Into the Restless Ruins is a roguelike deckbuilder—wait, hear me out! I know, the combination of “roguelike” and “deckbuilder” has been tossed around so often that it might trigger an eye-roll, especially since we’ve seen near-masterpieces like Slay the Spire and Balatro. Admittedly, Into the Restless Ruins might seem like just another entry in the genre with its pixel art and dungeon-crawling setup. However, it introduces a unique concept that genuinely stands out.
In this game, your hand of cards represents the rooms in a dungeon, which you expand a bit further each day before delving into its depths at night. Here, you’re both the creator and the explorer. The gameplay is neatly divided into two interconnected parts: creating a puzzle-like layout with the cards you’re dealt, ensuring the dungeon is navigable; and embarking on a fast-paced, auto-attacking escapade through these ruins inspired by Vampire Survivors.
Ant Workshop, the developer from Edinburgh, has anchored Into the Restless Ruins in Scottish myth and folklore, giving it a distinct mythological vibe. Your character, guided by the Maiden, collects Glimour from spectral figures and takes on the Warden of each ruin. By gathering more Glimour, you earn Favours from the Maiden, which manifest as cards. But beware, Curses accumulate as you die or as time passes, ramping up the difficulties within the ruins.
During the building phase, you get a set number of Build Points to use when playing cards from your hand, allowing you to place rooms within the dungeon. The goal is to reach the Warden’s lair while linking up fog-covered rooms that might contain Seals or Relics needed to enhance your cards. Standard rooms like corners, hallways, and crossroads are larger with practical door placements but lack special effects. Meanwhile, other rooms, though challenging to fit logically, offer benefits such as dispelling fog, and providing buffs, health, and extra time.
Time is marked by your torchlight, which diminishes quickly. The light it casts around your character shrinks constantly, so you need to make it back to the exit each night before the light fades completely. Without a map to guide you during exploration, creating a simple and memorable path during the building phase is crucial for successful nightly Harvest runs. Of course, achieving this relies heavily on the luck of the draw.
Into the Restless Ruins thrives on the balance between the unpredictability of drawing cards, the strategic puzzle-solving during the layout phase, and the frantic urgency of the Harvest. Each aspect feeds into the other, and when everything aligns, the game truly shines. Perhaps, after all, we aren’t quite finished with the roguelike deckbuilder genre yet.
