system. There's some direct synergies, cards that tie two systems together, sure, but ultimately those are the minority. Mox can't be sacrificed, and losing them will always put you in a worse position. Magnificus doesn't like making sacrifices. Having Mox on the board restricts your ability to play beasts, because you have one less potential sacrifice. Because you're disincentivized to let them die, you also slow down on bones. If you build for Mox, it cripples your ability to pivot and use any other card type.
Leshy's whole thing is sacrificing because that's the rule of nature, for stronger creatures to survive, the weaker ones must be consumed.
Grimora understands the value in sacrifice, because she understands that death is a natural and crucial part of life
PO3 recognizes that optimal gameplay sometimes requires removing what's already on the field
Magnificus is the only one who doesn't like sacrifices.
A few thoughts I had during the investigation:
The explanation of Rebecca, that the bridge will be fixed in the exact time it takes to defeat one Scrybe, made me think of world states, and how every change in the game world is dependant on the player hitting specific triggers and flags. Without playing, no plan of the Scrybes can advance. Here we witness P03's power grab, Leshy's putsch was during Kaycee's playthrough, and we will see this theme again specifically in act 3.
If 7 is the number of the devil in Karnöffel, than the 77.7% in the loading screen of act 2 IS a reference to the 66.6% in Pony Island.
"Peacock Control" is my new favorite "I see your Shwartz is a big as mine" type quote, thank you Spaceballs
These skits remind me so much of harvester. Those old school games have such a charm and vibe to them that you were able to flawlessly execute.
Just when I thought I'd be studying...
Let's get floppy with it.
flopping like a fish is better than studying
Good fish.
@@liesalllies old fish.
Sacrificing my sleep card to get a Boon of the Floppy
Wait...Sleep cards exist? I thought those were a myth. At least that's what my doctor told me when I kept complaining I had insomnia... 😊
That is called ED. I'm so sorry, but there are pills for it don't worry.
When I was really young I was always beefing with this kid from school. And this one time he followed me home, all ready to fight me and shit, and when he followed me into my backyard my mom came running out. She demanded to know what he was doing there. So this kid said "I live here". And we just stood there for about 10 seconds, in absolute silence, until my mom asked "In... In my backyard?" And the kid didn't say anything, but simply turned around and walked away. That kid is my hero.
I'm not sure yet if that personal anecdote has anything to do with the the video (I'm about 8 minutes in), but I bet it'll be relevant to at least a part of this behemoth.
I would love to know what went through his mind after all that.
He was coming to steal your floppy disk!
This is my favorite story I've ever heard on the Internet
*_DID HE GLITCH THROUGH A FENCE!!?_*
This is hilarious, thank you.
And knowing Daniel Mullins, it might just be relevant...
Want to point at how each Scrybe seems to be the opposite of the other three:
Grimora is the *death* to Leshy's life, the *peace* to Magnificus' chaos, the *stillness* to P03's perpetuity
Leshy is the *life* to Grimora's death, The *organic* to P03's mechanic, the *wild* to Magnificus' civilized
P03 is the *perpetuity* to Grimora's stillness, the *science* to Magnificus' magic, the *mechanic* to Leshy's organic
And Magnificus is the *chaos* to Grimora's peace, the *magic* to P03's science, and the *civilized* to Leshy's wild
Well said!
Woah
Huh, neet.
Note for the goo mage, we see him in the third act swimming around the pipes of PO3's factory. Now, I don't know if he can swim to find the OLD_DATA, but this ability strikes me as more of an espionage skill. Sort of spying on the other scrybes. The ability to fit into tight cracks and crevices would be quite useful for that, don't you think? Also, the reason he might be in a jar in Leshy's cabin could be that Leshy caught him spying on the angler, or even attacking him when the angler fished up the OLD_DATA. Considering Magnificus's personality and slightly underhanded tactics, I wouldn't call it a stretch for him to wait for the others to do the work then try and snatch it from them. He clearly gets a kick out of people's suffering after all.
EDIT: Each Scrybe has their own motivation for retrieving the OLD_DATA, right? Leshy wants it so he can create the perfect game and give the player a challenge, but he needs to get it first for that to happen. PO3 wants the Great Transcendence, something he seems near giddy about. However, again, he NEEDS to get the OLD_DATA before the others. Grimora is tired of this never ending cycle of power grabs, transformation, death, and reincarnation, so the sooner she can get the OLD_DATA the better. These three all have motivations to race for the OLD_DATA, since their plans all revolve around "winning" and finding it first. But Magnificus doesn't really have a plan. He wanted power, he wanted to relish in the cycle of suffering, but he didn't really have a laid out idea of what he'd do after. So, instead of racing the other three Scrybes, he decides to play smart and wait for them to do all the work. Then, Magnificus uses his eye to figure out where to go, before releasing Goobert for a small bit. Like little missions, only immediately after he's yeeted back into his torture void. It could also explain why he knows about PO3's Great Transcendence and tries to warn Grimora about it.
He’s a hack, he doesn’t even do premonition. That’s just a cover up for goobert espionage.
I've heard this in other places but I wanna regurgitate it here: magnificus and his lot have all been trained to survive ways of the game being deleted, changed to no longer resemble itself and presumably the only one that worked nothingness
Honestly? Amanda wearing sunglasses and wearing blue brings to mind Irving from the Hex. Perhaps she is also an agent of GameWorks? Extra interesting if KamWerks is an extension of GameWorks, somehow allowing the viewing of everything Luke records before he even uploads it.
I picked up on that too.
I feel like he was a bit too quick to assume that the Irving that we saw die was the only one who existed, as opposed to being copied alongside the software.
