Tony Gowland

Project Introduction

Into the Restless Ruins is a roguelike deckbuilder set in Scottish mythology.
Each game turn is in two phases - first players use a deck of cards, representing rooms and corridors, to grow the labyrinth of the ruins. Rooms will affect the player's stats, cards, and hand. Their overall goal is to activate four seals that are randomly placed at the start of the game. They can see where these seals are, but also have decoys to lead them astray.

The second phase is auto-battle through the ruins, against a time limit of their ever-dwindling torch light. Players can interact with rooms for bonuses in this phase as well - different rooms require longer holding of the button, so this is something the player needs to balance against their timer.

During the second phase the player must always try to recover a relic that is randomly placed as a distant spot in the ruins, and bring it back to the entrance. The conflict between needing to go to activate the seals, and needing to collect and return the relic, provides more friction and requires more tactical though by the player on how they lay out their dungeon.

Monsters defeated during the auto-battling drop "Glimour" - the game's version of XP. Collecting enough will earn them a favour from the Harvest Maiden of Scottish folklore (a tricky spirit who only has their own interests at heart) - and this is how the player manipulates their deck, earning new cards.

About Developer

Ant Workshop is a small company of 6, of which only 3 people have been working on Restless Ruins. The company was founded in 2015 by Tony Gowland, after stints working at Rockstar and Activision.

We focus on developing our own IP, and Into the Restless Ruins is our fourth title.