From Paper to Pixels: Horrific Remediation in Inscryption

"From Paper to Pixels: Horrific Remediation in Inscryption" examines how Daniel Mullins' hybrid analogue-digital game produces horror by oscillating between immediacy and hypermediacy, drawing on Bolter and Grusin's remediation theory. The central thesis is that Inscryption resolves the difficulty of conveying dread in a digital medium, which lacks tactile presence, by remediating the experience of playing a card game at a physical table, then subverting that familiar comfort into unease. The analysis concentrates on the cabin environment of Act One and rests on qualitative textual analysis, gameplay observation, and secondary scholarship rather than quantitative data.

The authors argue that the game's low-poly, nostalgic aesthetic functions through Dolan's hauntological framework, in which familiar formats are corrupted into something unknowable. Inscryption escalates this effect through forced remediation, including the incorporation of the player's own files and metafictional alternate reality game elements. Its skeuomorphic interface serves a dual purpose: it teaches mechanics subtly and grounds the opening act's atmosphere, before the tangible cards and table are turned into sources of dread rather than comfort.

The paper situates Inscryption within skeuomorphic design traditions and analogue horror, comparing it to works such as Pony Island and Doki Doki Literature Club!. Its conclusions hold that the interplay of immersion, metafictional self-awareness, and false nostalgia establishes the game as a template for future horror and for hybrid analogue-digital design, particularly in immersive technologies. The authors observe that such metafictional, nostalgia-driven horror remains concentrated in independent titles, though acclaimed examples like Inscryption and Undertale suggest a fruitful direction for further research.