I do think that there's a potential for her to be another amalgamation of two characters - Irving and Sado sharing a body with one another
@casanovafunkenstein5090 I 100% agree I'm definitely going to make some adjustments in my final timeline!
realizing the percentage in 6:22 being 77.7% now because 7 is the devil's card in karnoffel as you explained it at the end of the video... watching flaupy has expanded my capacity to keep things in mind by 400%
Audibly gasped at work when this notification came up. I'm so excited for this.
I'm sitting here playing Warframe and this video auto played after the video I was listening to was over. I reached for my phone thinking it was RUclips serving me up something I already watched and I was going to see if anything new is in my feed. As I grabbed my phone I was like, "wait, this doesn't sound familiar..." Well, I guess I know what I'm doing for most of my night. Actually, my next few nights since I have to watch these several times before everything finally seeps into my little dumb dumb brain.
Im always at awe how someone could produce a video of this length in consistent time frames. Its been like a month since Act 1.
i was thinking the same thing! i was thinking we'd have to wait another month at least but nah, sir floppy is the goat
This coming out saved my day, I got in a car accident this morning that didn’t hurt anyone but my car and I’ve spent all day figuring out how I’m gonna get around, put me in a real sour mood. Thanks so much for having such consistently great videos
Glad you didnt get hurt hope everything works out for you
This is a whole mood I twisted my ankle last night and I’ve had nothing to do alll day but I saw this video and I’m so glad for the perfect distraction
Speaking about the coputer data stuff at the half-hour-ish mark. I guess other people already have pointed it out, but i'll add my bit anyway, just to flex a bit and maybe someone will find this interesting.
The computers we use now (and have been for a long time) are built using the von Neumann architecture. It means that all the data can be treated as code and any code can be treated as data. Usually, any piece of data has a header infront of it that describes what it is and how it was "intended" to be treated. What this basically means is that you can try to run a picture as a code (and with any luck even get out a few instructions from a photo of your cat) or vice versa. Those headers can be treated as "directions" to how to use a piece of data or what other pieces it belongs to, but they aren't "rules" and can be easy ignored, when you right-click on your favourite somg and try to open in with Paint. The QR codes, for example, are the direct consequence of such a thing, encoding the lines of code or a link to a website inside of an image (there was a video on youtube about a guy who jammed the code of the nokia snake game inside a qrcode, pretty interesting stuff).
So, if we follow the theme of "pictures" (data) being "inscribed" (written/drawn/printed) on a "card" (memory), it technically can be said that you make a qr-code of sorts that when used (played in the game) works as a piece of code extracted from another type of data and executed.
The Pinkerton MTG joke killed me LMAO
Same! I had to pause the video cuz I was laughing too hard
Almost killed that poor dude who had his unreleased card pack as well
Something that only struck me on a second watch--the scales themselves could be death/afterlife symbolism. In Egyptian mythology, Anubis weighs the soul of a dead person against a feather, with only the soul that is lighter being worthy of a peaceful afterlife. By ensuring that your side of the scale is lighter than your opponent's, you prove that you are worthy to survive and continue the game.
One thing with the mycologists cards is that each card seems to have a theme of "searching". The Gravedigger looks for bones, the blue mage allows you to gain a new card, and the sentry "searches" for an opposing enemy. Now the main issue here is that Gravedigger and blue mage have very clear thematic connections with EITHER sentry or field mice but an issue comes about when trying to connect all four. The field mice isn't really searching, it copies itself into your hand. And likewise the sentry is incompatible with the interpretation that all these cards are united by their ability to "create" more of something, as it is defined by it's ability to destroy rather than create.
You could argue that the Field Mice have "searched" for a mate and found one, and that the Sentry "searches" for a target and shoots them down. Alternatively, maybe the sentry "creates" a hole in the enemy lines?
Not quite done yet, but this was exactly what I needed after a crappy work shift. Your use of the Goo Mage's "The pain is unbearable!" line never fails to crack me up. You've already covered a bunch of things I totally missed on my own playthrough, I can't wait to play again with fresh eyes after this series is finished!
Interesting that P03's Inscription already seems less narrative-focused than Leshy's, since Leshy gives detailed, lovingly-crafted descriptions of where you are and what you're doing, whereas P03 seems to be making it up on the spot
I honestly think thats such a cool aspect of their individual characters, showing what they focus on more as DMs of sorts! It makes me wonder how Grimora or Magnificus would run their individual acts.
@@girlrotgrimora seems to be a middle ground between leshy and PO3 and magnificus is literally just YuGiOh
Well there goes my nap
Literally just laid down to take one. Worked a 10-7 last night/this morning and I never do. Guess I’ll keep the streak
There goes my English reading
@@bobduncan939One day you shall be blessed with a nap
You can still take a nap you'll just have silly dreams
Same lmao
I saw this video appear on my recommends and literally screamed "YES"
YES
Same lol
sawyer patel "doesnt hold a grudge" because he doesnt blame the hungry dog for eating him and doesnt hold it against the dog. i don't think there's any story relevance
Your key gen beef invoked an old memory of me visiting a one piece forum back in middle school and being shocked at theorists beefing with one another about a characters power who we wouldn’t find out about until I was in my junior year of high school. Anyways thank you for reminding me of a funny memory and for this video I can pop on during work!
