One of the most refreshing things about Gamescom 2022 was seeing just how unique and imaginative game designers are. Whether it was Moonbreaker’s fabulous recreation of tabletop gaming, or the weird and wonderful art style of Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, the abundance of creativity and inventiveness is clear to see. Inkulinati is a game that falls firmly into the same category. It’s a game of hand-drawn strategy based upon a series of medieval doodles, with every quill stroke filled with more character than most games can muster in their entire run length.
Inkulinati has been on our radar for a while, and that’s due in part to its historically-inspired art style, based on medieval marginalia – literally 700-year-old doodles in the margins of manuscripts. Inkulinati is a turn-based game of tactics that utilises the ‘living ink’. You take on the role of chief doodler, a member of the Inkulinati, and each creature that you choose to bring to the page will spring to life, allowing them to go into battle with the beasts that your opponent has daubed across the page.
Arriving into Early Access and Xbox Game Preview later this year, you can choose from a number of central protagonists: Hildegard the nun, Godfrey the knight, and Master the… oddly Yoda-esque character with big green ears. The devs assured us that these representations are all taken from real medieval doodles, and that includes the George Lucas-worrying green guy. Each of these Inkulinati masters has their own special abilities, so Hildegard is able to heal her troops while Godfrey’s army is built for battle. We aren’t sure what the Master’s ability is yet, but with copyright law in mind, it’s presumably not using some kind of mystical force. Then again, maybe they’ve got a good case against old Georgie.
Each round begins with a batch of living ink for you to use, and a number of characters that you can draw, each of which will use up some of your supply. These characters include an array of anthropomorphised creatures, from whippets as soldiers to donkeys as bards. Based on those 700-year-old doodles, the donkey’s central attack is a gaseous rear explosion that sets the tone for a delightfully silly, but tactically vicious game.
Yaza Games double down on the idea that this is living ink, with each move seeing the character being physically drawn, with your scribe’s matching hand controlling the writing implements. That’s not all those hands do, as your tactical abilities are also based upon a series of specific gestures that they can make. You can smash the opposing units on the page, causing chaos for your opponent, or swipe their units straight off a ledge. You can equip a trio of gestures, so you can tailor your play style to whatever suits you. As you progress you’ll unlock new gestures and new units, opening up the possibilities even further.
Each battle is set upon a different page, with the book having been transported to a variety of different settings. Each battlefield has its own pitfalls, as well as opportunities, allowing the canny tactician to surprise their opponent. During our demo we were shown how this works, with the book finding its way to a volcanic hellscape, opening up a number of fiery possibilities for the denizens of the page. Each battle is given further flavour by a medieval play-by-play, with the battle’s narrative being written in the margins as you perform each action. It’s lovely stuff, and secures Yaza Game’s vision of a living piece of literature.
Inkulinati is joyously different, but it does a fantastic job of matching form and function, with the doodled fantasy lining up perfectly with its approachable take on turn-based battling. Its characterful design will certainly find it a legion of fans when it arrives later in the year.
Inkulinati is set to enter Early Access on PC and Xbox consoles this Winter, with a release on Nintendo Switch due when it reaches full release.
