Regions of Ruin: Runegate

I enjoyed this game a lot, despite not great controls or "feel" when it comes to movement. It felt like they could have made the town larger, and opened up new sections a few times through the game, but it isn't needed. Just would have been a plus.

i've been rick rolled in the game (yes really)

第二章沙漠地图，最左下角解密，解完看到结果后我小脑萎缩了

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Controller inputs stop working for me mid combat randomly. Leaving me to have to switch to mouse and keyboard quickly. The first female dwarf you meet has a huge beard. As a big fan of both dwarves and beards this is sadly a big miss and a refund for me.

Regions of Ruin is a beautiful pixel art game with a richly detailed world filled with fascinating lore and a compelling campaign narrative. Combat is both familiar and unique in that it features some ARPG hack and slash elements but when you’re up against enemies like goblins that form shield walls you must apply some tactical thinking. The early game is the strongest part of the game, and I have found that the game design itself weakens over time even though the story stays strong throughout. In the end it’s going to be the art, story, and the lore that keeps players engaged. At the start of the game, you and what remains of your people are fleeing an extinction event. A magic portal opens and you’re brought to an entirely different world where there are Dwarven ruins for you to restore. This is where the game design is at its strongest. You have a world to explore, resources to manage, personal goals to reach (like which building you want to restore first). You explore your first world through the runegate and learn more about the history and origins of your people as well as the unique aspects of the world you’ve entered. There are many interesting characters with well written dialogue, and I felt genuinely invested in helping them with their various issues. There’s a feeling that I’m actively making their world a better place which is not something I can say for every RPG. However, at about the 10-hour mark I found that one of my favorite gameplay elements was effectively no longer part of the gameplay loop. The town was fully restored before I’d finished the first world through the runegate. I had maxed out many of my resources and could no longer find anything valuable to use them for. The only solace really is that I occasionally encounter NPCs who need supplies and given that I have near infinite supplies it’s an easy win to fork some over. In a way the excellent quality of the writing and the story telling can exacerbate the void in the gameplay loop left behind by the completion of the town building. You invite some compelling characters to your settlement but rarely are given new enriching dialogues or interactions with them. For example, my friend Sigrid tells me I should come over for dinner and let her kids crawl all over me, which is a delightful offer and one I’d honestly love to take her up on. But it’s just flavor with no substance. If I had plenty more to do and care for in the town I don’t think I’d be as bothered. But since there is nothing more for me – the player – to do in the town I’d love it if I could at least engage in the town as a resident occasionally. From my view there’s a lot of room for expansion in the town building element. It would be truly fulfilling to commit some of these resources to building homes that people live in rather than just the buildings that serve the player’s needs. In the end I still intend to finish this game because I love the story, the characters, and the world. But at this point I’ve got enough in-game money to keep leveling up my companions, I’ve got some excellent equipment and a viable strategy for most combat encounters. So, it’s become less of a game at this point and more a beautiful place to explore and a story to discover. Which is not nothing. For me, and for many players, that can be enough. Though it is disappointing to have lost the town building portion of the gameplay and I’d love to see that expanded upon in the future. It was a successful engine for engagement for me in the first ten hours of the game. I truly do miss it. My hope is that the developers are aware of this pain point and are working on a (hopefully free) update to the game that expands upon the town building aspect of the game or at least comes up with clever uses for the bountiful resources the player possesses.