I'm so glad I found you through the who's lila video, a game I had neither played nor ever heard of before then. I don't think I've ever enjoyed 7+ hours of my life as much as the first time I watched it a few weeks ago, yes I've watched it twice and will keep rewatching many more times waiting for more of your flaw(less) pea-content. The voice, delivery, analysis, knowledge and wit delivered through the video game and horror genre is such a perfect combination of things that intrigue my curiosity, with such thought-provoking conclusions I could've never achieved on my own, it feels unreal. I could not thank you enough for what you do here and I wait in anticipation for more!
I feel like the reason Kaycee is the procurer of old data has to do with her being more closely related to it as a representation or possible incarnation of someone who worked directly with the old data in some way
Another great video which was absolutely worth the wait, with those whiteboards even having me notice two things which could just be me getting too floppy.
First is the roles of Grimoras ghouls, while Kaycee is basically confirmed to be her Procurer via pulling up things from the well, I belive that Royal is in fact acting the one as her Seeker for the Old Date as he travels the sea in his ship, meaning Sawyer would be left as her Metalurgist. "But how does Sawyer fit with the other Metalurgist and how would he even convert the Old Data?" To answer the first, Sawyer shares three themes with the other Metalurgists
- the theme of heads (being just a head on a pile of bones)
- the theme of deconstruction (with his body being nothing but a pile, probably being taken apart by the dog that ate him)
- the theme of being part of a pair (The Trapper and Trader, the Melter and Meatbot, the Pike Mage Amber and the Red Mage she replaced...and Sawyer and the Bone Lord)
Why do I think Sawyer is connected to the Bone Lord? Well first he is the one blocking the path to him, but second is that I belive, and maybe Im getting way too floppy here, the Bone Lord is a part of Sawyer that came in touch with the Old Data...the Karnoffel Code, with the ribcage in the Bone Lord room being Sawyers own, but since the Bone Lord seperated from Sawyer AND got in touch directly with the Old Data could explain why the Bone Lord has a presence in all acts while Sawyer is only within act 2, this could also give a reason for the "does not hold a grudge" on his Tombstone, thinking his death was a blessing after coming in contact with that cursed code...only to eventually end up stuck as a pawn in a much bigger game, which is why he is helping Grimora try to end it all.
And the other thing I noticed was that each of the four Scrybes has another Daniel Mullins game you could link them with
- Leshy just wanting to make an enjoyable experience with his beasts matches Catch Monsters
- Grimora being stuck in a cycle and just wanting it to end matches Bloop
- Magnificus seemingly wanting a cycle of endless torment is just Pony Island (with him further linked to it by his battle theme sounding a lot like its from Pony Island and his paint being the light blue and red which are predominantly used for Hopeless Soul, Satan and the glitches
- PO3 meticulously following his plan to achive the Great Transcendence almost perfectly mirrors whats happening in the Hex
I may am way off the mark with all of them, but the fact that Sawyer is seemingly so out of everything and Grimoras other Ghouls are of so much importance (Kayce being integral to the story and Royal being added in Kaycees mod as a boss) just makes me feel Sawyer is hiding something really big really well, and he is RIGHT THERE by the Bone Lord aswell, there just has to be something there
Quick note for that second thing, it's heavily implied that it's Adolf Hitler's ribcage in act 2, I think they go into this in the ARG?
Here's what I think about the ghouls.
I think that all three of them have the names of devs who worked on the game. The first two lines of their epitaths are fairly straightforward in that they represent how their ghoulsonas died. But, none of the third lines of the epitaphs make a lot of sense with how the ghoulsonas died. Instead, I think that they represent the eventual fate of the devs after they finished working on the game.
"The defibrillator failed." - Kaycee Hobbes
Floppy was right. Defibrillatiors are useful for heart arrhythmias, which head trauma would not be likely to cause on its own. If the heart stopped entirely due to the head trauma, that wouldn't be a shockable rhythm.
There is evidence that Dev Kaycee died in the context of a fire at her workplace. Severe burns could certainly be an explanation for a potentially lethal heart arrhythmia. Severe burns put significant stress on the heart, and it may fail to keep up, which could cause all sorts of things to go haywire.
This is a reach, but the defibrillator failing could indicate that there was some sort of foul play involved in her death. If Sado is doing glitchy chicanery IRL already, it might not be hard for her to make a piece of medical equipment malfunction long enough to ruin resuscitation efforts.
"There was no cure" - Royal Dominguez
Here's the thing, scurvy does have a cure. It's Vitamin C, ascorbic acid. That's what all the citrus puns are about. There is a bit of a difference between something not having a cure, and just not being able to get the cure. So, I think that the line is referring to what might have happened to Dev Royal.
Royal Dominguez the character expresses a wish to be a boss, a wish that Grimora grants (to the best of her ability) in her section of the finale. Dominguez is also a hidden final boss within Kaycee's Mod, fully bringing his desire to life.
My personal theory is that Dev Royal died before Dev Kaycee, of a terminal illness. Both were still employees of GameFuna. I think that's why Royal has the full-fledged final boss battle in Kaycee's Mod. Dev Kaycee put his character into her mod of game as a final boss encounter, as a tribute to her colleague.
"Does not hold a grudge" - Sawyer Patel
Who would Sawyer Patel have a grudge against? The dog? The character seems like kind of a timid, mild-mannered guy. If anything, holding a grudge would be unusual.
I think this makes more sense for Dev Sawyer (Dev Patel?), even though it makes his eventual fate unclear. For one thing, he could still be alive, and just not bear any ill will towards anybody involved in the project. That could explain why he doesnt have any presence in the game outside of Act 2, the closest to the vanilla Inscryption. Grimora (and by extension the other Scrybes) just wouldn't be that interested in the one that doesn't fit the theme as well.
