Hey
Inkarn8: First Pages just got a HUGE update!
Since launching our Steam page last week, we've seen renewed interest in Inkarn8 and our free prologue, First Pages, which has now been played by over 12,000 people!

First Pages was originally designed as a bite-sized introduction to the world of Inkarn8. It walked players through the mechanics with a tutorial and a small, mostly linear demo chapter.
But one of the biggest pillars of Inkarn8 is the Choose Your Own Adventure experience, and that wasn't really represented in the original prologue.
So we've been quietly working on changing that!

What's new?
📖 Branching adventures: The demo chapter has been expanded with multiple paths and meaningful choices.
⚔️ More encounters: Two additional combat encounters, two random events, two new minigames, a shop and extra treasure pages.
🩸 Expanded classes: Both Wardenscribe and Bloodmancer have received additional class actions and artifacts, bringing them closer to what we're building for Chapter 1.
✨ Visual and gameplay improvements: A bunch of the visual upgrades, performance improvements and quality-of-life changes we've made to the main game over the past few months have now been brought into First Pages.
🔁 Replayable demo chapter: This is probably my favourite addition! You can now replay the expanded chapter at different depths, experiment with both classes and try different builds and paths.

Already played First Pages?
You don't need to go through the tutorial again! If you've previously completed it, you can jump straight into the expanded chapter from class selection.
This is a much better representation of the direction we're taking Inkarn8, and we'd love to hear what you think!

Play First Pages for free: https://yng8studios.itch.io/inkarn8-first-pages 🎮
Wishlist the full game on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4786140/ 📖

Inkarn8: First Pages by YNG8 Studios

A DARK FANTASY ROGUELITE INSIDE A CURSED SPELLBOOK

Inkarn8: The Cursed Codex

Inkarn8\: The Cursed Codex is a dark fantasy roguelite played inside a living cursed spellbook.

Every page is a room with a choice. Every chapter is a floor with a boss.

Explore a branching dungeon written across the pages of the Codex. Choose which paths to follow, which dangers to face and what you are willing to sacrifice as the book resha…
Release Date: To be announced

📖 INKARN8 IS NOW ON STEAM!
After over a year of development, Inkarn8: The Cursed Codex finally has its own Steam page!

This is a huge milestone for our little team, and we're incredibly excited to finally share it with you all!
If you've been following our development, wishlisting the game is one of the biggest ways you can support us. It helps us reach more players and build momentum towards release.

🖤 Wishlist Inkarn8 on Steam: https://imx.gg/inkarn8-the-cursed-codex-1-steam-announcement-discord?utm_content=discord_launch_announcement
Sharing the page with a friend who enjoys roguelites would also mean a lot!

Thank you to everyone who's supported us so far. This is just the beginning!

Inkarn8: The Cursed Codex on Steam

A dark fantasy roguelite inside a cursed spellbook. Every page is a room and every chapter a floor. Choose your own path through a living dungeon, draw sigils to cast spells, build powerful combinations, embrace corruption and rewrite your fate within the Codex.

📖 The Scriptorium

Heya , hope you're doing well.

The Steam page is actively being worked on and will be available soon, we'll follow up on that as soon as it's ready. In the meantime, I'd like to touch on the world outside The Codex.

During your time escaping the tome, its hold on you may weaken, allowing you to explore the room around you. Maybe you can uncover some of it's secrets, permanently altering the Codex to your advantage?

The deeper you advance, the more mysteries you will unravel. Here are some early snippets of the areas you can visit, I won't solve the puzzles though haha.

Have any feedback? Maybe ideas for escape room puzzles? Or maybe you want to see a type of reward?
Let us know!

⚔️ Juggernaut Inkwarden

Hello , hope you're having a wonderful day or night.

We've been hard at work on the Steam page and demo ever since the Itch preview. I want to dive more into one of the classes today, particularly into the Wardenscribe.

While you adventure as the Wardenscribe you may obtain artifacts that empowers your ability to Block and allow you to use Block Layers to gain the upper edge in combat. Here's a preview of some of the actions and effects in this Juggernaut playstyle:

Shatter (2 Ink)
Remove all your block layers, deal 3 damage per layer removed removed to all enemies.

Focus Defense (1 Ink)
Remove your first block layer and add its value to the next.

