Stylish roguelite Into The Restless Ruins channels classic Warhammer Quest's dungeon crawling

rockpapershotgun.com:

My lunch yesterday consisted of air fried lumps of failed pizza dough from a disastrous first batch. One of my new year's resolutions was to learn how to make flawless pizza. This might be against the spirit of asceticism these goals usually incorporate, but such puritan edicts have no place here. The platonically perfect slice, like hailstones battering the word 'bum' into soft cement, is a natural marvel impervious to notions of morality both spiritual and profane.

Would the dough have turned out better if I'd sought the help of Into The Restless Ruins's harvest maiden, who grants the desires of those who petition her? Oh. Oh. The 'harvest' refers to slaughter, not grain. Should have guessed really.

Into The Restless Ruins is a roguelite dungeon crawler deckbuilder. A yawnsome genre prospect on paper, until I noticed that the dungeon you crawl is one you build yourself from your deck. Hang on! That's a bit like the original Warhammer Quest, my beloved! Only where the tabletop game used a randomised dungeon tile deck to create a sense of mystery, this one inverts the idea by having you build and plan your route before each run.

To a backdrop of chunky 80's synthpop, you'll begin each night by drawing a hand of five tile cards. Some of them are plain corridors or junction points, some are rooms with special effects. A damage-buffing armoury, say, or a place to heal. You get three build points, which normally means you can place three tiles. Your goal here is to go from entrance to exit by unlocking progressively deeper sections of the dungeon through locked seals, which require collectibles. But you also need to return to the entrance at the end of each run before your health runs out, either through combat or because you've let your torch die. You can place bonfire rooms which replenish your torch, but they might end up making your overall layout a little awkward, and it's possible to get completely blocked out of progression.

Your character swings their weapon