Although, considering how actively malevolent GameFuna's upper management is, I wonder if the epitaph means that he doesn't blame the other members of the dev team (like Kaycee) for their actions, even if they might have led to GameFuna killing him.
Something tells me Sawyer and Royal are seeds that DM has planted for possible future lore. This is a very good take on the third epitaphs. I hadn't thought to apply that to Sawyers and Royals thirds.
That would make sense! Also explains why those last pieces don't make sense to the character ingame
i am entranced by your skits and pixel art. dude you're really a jack of all trades... comedic script writer, editor, and artist! loved the ending skit especially. great video!
Something i noticed about the scrybes remembering events prior to the reset, along with the ever-looping nature of their cycle, one scrybe gaining control, losing it, then another taking up the mantle of leader, is the connection back to what was said before: the game forgets, the ouroboros does not.
2D Flaw absolutely Busting it down in the background during the skit!
You're so real for the "Fable made me feel like I have to make the good decisions in games" thing, cause I, too, blame Fable for feeling like that
I feel like there's more to the rhyming of Grimora's underlings and Mag's underlings, but i can't quite discover it. Except,
Sawyer: "Dont look at me!"
Lonely Wizard: "STIMULATION!" *stares more*
Your cat is certainly eager to be a cameo in your skits I see.
1:37:00 theres also a bit of dialogue you get if you talk to Kaycee again after you beat her that im not sure if you bring up in the video where she directly says to you that she is named after one of the developers of the game.
Great video so far btw im loving this
Ooh I missed that but luckily I came to a similar conclusion! Phew!
Another banger from Mr. Peacock. I've been on another big Disco Elysium kick recently, so I really appreciated the references.
Congrats on 1 year/*almost* 50k subs, by the way! Gonna cross that bridge any day now.
3:05 I love how this looks like a 2d beat em up, genuinely like Combat Arena X
They ought to pay you for this video series because it made me buy the game
The very specific Chaos Control reference at the start of chapter 2. Exquisite
Multidimensional travelling characters like Rebecha, Sans, Zacharie are underrated and I want more of them
Sans? Sans undertale? He doesnt travel between dimensions?
@@PhantomGato-v- there's a theory going around that the sans in deltarune is the exact same as the sans in undertale, which is unlike every other character, such as Toriel, which is another version of her. Evidence of such is his knowledge of multiple timeliness in undertale, how his house in deltarune still has snow on the roof, like it was ripped straight from undertale, similarly to grillby's bar, which he uses as a supermarket, to name a few.
@@Rogeryoo i guess that works
@@RogeryooExactly. When I saw him in Deltarune, I just immediately thought they were the same person. He’s just that kind of guy
Fully agree 👍
I'm sure someone's already mentioned this, but both the Melter and the Inspector are actually female! In every translation of the game where people use self-gendering language, those two characters consistently refer to themselves with female language, especially the Inspector who uses a hyper-feminine pronoun in Japanese. This could strengthen the Melter's connection with the Trapper/Trader as being dualistic in gender (the female Melter with the male James Cobb) and with Amber as both being fire-associated women (maybe there's some mythology about a figure like that out there? Who knows).
I also have an answer for you about the strange pipes in Magnificus's tower - it's for Goobert to travel around in! That's how he ends up in the pipes in Act 3, and it's also how he searches for the OLD_DATA. He enters from the first floor and travels down the pipe into the sea where the pressure of the deep water probably feels very nice on his melted body as he searches around for the DATA. Probably the reason that he's never actually found it is that Magnificus keeps thinking of plans to get them out of the next Scrybe's takeover and he keeps tasking Goobert to travel out across the sea to get where he needs to be to help facilitate the reset.
My long comment about Magnificus on the previous video probably didn't sound too feasible to you, which is fair, but while I totally agree that Magnificus's plan with the OLD_DATA would involve never letting anyone else take the power from him again (which would also be a consequence of Magnificus always being the person who resets the game), I don't think it's out of malice. Grimora choosing death for everyone regardless of what they want sounds far more sinister to me personally, and I'm also not convinced Magnificus ever *did* have the OLD_DATA. That's what he seems to imply with his dialogue, and I don't think the glitchy image of Reginald's certificate thingie is solid enough evidence considering stuff glitches in and out of the game all the time for unrelated reasons.
Anyways, I hope some of this helps for your next part(s) and I can't wait to see what you come up with next! I've been adoring this series and putting the videos on repeat in the background as I animate. Very good stuff. Stay floppy!
I just realized: every Kraken tentacle is "holding onto" a uniquely advanced method for calculating attack. Are these remnants of fledgeling mechanics meant to be introduced and expanded if Inscryption the physical game had gotten more sets?
I've pondered on the character of Magnificus a lot, he is the most mysterious out of the scribes that's for sure but something clicked in my head when you mentioned him wanting to continue the cycle of pain. Spoilers ahead for any curious readers. Taking context clues from act 3/the Final and interesting hints from Magnificus' dialogue we can be sure of two things. One. He has never been Hegemon before despite having a piece of Old Data and Two. It appears he is incomplete, or at the very least his segment of the game was lacking.
In Act 3 we finish the unfinished boss for P03, the one obviously based on Magnificus. With the other two P03 has obviously ripped parts of Leshy and Grimmora. From Leshy he gets the camera, from Grimmora he can read your computers files[reading names/epitaphs though it could be flimsy] But from Magnificus what does he get? A blank canvas that needs to be filled.
