This is an Early Access Review and as such opinions are based solely on the state of the game at the time of review and subject to change as development progresses leading up to final release.
Early Access Review reflects game prior to 3/13/2023 update.
An ink-drawn fox brandishing a spear marches across the battlefield up to my sword wielding dog and pushes him off the edge of the map. I listen to my poor dog howl the whole way down as he plummets to his death and can’t help but snicker at the situation. Inkulinati is a comedic turn-based strategy game with medieval manuscript-inspired art that pops off the screen. It’s easy to learn out of the gate, but don’t let its moments of slapstick comedy fool you. It’s a tough game where player error is punished, sometimes in hilarious fashion. Where the laughs stop are the moments where the game’s balance issues rise to the surface. Beast units in the current build of the game range from the well balanced, to the stupidly overpowered. Yaza Games still has some time to smooth down the edges ahead of the full release, but in its current state it might be best to wait for the ink to dry, before you hop in.
Anyone who has played any iteration of the Worms series will feel right at home in Inkulinati’s 2D turn-based combat encounters. The game does an amazing job of onboarding players and sharing important information in bitesize chunks that keep things from getting overwhelming. The titular Inkulinati are artists who practice the art of hand drawn combat, by drawing weapon-wielding beast units to battle it out with opposing Inkulinatis. The winner is the last artist standing. Beasts are drawn using a magical living ink. Both sides have a set amount of ink at the start of each battle and can collect more as the fight wages on. You are given three beast units at the start of the campaign but can gain more through winning encounters or purchasing them from shops in the overworld map. Each beast comes with a unique set of abilities, but they don’t really start to get interesting until you get out of the early sets of rabbit and dog (of which each feature their own swordsman, spear-wielder, and archer.) The fun in building your army comes in mixing and matching the beasts and their abilities to find the ideal roster, especially when getting into later beasts with better abilities.
Inkulinati’s campaign takes you on a journey to revive your master after Death kills him at a party. There’s little story, but what is here is light-hearted and never takes itself too seriously. Your journey will take you across a handful of mini-maps completing combat encounters, random events, and eventually taking on each area’s boss. Random events require you to make a decision that will cost or grant you some of the game’s resources. None of these events really do much to add flavor to the game’s world, but I did find myself using them to prioritize hoarding ink for my upcoming battles. Players are given three quills at the start of the game that serve as lives. Lose all of them (trust me you will) and you’re forced to start the campaign over.
Being successful in combat encounters depends on your ink management and controlling the spaces around you. Drawing the wrong beast for an encounter or placing them in the wrong spot can put you behind in a fight where you already may be starting at a disadvantage. For example, spamming sword-wielding dogs on a multi-level battlefield will do you no favors, while the enemy pelts you from above with projectiles. Playing a beast too close to your Inkulinati can result in your artists catching some damage by proxy or even worse, could put them in position to getting pushed off the battlefield, instantly losing you the battle.
The game limits you to five beast companions at any given time in an encounter. It’s a good choice that keeps one side from running away with things, but in instances when both sides have a full roster, battlefields do start to feel claustrophobic. This is where the balance issues in the game unmask themselves. Later sets of beasts come with abilities that reach way too far out. The donkey, a lovely unit that farts into a horn to stun enemies, can stun enemies up to three spaces away, and one space up. This is problematic in the fact that a well-placed donkey can stun a majority, if not all (Inkunati too) of your team. Another later beast is a floating bear head that can move between the levels of a map. Upon its death, the bear head explodes and deals damage across five spaces.
For a unit with high maneuverability, this creates situations where your Inkulanti, who can only draw new units a space or two away from themself, can become pinned down early in a fight. The imbalance stands out even more when you get your hands on these beasts and start running through encounters. Don’t get me wrong, the beasts mentioned are fun to play, but after a while it does feel like they take all of the challenge out of the game. There’s no one size fits all solution to the balance issues, but I do think bigger battlefields could go a long way in helping curb those beasts that are running amok.
There are some features that do their best to help bring more balance to the game. Players start each run of the campaign with three hand abilities. These abilities are great for getting out of a pinch. Some give you the ability to slide units one space over, others wake up units to make another move in the same turn. Passive abilities are also great for giving you an extra leg up. One of the early passives grants some health to all of your beasts at the start of a new turn. You unlock additional hand and passive abilities throughout the campaign. Just like the beasts, the fun comes in mixing and matching these different abilities. I’m excited to see how the developer builds upon this foundation and what other abilities they cook up as 1.0 draws closer.
Another standout feature is the ability for your Iknulinati to get bored with drawing certain beasts. Their boredom increases with each repetition. The more you draw a beast, the more ink it will cost the next time you want to draw it. This is great for reeling in spam and forces you to try other beasts. I do wonder if beasts would benefit from a cooldown period, like the hand abilities have. Longer fights, especially ones where ink started to pile up, would turn into spam slugfests, as I churned out donkey after donkey. The game does a good job of giving you opportunities to lower these costs through random events. Costs also go down after losing encounters.
Gaining prestige throughout a campaign run unlocks more starting beasts and abilities for players. These new sets of beasts and abilities do change things up a little bit, and I can’t help but think Into the Breach when deciding on what team of three to bring into my next run. I did wonder what would keep bringing me back to try out new sets, especially when I had already experienced some of what those sets had to offer in a previous run. You can also swap out your Inkulanti, but this option is cosmetic more than anything.
At the moment, there is only local multiplayer, with players having to switch off and on, on the same computer. It’s not the ideal way to experience the game, especially with having to switch for every beast, but as much as I think Inkulinati would benefit from online multiplayer, I think the focus on balance is much more important.
Inkulinati looks great. The entire bestiary of hand drawn critters jumps off the page and feel right at home in a medieval manuscript. There are good bones here with plenty of fun and laughs to be had in the opening hours. As things ramp, the fun and laughs disappear as you’re overpowered by the flatulence of a donkey or the alluring tunes of a skeleton band. The balance problems are a blemish that keep Inkulinati from being an automatic recommendation. Yaza Games has already confirmed balance is on the way (they just released some fixes on March 13, as I’m writing this), but until full release, I have my reservations about Inkulinati being worth the paper it is written on.
