Inkulinati – Review

Marginal battles in mediaeval texts are the best idea ever. There’s a lot of strange material to draw from, and Inkulinati is admirably unafraid to wet its quill in such muck as cats with two heads and donkeys with two trumpets. The developers, Yaza Games, have now announced that the game will enter Steam’s Early Access programme on January 31st, so the wait won’t be too much longer.

Also, they have drawn out a new demo to keep us occupied, and I must say that I have loved my brief time with it.

In Inkulinati, you defend a caricature of your character by drawing in monstrosities reminiscent to those seen in old manuscripts. If you picture monstrosities, I don’t want you to picture bunnies jousting on human-headed snails but rather Lovecraftian tentacle creatures.

You can defend yourself from wild animals or go quill to quill with other Inkulinati who also possess magical marginalia skills in a campaign where you face off against one other. The new demo was fun, and while I’m not sure how many encounters it includes, the first one where you get to kill some wild dogs was quite fulfilling. You see, your character can get in on the action and swing their huge hand with unexpected violence.

Two years ago, we went to a preview of Inkulinati and came out feeling elated and proud of his mollusks.

Yaza claims they will spend a full year in early access, expanding the game with “additional Beasts, Inkulinati Masters, Battlefields, and other content,” as well as adding online multiplayer.