Into the Restless Ruins Review: A Fresh Take on Roguelike Deckbuilding and Dungeon Exploration

In a gaming landscape increasingly saturated with roguelikes and pixel-art nostalgia trips, Into the Restless Ruins dares to be different—and remarkably, it succeeds. Developed by the Edinburgh-based Ant Workshop and published by Wales Interactive, this genre-blending title infuses deckbuilding, procedural dungeon construction, and auto-battler mechanics into a single, strikingly original experience. The result? A hypnotic descent into ruins both mysterious and ever-changing.

At first glance, it might seem like a Frankenstein’s monster of familiar concepts—perhaps a mix between Blue Prince’s spatial planning and the chaotic energy of Vampire Survivors. But Into the Restless Ruins charts its own course, not by chasing trends, but by reimagining how the pieces can fit together. And in doing so, it breathes new life into a genre many had started to write off as creatively spent.

Let’s dive deep into the ruins and see what makes this journey so captivating.

A World Shaped by Your Hand

In Into the Restless Ruins, you play as a lone adventurer sent to uncover the secrets of a long-forgotten civilization. This decaying world is held together by ancient magic, and nothing stays the same for long. The ruins you explore aren’t merely backdrops—they’re puzzle pieces in constant motion. As you push further into this enigmatic place, you’re not just discovering it; you’re building it.

The twist? Your deck doesn’t consist of attacks or spells in the traditional sense. Instead, each card represents a room—a fragment of architecture with strategic consequences. Laying down a new card places a room in the dungeon. Each room comes with its own set of challenges and advantages: some may restore your health, others might boost your attributes, and some might simply be traps to endure or avoid. You’re not just traversing a dungeon—you’re designing it as you go, creating your own path toward deeper secrets and eventual confrontations with powerful bosses.

This constantly shifting layout turns every session into something new. There’s no comfort in routine here. It’s a game that thrives on the unknown and asks players to lean into unpredictability.

Building, Fighting, Surviving

From a gameplay standpoint, Into the Restless Ruins is a multi-layered strategy experience disguised as a deceptively simple roguelike. Each run begins with a limited number of action points, which you spend to place room cards from your deck. Each placement shapes the dungeon physically and tactically. Do you carve a safe path through healing rooms and buffs, or take a risk with unexplored dangers in hopes of greater rewards?

Once the layout is set, the exploration begins. The combat is automatic, borrowing heavily from Vampire Survivors’ style of letting the character handle attacks while you focus on movement and positioning. As you walk through the freshly constructed halls, your adventurer battles on their own, gaining glimour—a kind of ethereal XP. This glimour lets you expand your deck, adding new cards and increasing your strategic options for future runs.

But there’s a twist of pressure: your torch is constantly burning down. Run out of light, and you’ll begin to suffer damage from the encroaching darkness. This introduces an element of time management, turning each expedition into a tense race against the flame. It forces quick thinking and careful planning. There’s little room for trial-and-error here; you must remember the way you came and prepare for where you’re going next.

Despite these challenges, the game is surprisingly forgiving for a roguelike. Death doesn’t send you all the way back to square one. Instead, you return with a penalty that grows slowly as your “curse gauge” fills over time. The more you fail, the more the game pushes back—escalating the stakes without becoming punitive. This makes Into the Restless Ruins far more accessible than many of its peers, while still offering plenty of challenge for the determined.

Strategy at Every Turn

What makes the game so compelling isn’t just the mechanics—it’s how they all interact. Each new card earned brings potential. Each room laid down could be a tactical triumph or a deadly miscalculation. It’s this delicate balance between planning and improvisation that creates a constant feeling of tension.

Your success often depends less on raw combat skills and more on how well you plan your dungeon. Lay your rooms in a poor order, and you could find yourself out of light and options. Build a well-structured path, and you might breeze past enemies while snatching powerful artifacts. Every decision matters—and that makes the game dangerously addictive.

The deeper you go, the more modifiers you unlock. These add layers of complexity and keep the experience feeling fresh even after multiple runs. Whether you’re facing new boss mechanics or dealing with environmental hazards, there’s always something new to consider, something more to master.

Pixel Art That Tells a Story

Visually, Into the Restless Ruins opts for an expressive pixel art style that complements its eerie and mysterious world. Each room card you play alters the dungeon in a meaningful, visual way—whether it’s a shadowy corridor, a makeshift camp, or a glowing forge room. The environments feel alive, despite their retro aesthetic.

The lighting, especially, deserves praise. Your torch is more than a gameplay mechanic; it’s also a visual centerpiece. The way shadows lengthen and rooms dim as the flame wanes creates a sense of creeping dread. The light doesn’t just guide—it comforts, warns, and finally, abandons.

Animations are functional rather than flashy. The focus is clarity: keeping the screen readable even when chaos unfolds. Enemy designs lean toward the strange and unsettling, reinforcing the feeling that this is a world gone wrong. The UI is clean and minimal, designed to stay out of the way while you make tough choices in the heat of a run.

The Final Verdict

Into the Restless Ruins is a rare gem in the roguelike world. It takes ideas we’ve seen before—deckbuilding, dungeon crawling, auto-combat—and reassembles them into something that feels genuinely new. The fusion of mechanics is not just clever but also cohesive. It plays like a mystery you solve one room at a time, each run a deeper descent into a world that constantly reinvents itself.

Whether you’re a seasoned roguelike fan or just someone looking for a new twist on familiar systems, this game offers a thoughtful, strategic, and hauntingly beautiful experience. It respects your time, rewards your brainpower, and most importantly—it keeps you coming back for “just one more run.”

Highlights

What Works:

Brilliant hybrid gameplay combining deckbuilding, dungeon design, and auto-combat
Strategic room placement with meaningful consequences
Excellent pacing: fast runs with long-term progression
Atmospheric pixel art with immersive lighting
Forgiving roguelike structure that invites experimentation

What Could Be Better:

Combat animations are basic—functional but not exciting
Difficulty spikes may catch newcomers off-guard after early leniency
Some runs can feel too luck-dependent due to random card draws

If you’ve been yearning for a roguelike that truly breaks the mold while still delivering on the genre’s best qualities, Into the Restless Ruins is well worth the plunge. Just don’t lose your way—and whatever you do, keep that torch lit.