The reception to Daniel Mullins Games’ Inscryption has been almost universally positive since the game’s release, and rightfully so. It combines a genuinely interesting and surprisingly accessible card gaming experience with a deep and fascinating meta narrative to create a game that I don’t think any of us will be forgetting any time soon. However, there was one small request that many people had after beating the game: they wanted more of Leshy’s roguelike in the first chapter. Well, we asked, and developers listened. So, what is Kaycee’s Mod in Inscryption?
What is Kaycee’s Mod in Inscryption?
Kaycee’s Mod, named after the in-game character Kaycee Hobbes, is an effort on the developers’ part to expand Leshy’s deck-building roguelike game into its own full-fledged experience. The developers started building Kaycee’s Mod from scratch last month, placing it in an open beta state that any owners of Inscryption can play at no additional cost. If you wanted more out of Leshy’s treacherous trek through the wilderness, this is exactly what you’ve been waiting for.
Each run of Kaycee’s Mod will place you against Leshy’s three bosses in randomized order, culminating in the usual confrontation against Leshy himself. If you beat him, you’ll clear the run. If you don’t, well, you already know. As you clear runs and enter higher levels, you’ll unlock all sorts of new twists to the game, as well as some lore in the form of Kaycee’s developer logs.
To keep things interesting, prior to the start of a run, you’ll be prompted to activate several skulls. These skulls place limitations or alterations on the game’s rules to ramp up the challenge. Every skull you enable will increase the run’s challenge points, and you need to meet a certain threshold of points in order to unlock new stuff. You can still play the game with the challenges off if you like, you just won’t unlock anything if you win.
Clearing runs and raising your challenge level will unlock new additions to the game, including, but not limited to:
- New cards
- New sigils
- New usable items
- Additional challenge skulls
Unlike in the main game, there’s no ultimate goal here (or at least there isn’t one just yet). Kaycee’s Mod is just for folks who really enjoyed playing Leshy’s game and want to get some more mileage out of it.
How to Get Kaycee’s Mod in Inscryption
If you’d like to try out Kaycee’s Mod for yourself, you can opt into the beta build of Inscryption by right-clicking on the game in your Steam library, clicking properties, and going to the Betas tab. In the interest of keeping things all metatextual, the beta isn’t in the drop-down list. Rather, you have to enter the following password into the text box: “givemeascensionmode.” When you enter that code, the beta will appear in the list, allowing you to opt-in and redownload the game’s files.
When you boot the game up, you’ll need to go to the title screen. If you’ve beaten the game already (and you probably should before trying this), you’ll need to start it over from chapter 1 before you can escape out to the title screen. On the title screen, hold Shift+K+M on your keyboard, and the Kaycee’s Mod button will appear.
It should be noted that as this feature is still in beta, it’s got bugs, glitches, and crashes out the wazoo. The devs recommend making a backup of your save file before opting into the beta, as well as refraining from playing the main game while opted in, since they’re not quite sure how the beta files will mesh with the main game’s files yet. In the event you encounter a bug while playing Kaycee’s Mod, there’s a handy-dandy bug reporter tool built right in that you can use to shoot a polite notification off to the devs.
