As fun as dungeon crawling can be, being dungeon master is often just as rewarding. Pacing out the rooms, threats, and treasure offers a particular kind of satisfaction. New roguelike Into the Restless Ruins blends the two through deckbuilding, where you build out the map each night using different cards, creating more rooms for your hero to fight through. It’s a captivating combo, all rooted in Scottish folklore, and there’s now a new demo for you to try.
The night is your enemy in Into the Restless Ruins, as the roguelike has you venturing forth to pick up Glimour amid all manner of terrors. You go until your torch is extinguished and you’re plunged into darkness, at which point the next turn begins and you start laying down more pathways. What you’re able to deploy depends on the amount of Glimour you have, creating an engine of exploration and strategy.
The fantasy game puts you in charge of the map and the adventurer in tandem. You want to make sure the hero can handle the obstacles in front of them, but there needs to be some escalation so you can access better cards to push forward the narrative. The mythical Harvest Maiden can provide favors, and other characters offer resources and items in exchange for relics uncovered along the way.
It’s reminiscent of 2021’s Loop Hero, where the challenge was to place monsters in front of a warrior who’s walking endless laps of a set path. Into the Restless Ruins escalates this by giving you more control of the hero and the corridors in front of them, zooming in as they auto-battle through whatever calamity you’ve created. The combat and graphical style evokes horror game Vampire Survivors, though with much tighter spaces.
It all combines quite well, with the deckbuilding RNG making every playthrough distinct. It’s the kind of game you can play in short bursts, or really sink a lot of time into if you’re on a roll.
The Scottish backdrop helps as well. We’ve had a couple of games use the folklore of Scotland lately, the recent stop-motion action game Judero being particularly notable. Into the Restless Ruins is another fine addition to the growing trend, based on early impressions. Considering developer Ant Workshop features talent that’s worked on Call of Duty and GTA, you’d expect strong results.
Into the Restless Ruins has a demo available on Steam now, with full release due for Q1 2025. You can find out more on its Steam page here.
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