Into the Restless Ruins Review
Build the dungeon as you go in roguelike deckbuilder Into the Restless Ruins.
Into the Restless Ruins. Ant Workshop / Wales Interactive
Into the Restless Ruins from Ant Workshop and Wales Interactive is a unique roguelike deckbuilder where you use your cards to build the dungeons you will explore. Scottish folklore is prominently featured, which gives the game an interesting flavor, helping it stand out in the crowded deckbuilder space beyond its dungeon builder mechanic.
You are a warrior seeking favor from the Maiden, a being able to grant wishes. Before she can do that, she sends you on quests to conquer the Wardens of the game’s dungeons to take their Glimour and return her power. To reach a Warden, you must break the seals in their domain, each hidden in one of the many mist-shrouded rooms. The Maiden grants her favor by giving you the ability to shape the dungeon to reach them.
Gameplay has two phases: dungeon building and dungeon crawling. In the first, you use a limited number of points and redraws to play a few cards from your deck. Each card represents a room or hall, often with a feature that grants bonuses or abilities to help you while exploring. When playing the card, you place the room on the dungeon map, lining up its exits with the rooms you’ve placed so far that link back to the origin, trying to build paths to the pre-existing shrouded rooms where you might find the seals.
Into the Restless Ruins. Ant Workshop / Wales Interactive
After placing cards, it’s time to explore the dungeon. In Vampire Survivors fashion, you automatically attack as enemies come in waves. The monsters drop Glimour, which you pick up as experience points. Earn enough, and the Maiden bestows a new card you can add to your dungeon builder deck. You also find NPCs such as the Hen Wife, who can upgrade your cards, or Wulver, who sells cards that act as boons. Your torch burns down as you go, acting as a time limit for your exploration; if it burns down, you take persistent damage, so getting back to the entrance before that happens is essential. Running through gets frantic, especially as the light dims around you. There’s no map, making it easy to panic when I couldn’t remember the layout of the dungeon I’d built myself. Not reaching the end of the dungeon at the end of the night or losing all your HP makes the curse meter go up, and at certain intervals, this will cause a non-discardable debuff card to be added to your hand the next day, making things more difficult.
I love the dungeon-building mechanic. However, I wanted to take my time while exploring the dungeon, and felt a bit let down by how thin the dungeon-crawling part of the game feels. Perhaps it would work better if I wasn't forced to return to the dungeon entrance on each exploration.
The game features lo-fi pixel art graphics. While not the most attractive I’ve seen, the presentation makes the game clear and has a great visual vibe. The lowest point of the visuals is the enemy design. They feel too lacking in detail.
Into the Restless Ruins. Ant Workshop / Wales Interactive
While it does have issues, Into the Restless Ruins presents a compelling, different approach to roguelike deckbuilders, which I appreciate. I’d love to see a sequel in which the developers iterate on the approach, improve the dungeon crawling, and polish the rough edges.
Into the Restless Ruins is available now for Steam, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X|S.
Overall Score: 7/10
Played on: Steam Deck
