Medieval history in video games tends to focus on military matters.Age of Empires,Crusader Kings, andTotal Warportray the ceaseless warfare of the era, with plague-ridden peasants toiling to feed armies fighting bloody battles in the name of their king or god.Inkulinatishows a deep love for medieval history from a different angle, paying loving homage to the period’s strangest and most iconic art form: marginalia.
Inkulinati has been in early access since January 2023, and launches for PC and all major consoles on February 22
With the printing press still centuries off, medieval monks spent their lives copying books by hand; usually, but not always, Bibles. This was exactly as tedious as it sounds, so the monks would doodle in the margins. When religious images like angels and saints got boring, they started drawing whatever they felt like; anthropomorphic rabbits arrayed for battle, devils enacting creative punishments on sinful mortals, and snails with human genitalia for heads, to name a few. In Inkulinati, these drawings come to life on the parchment, inviting players to command squads of poo-flinging monkeys and pious, mace-wielding dogs in a war for dominance over the page.
Inkulinati’s key selling point is its visual style and sense of humor. It’s brimming with Easter Eggs and in-jokes for medieval history buffs, with cameos from notable figures like Hildegard von Bingen, Dante Alighieri, and St. Francis of Assisi alongside minor details like alestakes hung over the entrance to inns and taverns. The dialogue has an anything-goes attitude reminiscent of kids playing with action figures - it’s silly, yes, and at times walks right up to the fourth wall to tap on it, but it all makes perfect sense within the world the game has created.
Inkulinati is a roguelite; on each run, you’ll face a series of progressively harder battles, culminating with boss fights against the aforementioned luminaries of medieval Catholic theology. Fights are won by drawing and commanding a small army of doodled Beasts, each with a species and class that determines their abilities. In many battles, your character will draw themselves on the page as well, giving them an avatar through which to command the troops.
Unlike most tactical turn-based games, Inkulinati uses a side view reminiscent, of all things, ofDonkey Kong. Beasts must use ladders to move between platforms, and anyone pushed off a platform immediately dies. That’s a huge part of the game’s strategy, since pushed Beasts and objects will continue to move until they find an empty space or fall off the edge. Spears, bows, and more unique weapons like flung pots of stew open up tactical options for taking down enemies on faraway platforms.
After each run, you’ll unlock more beasts to draw, allowing you to create new builds and strategies in subsequent campaigns. Foxes steal enemy resources with their attacks, pigeons get bonuses when they flock together, and rabbits expose their butts to enemies, stunning them, then kneel for a quick prayer. As you would expect.
Snails - the ordinary, non-phallic kind to preserve the game’s E Rating - are slow but powerful, able to devour any foe in a single bite.
Topping off the game’s tactical gameplay are Hand Actions, which allow the scribe drawing the page to nudge characters around, smudge them for damage, or draw little halos around their heads to buff them. The animations for these divine interventions are something straight out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a perfect fit for Inkulinati’s infectious silliness.
For all its irreverence, Inkulinati is also steeped in medieval religious culture, which wasn’t all Latin masses and flagellation. Its most unique mechanics come from Anointed units - cat bishops and wolf pilgrims whose human equivalents were responsible for the spread of knowledge and terrible conflicts in equal measure. Pilgrims don’t have any attacks but offer powerful defensive buffs. When drawn, they’re given a destination on the page; if they reach it, the player gets a reward. Bishops, on the other hand, can both attack and heal, and they deal double damage to any unit that has previously damaged an Anointed unit. Don’t mess with the Church.
Whether you’re just in it for the vibes or you’re a history nerd like me, Inkulinati offers plenty of replay value, especially once you’ve unlocked more Beasts and can really get to tinkering with builds. The visual style may be the star of the show, but underneath the farting donkey bards and dancing-plague skeletons is a competent, compelling roguelite that will keep you up well into the night like a monk copying a manuscript by candlelight.
