By Deck-building, dungeons and death. Oh my!
- by PJ O’Reilly
Wales Interactive’s Into the Restless Ruins is upon us and, if you’ve not heard of this one until now, pay attention, because it’s very good.
If you have been following along with the game’s progress so far, you’ll know that it’s a dungeon-crawler/roguelike with a superbly unique twist. The procedurally-generated dungeons here, you see, are made by you as you play cards from a deck full of strategic fun that you’ll build over the course of some intense runs.
Each card in your deck has a piece of dungeon on it, and these pieces range from corridors for basic linking, to armories and rest spots, and a whole bunch of other stuff besides, which add boons to your run. It’s very clever. Indeed, we (or me, if you want full disclosure) will be bringing you a full review of this pixelated peach very soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
Now, we all know there are a lot of the old roguelikes out there these days, so it’s all the more impressive to see a dev rock up with a such a fantastically fresh feeling thing within the genre.
There seems to be a lot of itches being scratched within the core gameplay loops in this one, too, with your deck-building, combat, the fun of laying out and constructing dungeons, and a smidgen of choice-driven narrative fun thrown in to boot.
Check out the trailer for a little sample of the Scottish folklore setting at the top of this article, and then check back in soon for our full verdict!
Are you picking up Into The Restless Ruins? Make sure to let us know in the comments!
PJ is a staff writer across Pure Xbox and Nintendo Life. He’s been playing video games pretty much nonstop since the early 1980s, and enjoys boring people with tedious stories about how long ago that really is.