Retrace (4 Ink)
Create a block layer equal to half your current block layer

Vengeful Rosary (Passive)
Whenever a block layer is removed, gain flash strength with stacks equal to the removed layer's value
- Flash strength increases your attack by amount of stacks and is removed after you attack

Shield Emblem (Passive)
Whenever you perfectly block an attack, deal 10 damage to your attacker.

That's all I'll reveal of this one for now as to keep some surprise. 😉
Do you think you could craft a combo with this collection of artifacts? Maybe you have more ideas for this archetype?
Let us know what you think!

Good morning/afternoon/evening !

Just a quick post on some of the environment work I did for The First Pages!

Begin the game by entering the dungeon, choosing your items, and explore~
Although be weary of what rooms you choose to enter, bite more than you can chew and it's game over!

You can try it out for yourself over at out itch page! Just hop onto https://yng8studios.itch.io/inkarn8-first-pages and enjoy! If you discover any bugs, have any new ideas or even changes you want implemented, chuck us a comment on the itch page!

Inkarn8: First Pages by YNG8 Studios

A DARK FANTASY ROGUELITE INSIDE A CURSED SPELLBOOK

Hey ! 👋

Our #dev-posts have been a little overshadowed lately by announcements and the release of Inkarn8: The First Pages, but they'll be returning over the coming weeks.

It's been worth the interruption though. We've managed to get First Pages in front of a bunch of new players, get featured on itch, and most importantly we've had a lot of useful feedback coming in.

We really appreciate everyone who's taken the time to play and tell us what they think. Please keep the feedback coming, even if something isn't your cup of tea or you think something isn't working. Inkarn8 is still in active development and that kind of feedback genuinely helps us shape where it goes next.

In the meantime, here's a little WIP look at something we've been working on for the next step... 👀

📖 INKARN8: THE FIRST PAGES IS LIVE

The Codex is open.
Inkarn8: The First Pages is now available to play free on itch.

First Pages is a short introduction to Inkarn8: enter the Scriptorium, awaken the Codex, draw spells directly into its pages, make choices, alter fate, and get your first taste of what lies within.
🎮 Play now: https://yng8studios.itch.io/inkarn8-first-pages

Want to help us build what comes next?
We're going to be expanding our group of community testers as we work towards the full Inkarn8: The Cursed Codex demo.
Anyone who:
- plays The First Pages
- leaves us feedback on the itch page and/or in #feedback
will be eligible to be selected for the Game Tester role and invited into future controlled tests of new Inkarn8 content.

Roguelites need a lot of testing, iteration and balancing, so we'd like to give those early opportunities to people who are actively playing the game and helping us make it better.

Let us know what you think, and what you discover.
This is only the First Pages. We've got a lot more of the Codex to show you. 💜

Inkarn8: First Pages by YNG8 Studios

Draw sigils and survive a living, cursed spellbook in this dark fantasy roguelite.

📖 INKARN8: THE FIRST PAGES | OFFICIAL TRAILER

The trailer for Inkarn8: The First Pages is now live!
Tomorrow, the Codex opens to everyone.

First Pages is a short introduction to Inkarn8 - enter the Scriptorium, awaken the Codex, draw spells directly into its pages, make choices, alter fate, and get your first taste of what lies within.

🎬 Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRC1uQlFnKQ

If you want to help us get the word out, give the trailer a like and let us know what you think in the YouTube comments. It genuinely helps. ❤️

📖 Inkarn8: The First Pages launches free on itch tomorrow: September 4 at 12:00 PM NZST / 12:00 AM GMT.

Those of you who've been following along here have already helped us get to this point. Tomorrow, everyone gets to open the Codex.

Inkarn8: The First Pages | Official Trailer

The first pages of your adventure are about to open.

📖 Play Inkarn8: The First Pages FREE on itch.io:
https://yng8studios.itch.io/inkarn8-first-pages

Enter the Scriptorium and discover the Cursed Codex in Inkarn8: The First Pages, a short playable prologue introducing the world and core mechanics of Inkarn8: The Cursed Codex.

Draw spells d...

📖 Inkarn8: The First Pages launches this Friday!

Hey !

We had an incredible response to our call for early testers for Inkarn8: The First Pages. Unfortunately, we couldn't bring everyone into this first round, but the testing has given us some really useful feedback and also helped us test the processes we'll be using as we build towards our Steam launch.

So we've decided it's time to open the book a little wider.

