Into the Restless Ruins

Into the Restless Ruins results in many restless nights. The game has the magical ability to melt one minute into one hour. Short cycles of different gameplay types keep things smooth. You get to be methodical planning out your paths through rooms and picking what rooms to fill your deck; balancing consistency against utility. While the exploration part of the ruins allows you to enjoy or suffer the fruits of your labour. Managing to make a straight line from your starting point to your goal feels divine to play, but I always want to start up another run even when I walk through a labyrinth of death. The game deserves a shout out for the Welsh theming/inspiration, particularly in its few NPC's. It also deserves a shoutout for having a difficulty curve that lets players strategize. Do you use boons that boost your odds of success at the cost of exp, or banes that make the game harder? I personally found fun in making the game tougher in some areas, easier in others which has always kept me just engaged enough to not get lazy.

So far having a half dozen maybe hours, it's alright. I like the overall gameplay concept of placing the tiles to make your dungeon rooms you then traverse... In terms of moment to moment gameplay though for a roguelike, it can't really touch something like Megabonk for instance or something similar in moment-to-moment interest/gameplay. Earning the various tiles through the leveling, feels a bit slow. And some of the cantrips you choose before runs don't seem seem to align with what you think they'll be doing, based on the description. The one that says your torch starts the run empty for instance, does not also say it burns down in like 5 seconds, despite filling it at campfires. So, some tiles/or cards do not have adequate or even accurate descriptions. That's not to touch on the music, which although is fine enough, it's very repetitive. aside from these complaints, I like the game overall, it's just not all it could be for the concept, I'd like to see run with in a future game by someone. I wouldn't buy at full price, but in a bundle for cheap it may be an okay buy as something to play.