In the final when you battle him it is on a grand stage but the surroundings are completely blank, he tries to draw the battle out for as long as he can, unable even to shake Luke's hand at the end because of it. Magnificus is a artist seeking perfection, but due to this he NEVER finishes anything. He wants the cycle to continue in the hopes that he will eventually create a masterpiece but he is simply incapable of being satisfied with his work and leaves it unfinished. The broken apprentices left languishing in pain, the unfinished painting in his study, repainting your cards and his own, he can't finish telling you what to fear, he cannot finish the final battle and he cannot shake Luke's hand. Either Magnificus himself is incomplete or he is incapable of completing anything, you could say he's in his own artistic cycle of pain and so he pushes it on to the others around him.
Though in the end it's not him that perpetuates the cycle and releases the old_data into the wild.
I haven't finished Kaycee's Mod so i don't know what all the lore reveals in it are but since we know Inscryption was never released[before getting uploaded to the internet] it's not difficult to say it was also never finished.
tldr Magnificus and his area is unfinished so he wants to prolong the cycle in a vain attempt to eventually complete himself/his deck/area, but he's a perfectionist and is therefore incapable of being satisfied with his work and therefore only capable on prolonging it further
I really like that interpretation of Magnificus. I, too, was always curious about him since we never truly learn what his deal is. There is a lot implied, but we never truly get enough to sink our teeth into. That in and of itself lends some credence with this interpretation. He was so focused on obtaining a power he feared or keeping it out of the reach of others, that he never had a real idea of what HE would do with it. Perhaps with his prophetic vision, he never saw himself obtaining it, so thought it a needless distraction, failing to realize that having that plan in place would have given him the drive to grasp it. A self defeating prophecy, especially when his peers fear his plans, which often succeed.
The realization that the 4 cards the Mycologists can combine (Gravedigger, etc.) are the ones which convert one into two is stunning. Amazing video!
Dude I can’t express how happy I am seeing your videos on Daniel’s games, especially inscryption. I will never forget the amazing experience that I was playing this game late at night in the dark on my pc, almost feeling like I was there in the room with leshy. Thank you so much for these deep dives
This was a great video, so great it got me thinking. I wanted to share my thoughts/theories on how to understand the four inscribers, or two pair of inscribers. I think part of the reason you were having trouble finding connective tissue for all four of them was because they were meant to be though of in pairs (leaning heavily into the ideas of duality). The parallels between Leshy and PO3 are fairly strong and straight forward (both their underlings have very close roles/themes, directly serving their goals, both used their old_data to transform inscription into their image, in a very active way). So in contrast we can think of Magificas and Grimora are the inverses/parallel to these goals (both of their sets of underlings are more closley related to there desired state of things rather than achieving the goals (note how both of their parties seem to have unfit members in some of their respective roels), and both haven't seem to have made a move on their goals for inscription, despite both having a bit of old_data themselves (PO3 used it immediately upon getting his)).
Given this parallel between these two I think this can give us some insight to what macgnfiicas' goal is. Seeing as Grimora wants things to end, I suspect that Magnificas want everything to last forever; to be in stasis, to CRYSTALLIZE (like his gem cards) if you will. He wants the struggle that all four of them are in to remain and for nobody to win (this is part of the reason I think he is passive in his goals because if he were to take over, then the struggle would be over too, so I suspect he is collecting old_data in a defensive move to keep it from the others rather than to use it himself). Grimora also mirrors this idea nicely when she talks about not wanting to be stuck forever behind her tombstones (i.e. not wanting to do something eternally). This is also reflected in his minions, all three of them being kept constantly in some transitory state (goo mage complains about melting but never seems to finish, Pike mage is a disembodied head that never dies (also makes illusions to melting like an ice cube, but again never being melted), and the lonely wizard is being kept in a kind of stasis (deprived of stimulus; deprived of change)). If this were the case I can also see why his goals would be kept from the player, as they might instinctively side with him on the game staying the way it is.
Just to round out the though, I suspect that Grimora's passive attitude to bringing an end to the game is in part due to the fact that she knows she really can't. This is the more speculative part of my thinking but she might be aware of the game works and how they would be recycled if inscription were to end. It would explain why she seems the most content with everything; she's come to terms with the fact that she can't get what she wants. Anyway, thanks for all the hard work you always put in, keep it up.
Thank you so much, Flaw! You have just SAVED my work shift tonight, I'll definitely be watching this throughout the evening! I thought this was still a couple days or even weeks off judging by your post about it being almost done!
I'd say that the timeline of games (outside the game jam games) seems to be Pony Island (For being an arcade) then Inscryption (Floppy disk home entertainment) then the games in the Hex (digital distribution.) But there are things in Inscryption that kind of are interesting when you put in that way, mostly about characters that game release wise show up in Inscryption. I wonder if it was a kind of "grandpa paradox" thing. That said, what we see of Inscryption's videos are after the Hex events happen so the "data" of the worlds itself seem to be thin.
How the actual f$-+ does this man manage to do videos that are so long and entertaining every single second?!?!
The bar I worked at shuttered today. This video helped me get through it. Great people there, shame to see it go. Old, old bar, people's families going there for 3+ generations old. Thanks for this video. It helps.
You are one of the best long form content creators on the site! The amount of time and effort that’s been put into these videos are evident, great work!