Inkarn8: The First Pages will launch publicly on itch.io this Friday, 4 September. 🎉

We'll be announcing it to our wider audience throughout the week, but since you're here in the Discord, you get to hear about it first.

📖 What happens after The First Pages?
Inkarn8 is still very much in active development, and roguelites need a lot of testing, iteration and balancing. The team is already working through feedback from this first testing round while continuing development on classes, actions, effects, artifacts and the larger Inkarn8: The Cursed Codex demo.

As we move towards our Steam page and begin testing more of the full game, we'll gradually expand the @Game Tester 🧪 group and run more controlled tests with the community.

If you'd like to be considered for those future rounds, the best way to get involved is:

Play The First Pages on itch.io → leave a comment with your thoughts → share any more detailed feedback with us in #feedback → wishlist Inkarn8 once our Steam page goes live.

We're going to prioritise community members who are genuinely playing the game, sharing useful feedback and helping us make Inkarn8 better. We want early access to future builds to reward the people actively helping shape the game.

🎮 Launch event?
One of our community members also suggested getting everyone together for a small launch event. We're based in New Zealand, which makes timezones interesting 😅, but we'd love to see whether there's enough interest.

If you'd be keen, jump into #inkarn8-general and let us know your timezone and what sort of time would work for you.
If launch day itself proves difficult, we could also organise a follow-up community play session / AMA with the team after everyone has had a chance to play.

The First Pages open this Friday. 📖
See you inside the Codex.

🎨 Classes

@Announcements
Hey you guys! As you may already have seen from the trailers, there are currently two classes being worked on in the game, the Bloodmancer, and the Wardenscribe, and I'm the artist designing them!

One utilizes their lifeforce to deal damage while the other maintains a steadfast position, ready to protect themselves from devastating damage. Which one would you pick?

📖 Inkarn8: The First Pages

Hey !

Over the past couple of months we've been overwhelmed by the support and excitement surrounding Inkarn8. Thank you all for following the project, it genuinely means a lot to our small team.

As we've been preparing for our larger alpha and demo, we decided we wanted to give everyone an earlier opportunity to experience the world of the Codex.

So over the next couple of weeks we'll be releasing Inkarn8: The First Pages.
This is a short prologue that introduces the story, teaches the core mechanics, and gives you your first taste of Inkarn8: The Cursed Codex before your journey truly begins.

Before we release it publicly on itch.io, we'd like to invite a small group from our Discord to help us test it.

We're looking for players who are happy to:
🐛 Report bugs and issues
💭 Share honest feedback on the tutorial and gameplay
📖 Tell us what worked, what didn't, and where we can improve

Your feedback will help us polish The First Pages before its public release and, just as importantly, help shape the larger demo that we're actively building.

Members who actively provide thoughtful feedback on The First Pages will also be among the first people we consider as we expand testing for future builds.

If you'd like to be considered:

📖 React to this post and let us know you're interested in #inkarn8-general
We're excited to finally start putting Inkarn8 into your hands.
The first step begins with...
Inkarn8: The First Pages. 📖

📖 The Scriptorium is starting to come to life.

We've just shared a new cinematic short showing your first encounter with the Cursed Codex.

🎥 https://youtube.com/shorts/UMHSQfF61V0?si=ASaNajPRB8jkuzxp

If you enjoy it, we'd really appreciate a like, comment and subscribe. It genuinely helps us reach more people and continue building the Inkarn8 community.

Also... we'll be sharing some news about our interim roadmap later this week, including what we're working towards over the coming months, our plans for the public demo, and how members of this community will be able to get involved with testing.

Stay tuned! 📖

Would You Touch It? | Inkarn8: The Cursed Codex

Some books were never meant to be opened.

You enter the Scriptorium and discover an ancient Codex waiting on a lonely desk. The moment you reach out, it reaches back.

Inkarn8: The Cursed Codex is a dark fantasy roguelite where every page is a room, every chapter is a floor, and every choice shapes your adventure.

Would you touch it?

gamedev...

🎨Stamp

Good morning/afternoon/evening !

From the previous clips of the game, you may have seen the stamp, a small but one of the most relevant items in the game.
With a wooden base, gold accents, and 4 gemstones, the stamp allows you to pick and choose your abilities to use in an encounter. From slashes to spells, everything relies on this. You can swap the molds around to your liking, but choose wisely since the amount of molds you can use is limited!

Here are some screenshots of the stamp as well as some previous concepts.

