Aaron - MrIrelandish
2 May 2023
Ruinarch
Ruinarch is a strategy and simulation game developed by Maccima games and published by Squeaky Wheel Studio is finally releasing on the 24th of April 2023 after being in early access for almost 3 years.
Ruinarch is a strategy game where the player takes on the role of an evil mastermind attempting to cause chaos in a village. The player begins by choosing game settings and loading a map, and if the map is not to their liking they can regenerate it. Once in the game, the player can place a portal and choose from three different demon loadouts: the puppetmaster, ravager, and lich. Each demon has its own unique abilities and strengths, allowing the player to experiment with different strategies.
The player can upgrade their portal by spending resources, which unlocks new spells and buildings that can be used to harass the village. The spells range from simple fireballs to more advanced abilities like summoning monsters or controlling the minds of villagers. As the player uses spells, they gain chaos orbs, mana, and spirit energy, which can be used to further upgrade the portal and unlock even more powerful abilities.
To win the game, the player must complete 13 of the many tasks available to them as they harass the villagers. These tasks range from simple objectives like causing a certain amount of destruction or killing a specific villager to more complex goals like causing a psychopath to murder 3 times or capturing a powerful beast. The tasks are varied and provide a sense of progression and accomplishment as the player works their way through them.
There was an issue where the game would repeatedly save, preventing the player from taking any action. However, a hotfix was added on April 27th, 2023, to address the issue. Despite this problem, Ruinarch offers a unique and engaging gameplay experience for fans of strategy and simulation games.
Ruinarch features basic 2D graphics that give the game a retro feel. The top-down perspective provides players with a full view of the game world and its characters.
Clicking on a villager, creature, or demon brings up an info box that displays a portrait of the selected entity. While creatures of the same type may look similar, villagers and demons have unique portraits. The portraits are aesthetically pleasing and designed in a fantasy art style. Although the graphics may not be overly detailed or realistic, they suit the game's style and purpose perfectly.
The audio in Ruinarch is well-crafted and fits the game's dark and chaotic world. The soundtrack features a mix of fantasy symphonic and ambient music that complements the game's themes of destruction and chaos. The use of these types of music helps to immerse players in the game's atmosphere, making it easy to get lost in the world of Ruinarch.
In addition to the music, the game also features minor sound effects for attacking and environmental fire. While these sound effects are not extensive, they are effective at providing feedback and adding to the overall experience. The sound effects are also well-designed and blend well with the game's audio design.
Overall Ruinarch is a fun game, with replayability to a point. Most games will end up turning into the same game that you have previously played, with you focusing on doing the same thing, just to reach the win conditions. The “memory leak” issue made me not want to carry on playing as I lost some gameplay or could not progress any further than day 7 at first. I do hope that Maccima Games fixes these small issues as Ruinarch is a great concept as I did enjoy my time playing it.
6
10
The Bad
- Unique concept
- Atmospheric Music
- Buggy
- Repetitive gameplay
- Easily forgettable