Ruinarch Demo (Steam Games Festival)

If you’ve played Rimworld in the past, and thought it was entirely too kind and gentle, you might want to take a look at Ruinarch. This demonic invasion sim is delightfully evil, and packed full of different ways to reach the end goal of wiping out entire villages.

Ruinarch is less about building things – the build mechanics are super simple – and more about inflicting torture and insanity on the people in the world. Sure, you can just flat our murder them, but if your threat level increases too much, you’ll find yourself facing down a host of angels bent on sending you back to the hell dimension from whence you came.

It would seem that it’s far more beneficial taking the subtle route when possible. There are multiple ways to turn you villagers against each other – make notes of their relationships to one another, and you will soon be able to sow enough discord to have them taking each other out. Steal items from one villager, and plant them in the home of another. Whisper in a villager’s ear what his neighbor is up to. Click on tables to poison the food there.

Or if that’s not your style, summon demons to attack villagers directly, drop meteors on their houses, and set oh-so-many things (including people) on fire. However, make sure to watch your energy and pick up chaos orbs or you’ll find yourself without any powers before you know it.

It’s hard to judge how balanced things are while learning mechanics in a short demo, but if Maccima Games can get that right, I can see getting hundreds of hours out of a game like Ruinarch, After only 20 minutes of play time, it’s gone from something that wasn’t even on my radar to something I hope to be picking up as soon as it launches into Early Access.