Dungeons got monsters, heroes got power. It’s a great combination despite almost always ending with a dead hero overwhelmed by the horde, but when “death” is just a mild inconvenience the only thing for the hero to do is pick themselves up, tuck their pixels back into place, and start over with the working theory that this time things will go better. A little experience, better use of abilities, and possibly just a touch of a thirst for revenge can go a long way towards extending survival, even if eventual defeat is all but guaranteed. Lone Ruin is a twin-stick action-roguelike that follows the formula to a T, and it released its first demo today to show off the combat and possibilities of its spell combinations. While dungeon exploration will have to wait for a future demo or full game, the survival arena slowly fills up with more and bigger monsters that require every earned spell and ability to take down.
At the start of reach run all you’ve got is the dash move, which provides the usual moment of invulnerability and escape. Three random spells wait at the entrance, and once you’ve chosen one the popcorn enemies arrive. Killing them drops gold, which is used to level up, plus the occasional bit of health, and by the time the intensity really begins to ramp up you’ve had the chance to choose a good number of upgrades to make the chaos a bit more manageable. Each level up pauses the action and provides three options to choose from, ranging from health to player abilities to upgraded or even new spells. Get a pile of bats flitting about, a few of the crab-like critters, rail-gun mages, and floating centipedes and the large arena gets fairly crowded, especially seeing as a good number of enemies are laying down the pink-bullet firepower. The trick to survival is to experiment with the weapons and learn their abilities, such as which ones have charge shots or a precise timing window for maximum damage, while leaning heavily on the dash to get out of the way. The cooldown times mean you can’t just spam abilities, though, so you need to engage in fast-paced tactical shooting. The demo is a great look at Lone Ruin’s twin-stick action, and being able to blast those spells in a dungeon-crawl promises to be hugely entertaining.
The Lone Ruin demo was released earlier todayon Steamand is a single ten-minute encounter against ever-escalating forces, assuming you can survive long enough to get through. Personally I’ve gotten to 6:30 and felt I did pretty well, but figuring out the right build should put that run to shame.Head on overto give the demo a play, and get ready for the purple-est magical combat ever seen.