⚔️ Artifacts

Hey , Reivyn here again for another cheeky update.

Scattered throughout the tome are powerful items that you can utilise to gain an upper hand over the twisting pages.
Artifacts can change your stats, damage your enemies, alter mechanics and even grant you abilities!

Each class will have its powerful artifacts that will alter its gameplay when you first select it and during the run.
In addition to this there will be generic artifacts available to all classes, enabling some wacky builds 🛠️

Here's some footage of a rare artifact, the Explosive Taxidermy in action:

Hey !

Lots of good progress from our small team this week.
We're steadily replacing more of the programmer art with final artwork from our artist, while our gameplay programmer has been expanding and polishing content for the demo.

On my side, I've been spending a lot of time on the technical art: working on shaders, lighting and visual effects to really bring the world of the Codex to life. It's one of those areas where lots of small improvements start to add up.

A few community members also mentioned they'd love to see more gameplay, so we've been capturing plenty of new footage alongside these visual updates. That means you can expect a lot more short-form clips, longer gameplay showcases, and behind-the-scenes content over the coming weeks as we build towards our next marketing campaign.

Earlier this week, I shared a clip on our socials showing the Preparation Phase, where you choose your actions by stamping wax seals into the pages of the Codex.
I've attached another clip below showing the Action Phase, which is one of the core parts of combat. 👇

🖋️ During the Action Phase:
- You draw defensive actions onto yourself.
- You draw offensive actions onto your enemies.
- Once you're happy with your plan, you put the quill away to end your turn.
- Enemy actions then resolve based on the indicators displayed above their heads before combat moves into the Resolution Phase.

One thing we're aiming for with Inkarn8 is making the game feel like you're genuinely interacting with a living spellbook, so seeing these systems come together with the improved visuals has been really exciting.

As always, we'd love to hear what you think or answer any questions you have. Your feedback genuinely helps shape the game.
Thanks for following along with us! 📖

🎨 Rest Page
Hey ! I'm V and I'm an artist for Inkarn8! Don't tell the others, but I'm here to post some sneaky visuals I've been working on.

Feeling a bit tired from exploring the dungeon? Why not chill for a bit and take a break~?
Not your style? How about some light training to keep yourself sharp in the journey ahead!

The rest room has a chill environment now, a place you can choose to either rest (the campfire) or train (the training dummy). We hope to make the game feel as immersive as possible, so instead of selecting buttons, we made the rest page a moment to interact within the book.

🛠️ Pages of the Book - Behind the Scenes
Hey ! I'm Reivyn, a programmer and misc dev for Inkarn8.
I'll be kicking off the second dev update, with a little bit of a technical talk!

We've done a lot of work on the book, with pages that contain environments, UI and input support but today I want to talk about the environment on events and how we can really reinforce the choices you make while traversing the book.

Before these changes, the pages of the book really only turned when you moved to a new environment, even though you were making choices...
I felt like that when you make a choice the pages should turn and reflect the choice that you made, so this is what I set out to do. Before, we had quick and nasty toggles whenever you made a choice and the page didn't even flip so things just appeared on the page unceremoniously.

The pages have a few textures on them, one for the page's paper, one for the environment and one for the UI.
Whenever the player makes a choice, the page environment changes so the picture on the page does too.
In order to solve this, give the the current texture to the next page, then I freeze the current page by copying the texture to it, since the texture is now just a still image changing the environment won't change it anymore, and so I actually make changes in the environment at this stage and turn to the next page.

With this simple change, we now have our choices being page turns, making our game feel just a bit more immersive.
Here's a little clip of this in action during the class select:

📖 Welcome to Inkarn8!
Hey , I'm Tim, founder of YNG8 Studios and the producer behind Inkarn8: The Cursed Codex.
Firstly, thanks for being here. Seeing over 150 people already following the project is incredibly motivating for our team.
Going forward, our team will be sharing bite-sized development updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. These will include things like:

🎨 Art and visual improvements
⚔️ Gameplay mechanics
📖 World-building and lore
🛠️ Behind-the-scenes development
💭 Design decisions and experiments

Please feel free to ask questions, leave feedback, or tell us what you'd like to see. We read everything, and your feedback genuinely helps shape the game.

As we build towards our public demo, we'll be opening up more community playtesting opportunities so you can help shape Inkarn8 before launch.

To kick things off, here's a quick look at some of the visual improvements we've been working on over the past few weeks. 👇