Kino is back on the menu
can i just say that your drawing of leshy in the scrybes' whiteboard is legitimately really good?? i legit did a double take. i know you said this felt like one of your weaker analyses but i thought this one was a lot of fun, full of that bounciness and excitable theorycrafting tangents i so enjoy. i also really enjoy you digging into the meat of the sets' mechanics, i was always leery about straying from bone or blood sets because i could NEVER get that gem crap to work for me
2:56:15 I would also love to bring up a parallel between the Old Data card PO3 plays and the static covered Gliched/Random card you can get in act 1. In PO3’s factory the Old Data shard transforms between different assets in the game extremely rapidly and randomly, but by the time it reaches the card state it seems to have been refined somewhat, just being a black blob of pixels. Seems to me like the glitched card in Act 1 could be a further refinement of this idea too, it’s a little more boiled down and instead of grabbing from random assets in the game it grabs random assets from just your deck. The binary you get from picking it up the first time translates to DEEPBENEATH, further linking it to the kraken, old data, and I believe it was a part of the arg. Food for thought! Stay floppy
If I could elucidate a bit just about how each Scrybe's mechanics seem to relate to their personality, at least how I've seen it.
Leshy has been pretty covered by this point, but I feel he's the sort of game master who has a good sense of what's fun but an atrocious sense of what's balanced. He'd write the sort of campaign that feels good, but tends to fizzle out in unfortunate moments, like a boss encounter that was so easy as to kill the mood.
To focus more on Magnificus, as you mentioned, Mox is a lot like Mana, and in Magic the Gathering that works well. That said, Mox or Mana is a lot more awkward in an environment where you can only have 4 cards on the field period. Magnificus is the sort of person who dreams up wild mechanics without concern for limitations. The GM who world builds a massive world for a one shot game unnecessarily. He dreams big without concern to the restrictions placed on him. He seems to recent those restrictions without a care to anyone else playing. If he were to get his own section, well, I feel like it'd have 20 slots on the board with 4 different sections each with different mechanics, and a MASSIVE over arching narrative. It'd be interesting, but also it would be A LOT. That said, his wider scale view seems to allow him a better awareness of what's going on, for better or worse.
Grimora definitely has a more...narrative bent, but at the cost of the card mechanics. Bones work with the other mechanics, but bones on their own as a resource feels, haphazard and lacking. It's throwaway in a sense, and you need to basically cheat to make it functional on its own. Comparatively, only her minions seem to have names. One might say this is because she cares about them, but I think it's something else. Grimora doesn't care as much about mechanics at seems, but she sure seems to definitely care about the stories involved. I get the sense her goal to destroy the game is less of a mercy and more of a spiteful table flip. I get the sense that a card game isn't really what she wants to be associated with, and she'd prefer a different structure for her stories. At the very least, even if her result may be the best outcome, I can't see it as something intentionally benevolent.
P03 probably has the best mechanical grasp of all the scrybes. His mechanic Energy definitely forces longer games, especially when made the primary gimmick. Unfortunately, he also has a part I don't want to dive into him...too much into him for obvious reasons, but he definitely gives the least about immersion and plot. You are here for cards, it is time for cards.
TLDR, I think they are all assholes.
I want to thank you for making me play Inscryption. I love this game so much, it might be one of my fav games ever.
im rewatching all the daniel mullins videos so im fresh when pt3 of ur inscryption comes out :) good videos
I'm pretty late to comment, but I always assumed that the slime mage could travel through the pipes in the washroom near magnificus, and that he could look for old data that way. Maybe even through the pipes shown coming from p03's temple because of where you find the him in act three.
I personally saw the 4 scrybes as the composing elements of the game taken form, emerging (maybe through the old data) into a personification
1) Gramora, the story indicated by its quill, the writing of the life, death, and life story of his underlings.
2) Leshy, the theme or ambiance, with his afiliation to nature, but also, the only the music player on his cabin.
3) P03, the gameplay or mechanism, represented by both his direct mention and his robot persona
4) Magnificus, the art, represented by his painting and brushes.
I also wonder (and maybe floppy), if the age order Gramora > leshy > PO3 > magnificus, represents the cycle in which daniel approaches games, we know he hires mostly artist, so it might be the case.
Also if the separation of the islands. Gramora and Leshy vs PO3 and Magnificus mean something. Story and theming tend to go hand by hand, merged maybe in the The Mycologists. But I dont quite see the relationship between gamplay and art so directly, maybe design (right) vs execution (left).
1:50:00
Luke's shirt changes color between 2 shades of blue during the redaction, Amanda's glasses and general suited outfit remind me a lot of Irving
And also the fact they both have the job of seeking and retrieve assets for gamefuna
The Melter's sigil (frozen within) isnt just a paralel with the melting ice, in cards, means there is something inside it
There are a TON of steambot willie references in ibscryption, not only the card, but its head is on the conveyer belts, was it just a reuse by Irving and the gameworks, or was it dredged out from the asset pool by the Dredger into the scanner and turned into a card?
Can game characters reach the gameworks engine directly? The Hex showed they can, even with Irving not knowing
The wierd switcharoo betwee Royal Domingues and Kaycee Hobes makes even more sence when the Angler and the Dredger relate so much to water, the dredger even having a pirate accent, smoking a pipe, like youd expect Royal to do, and Goobert literaly being liquid like water
And the melter, literaly melting stuff (with the frozen within sigil), Amber melting ice line (and melting swords), Kaycee mentioning she is freezing, needing to melt
Ill use this to mention the deaths/lifes of the ghouls is wierd, most fitting with the time when the original inscryption game would happen (long ago), but Kaycee lived during the time the real Kaycee lived, considering her direct family is still alive and well (meaning she died very recently)
2:50:40
On the intro cutscene for act2 his whole screen lights up, here, no, might be a hint he doesnt care if he lost, he got what he wanted
2:55:30
If P03 is summer, idk, but Magnificus would defnitly be winter, HE IS A LITERAL PINE TREE
Another thing linking the Impaled mage head and the melter. When you meet the Impaled mage, they mention frying an ice cube in the pan (or something along those lines) and the melter sigil is an ice cube that melts into the head.
