Stop me if you’ve heard these ingredients together before: roguelike/lite, deckbuilding, dungeon building, autobattling, pixel-style graphics—wait, what was that about dungeon building mixed in there? Whether you’re excited or tired of hearing these same keywords, Into The Restless Ruins brings something new for a fun action/strategy game. I haven’t seen everything (there’s a lot!) as some exciting recent work has occupied my time, but I’ve enjoyed the hours I’ve spent with it so far.

The basic goal is to find all the seals in an area to unlock, and then defeat, a boss. Each area is basically a blank canvas with some shrouded areas that will contain the seals or things like vendors, along with barriers which are dispelled by finding each seal. The gameplay loop is to play your cards to construct a dungeon exploring the area. The rooms you lay down have different shapes (so there is a spatial puzzle with what can line up) and functions, like increasing your attack stats, providing more refills of your torch, or letting you swap weapons.

What makes this interesting and challenging is that each time you venture into the dungeon you have limited time, based on your torch providing light. Not only can you not see monsters as they gang up on you in the dark, but the darkness itself will start damaging you.

Every time you start a new night, or die, it gets more difficult in several tiers (some things, like opening a seal, decrease it a bit). The battling inside the dungeon is auto/Vampire Survivors-style; so you do want to pilot well but it comes down more to how you design the layout and providing yourself enough character power to keep up.

Like any good (action) strategy game, it is all about trade-offs and balance. Do you place that room which you can use to heal here, even though it will block off a shorter route later? Do I take the bonus damage or another card when I get enough Glimour from defeating enemies? Can I even remember which way to go and how to get out without dying?

On this last point, this is a key feature or challenge of the game. You have a limited view once inside the dungeon (though some rooms can increase that) and mostly need to remember where things are (some rooms provide markers or arrows). This is certainly part of the challenge and fun, but also I can see it being a hindrance for those with memory or spatial issues. While you can select an arrow that shows you the general direction to get out safely (you unlock modifiers to increase/decrease difficulty and rewards) mostly you are on your own with only yourself to blame for the map.

For my own part, I mostly could remember things in the beginning, but as it gets more sprawling, with more branch points or different areas to go to, it can be hit or miss if I make it back out alive. The cure is definitely better planning: a mixture of rooms to make you stronger, replenish health and light, and, well, not just slapping down random rooms you like or fit. I was definitely guilty of using what I drew from my deck and adding lots of cool new room cards, more than trying to keep it lean and sensible. I even blocked myself off accidentally from being able to reach some areas, so you do need some planning to not literally box yourself in.

It would be nice to have some options for destroying or changing rooms in some limited way, especially when you make a miss-click. (Perhaps there are some in later cards or modifiers I hadn’t unlocked?) Usually you have some space and alternates to work around sub-optimal choices but when given the choice of placing what you have drawn or waiting out another night (increasing the monster difficulty), you can yourself a bit stuck. Still, that was rare and something experience and learning your deck and rooms helps you avoid. I would err on the side of keeping this challenge and requirement to think rather than make it too forgiving and easy.

Into The Restless Ruins has lots of variety in cards/rooms, each with upgrades that make them stronger or more flexible in their layout of entrances or shape. Plenty of enemies (62) too, a few weapons you can get (the main thing is to get two to have range and melee), but the overall “levels” are mostly blank canvas for your dungeon. The bosses are basically just larger and tougher enemies rather than anything too different.

However, I wouldn’t say combat is a big draw or focus of the game. It would be a nice addition to have a bit more in the way of weapons, powers, and character building rather than mostly stats like attack speed or crit damage. There is already a balance to making sure you get stronger as the rounds go on but this would add some more variety.

As you defeat the boss (Warden) of each level, you unlock the next (6 total, though more may be added), along with stuff like Cantrips (difficulty modifiers you can select). Long term, mostly it is about trying out new things you unlock and choosing harder modifiers. The core loop doesn’t change much outside of that.

I’m not one to really keep going just for the sake of difficulty changes and challenges, or at least not to exhaustion of options (which there are many here!), so I can’t comment much on that aspect here. About 5 hours probably gets you to the point of seeing the main levels, but with 127 cards and 38 Cantrips, there’s a ton to play with.

I think I am drawn more by seeing more of the cards, Charms (power-ups), and the dungeon building than trying more modifiers for difficulty (the Cantrips). There are some little bits of lore when you find new vendors, for instance, though I can’t say I pieced together much of the larger world or story. So, I can’t comment on the longevity and later depth, which can be a big draw for this genre. There are certainly lots of tools to play with and ways to add challenge, though that’s mostly for the sake of challenge itself.

I enjoyed the old school pixel-style graphics with a fun soundtrack (particularly what plays when you are in the deck/dungeon building phase). Overall production is polished without any bugs or issues that I could see. Controller support is perfect, with tooltips and a sensible layout, working great on the Steam Deck.

It is a fun time with a different mix of gameplay genres wrapped up in well put together package. Just don’t be too afraid of the dark or be one to like building corridors to nowhere, or you’ll never get out.

Into The Restless Ruins released May 15, 2025 and is available on Steam as well as for consoles. A Steam key was provided for review, but the words spewed are all mine.