1:24:53 the idea of a dancing figure being used as a code was the basis of the sherlock holmes story "the adventure of the dancing men". unfortunately i don't think the dancing men cipher and the lonely wizard match up too well but I'll do my best based on that sprite sheet.
from left to right, top to bottom: C, M or S, Y, M or S again, O or R, U, 3. im not confident on any of these guesses but it was fun to try :3
my mom used to be a ballet dancer so i'll ask her if she can see any meaning in their dancing and update this with her answer.
Edit: my mom said that the arm positions in the middle row are the 5th, 4th, and 2nd positions. nothing else really stood out to her though
Seeing the slime mage's function in kaycee's mod, maybe magnificus's plan was for them to, in a sense, "Monkey typewriter" their way into the old data? We know from PO3's scanner that the data isn't unique, you don't need THE old data in order to invoke it's power, so maybe their role was to simply create, and create, and eventually stumble upon something of value?
Spitballing here, because I also don't see how being made of slime can help with the procuring of forbidden computer code.
As I'm rewatching this video I had an idea. What if Magnificus is just trying to brute force getting OLD_DATA? The Goo Mage IS the spawning pool. Maybe the idea was that if the "deep" was created it could be controlled, thereby granting Magnificus the data as he could have an acolyte simply reach in and grab what he wants.
Huzzah! Time to watch this video approximately 500 times until your next video comes out! I adore having your voice on in the background when I play games, ive watched each video at least a dozen times
Man it is WILD how RUclips NEVER shows me your stuff. I've been so excited for this video I had no idea it came out last month!!
i’m really invested in your skits in these videos, they’re cool as hell and i can see how much fun you have with them!! never stop getting floppy with it ❤
Just found this channel a few weeks ago. Been obsessed since then. I love how in-depth you get with your investigations and explanations. Insane amount of effort.
I am pogged out of my gourd to see a new inscryption video, I have been waiting with bated breath!
Another fun non-floppy MTG parallel in this act are the Moxes. Early MTG has several Mox that would all tap for 1 mana of their particular color, similar to how Mox work in this! It's great to see all these fun references.
man, i gotta go to birthday dinner with the fam in an hour or so, but I'll 100% be here later tonight.
after watching the first Inscryption video, i went back and played it again, and wow, you sure notice a lot more subtle things the second or third time through it.
Inscryption has been my favorite indie game ever since the day it released, and i'm so glad that someone as thorough and talented and thoughtful as you is making these deep dive videos on it. 💙
Happy birthday! Many happy returns of the day.
Masterful video again! Looking forward to the next floppy. Also the skits? It's giving Harvester vibes 10/10
WE ARE SO BACK
HARDCORE TO ZE MEGA OH YEAH
What a part man , can't even imagine how much of your soul you pour into these videos
dude your whiteboard drawings are starting to get cracked, that drawing of magnificus at 42:52 was really cool
mr peacock this video is phenomenal but i need you to know that in one of my serious big-girl university courses I said "if you want to get floppy with it" before introducing a slightly off-the-wall idea and i considered dropping out right then and there
The first time I read that act 2 intro I didn't comprehend how horrific Magnificus card inscribing process was. He doesn't just paint a portrait of his disciples, he paint his disciples, as in he turns them into paint and put them on the card. And the process is apparently excruciatingly painful.
I love your work so much, Mr. Peacock, the thing that convinced me to comment was the joke at 1:56:13, very clean cut, sir, that was something I could really appreciate
I've seen your content since when you started making it, but I really connected to it with your Pony Island video, and I just gotta say your stuff is really brilliant
Your humor, your editing style, the way you explain things, it's perfect for the types of video I want to be watching
Really excited for your video on Act 3, if it's like *any* of your other videos it'll be worth the wait
Nooooo wayyy I am rewatching that and the Fnaf 2 Hallway sound was supposed to play when it zooms in on my face. That must mean that somewhere in the rest of the video the sound might randomly play! Damn. Well I'm glad the joke still hit! Maybe the silence even helped it!
Your floppiness around Rebecca is absolutely flawless. It's peak.
First of all, again, i love your humor so much. This was an incredible video and i love the way you interpret everything. Second im currently playing inscryption so its fun to catch things i miss in your video. And finally, and i dont know how much this means to you, but i literally cannot have your videos play in the background. Like they need my full attention and i want to give it.
Alright, the fact that PO3 remembers being a stoat and magnificus stays eyeless reminds me a bit of Alan Wake 2! Whenever the "Inscryption" game resets it is not a loop but a spyral whereas theres eventually an end and thus the cycle is not infinite
Cant wait for act 3 always wanted a deep analysis of Inscryption like this
So I've played this game, did some of my own research (read: quick googling), watched other reviews, summaries, and playthroughs, etc. But when I saw that this video was out, my genuine reaction was "aw sick, I'm actually going to learn all the details." These videos have to take a ton of work. Just wanted to voice my appreciation of your style and how in depth you go. Looking forward to Act 3
As an insane fan of Daniel's games and lover of the stories and deepness of them, I love these videos so much
Just want to take a moment to give you credit for performing and narrating in such a brilliant manner. It's practically perfect for this form of content - to the point where I cannot tell if it is meticulously cultivated and practiced, or simply your excellent conversational nature coming out (probably as in all things, a mix of both).
You are able to invite us, the viewer, into the discovery process with the 'floppy' moments that are engaging in a way that I've barely seen anyone else in this medium do, all without ever coming across as preachy or boring. (I mean, of *course* you'd be excellent about integrating viewer persepctive into the narrative delivery)
Accuse me of hyperbole all you want, but I feel like you apply the same wit, logic, delivery, and excitement as the old Socratic debates- sitting about in the distant past also discussing inane yet fascinating puzzles, celebrating in the act of simply understanding a cultivated and elegant system.
I'd never accuse anyone of perfection, but... to make a video seem so convesational and natural is a feat in all aspects must require a tremendous amount of work and dedication, and it's showing (In fact it's working so seemlessly imho it's coming across and effortless)
Wherever your mind meanders next, I'll be there for it!
(Also your videos are absolute garbage for sleeping or background noise, they are too engaging even when it's content I am already familiar with)
I don’t know if this is talked about in the video but I noticed that the themes of the scrybes on each side of the bridge almost function as opposites eg: Leshy=life Grimora= death and PO3= tech magnificus = magic. This might be why leshy uses grimora’s mechanic of bones in his section and po3 uses magnificus’ mechanic in his section
Yesterday, I commented on Flaw Peacock's stream video congratulating him on a year and leaving a silly remark about us hoping to not wait too long for Inscryption - Part 2.
And 1 day later, here we are. I mean it when I say that you are THE MAN. Thanks for all your hard work in these videos, they are truly amazing ❤️
Your drawings have improved significantly, keep up the amazing work!
"AGH the pain is unbearable!" Thank you for the new vocal stim
2:55:40 The name of the obscured card is !CORRUPTED for anyone wondering. You can just barely see it written underneath the messy text, and I confirmed it by checking the code.
Weirdly, this style of naming things is usually used for internal names. Basically, each card in the game has two names, its internal name and its 'display name'. The display name is just what is written on the card, and can change, which is why you can have cards in Act 1 gain an 'Elder' prefix or how translations work.
Internal names are usually almost the same, but for important or weird cards Daniel puts a ! at the beginning, and writes the name in all caps, for instance the moons internal name is !GIANTCARD_MOON, and the static card in act 1 is called !STATIC!GLITCH.
!CORRUPTED is the only card in the game where its display name is written in this debug format. Not necessarily noteworthy, but an interesting detail.
28:40 there is a very common programming object called a pointer which basically "points" to existing data, letting you access it indirectly, and if anything changes on the object it points to it will be reflected when the pointer is used to access the object (also, they're pretty tiny too since it's just a memory address). It's less like a photograph and more like if the photo came with a live geolocator and was quantum-entangled with the actual object. They might just be referring to copying in general, which for computers is almost always duplication, in that there's no meaningful difference between the "original" and a "photo" copy. When the player collects an object, the data usually gets duplicated into the player's inventory and the original one deleted.
Given Magnifico's tool is the paint brush, I feel like the state of his pupils is not purely out of sadism. It's also a statement of ethos: *Art is Suffering*. Magnifico talks much about the aching of his lost eye, but as a path of prophecy rather than simply a source of pain. He also claims that his failures to acquire the Hegemony also made him wiser, that it may have been better that he did not gain power.
I think, where Grimora represents death and peace, Magnifico is about how suffering is a part of life, and that overcoming it is a path to greater knowledge, wisdom, and creativity. This better puts him at odds with Grimora's belief in peace and death, the same way Leshy and PO3 represent opposites. This would also put him better into Spring in your seasons analogy, again setting him opposite to Grimora.
On a more personal opinion, I'm also very much not a "kill everyone to bring them peace" kind of guy. That's some JRPG shit.
So this is jumping a head in the plot but I wanted to share a theory I had about the scrybes, and what they all symbolize.
I believe they all relate to mortality and our reactions to mortality. The game Iscryption itself represents preserving life through cards, the same way how the disk preserves the people in the game, so already the video game and the card game of Iscryption is a reaction to mortality, and all the scrybe's philosophies reflect this.
Leshy and Grimora embrace mortality, although in different ways. Grimora literally embraces death and things ending, Leshy embraces mortality as something that give us purpose, and are pursuit to avoid mortality is how we truly live.
However gaining dominance over life or death we can literately cross the bridge to the world of P03 and Magnificus, who's goal is to transcend beyond mortality. Were Leshy and Grimora represented the natural world, P03 and Magnificus both represent human creation and triumph over nature. (Weather that be magic or science.) What differentiates the two is that P03 represents raw evolution, with things progressing endlessly getting more and advanced without looking behind, his growth mimics our own, as our goal as the player is to keep advancing further and further, he is also pursuing his goal of continuing further. This is why the other scrybes disdain P03 in particular, because his goal is to create a world that has progressed beyond a need for death, nature, or magic. But Leshy particular hatred for P03 comes from his fear of the erasure of the need for survival that comes from an always advancing world, and is what leads to his taking over the game; and P03's hatred of Leshy comes from his fear of survival and restrictions a world never advancing, leading to to him also taking over the game.
Magnificus also wants to continue to transcend beyond death, but his philosophies is routed within the creativity that comes with the pursuit to rise above mortality, making him more like Leshy in that they are both creators of the their nature, as appose to Grimora and P03 as products of there nature.(Grimora being a product of the end, and P03) Magnificence's art is Magic, which isn't something that can exist within our world, unlike technology, and his goal is to achieve the unattainable.
And I think this puts him in opposition with Grimora in particular, especially at the end of the game, because the end of the game is a representations of ego death, and the end is Leshy (and P03 if you pay attention to the stuff that happens after the game finishes) is letting go of their ego's, which Magnificus can't do because he is the personification of ego itself.