Ruins 

• Designer: John D. Clair
• Publisher: Allplay
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 13+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Craft unique, transparent cards in this shedding game where you uncover ancient ruins and find treasure. On your turn, upgrade a card and play it. Upgrades can stack into wild, game-altering combinations (like a card that equals four 11’s!). You get to claim one card the entire game–how will you construct the perfect combo? Race to play your last card and score!

The game has two different decks of cards – there are ruin cards (double-sided) which are already in sleeves.  At the start of the game, all the ruin cards are day-side up (meaning the night side is face down).  There is also a deck of transparent discovery cards.  Each of these decks is shuffled. The four market tokens are placed in a row on the table and each has a faceup discovery card placed beneath it.  Each player takes a player aid, the 2 matching claim cards and three torch tokens.  Each player gets a hand of 9 ruin cards dealt to them.

The game is played over a series of rounds, and the goal in each round is to play your ruin cards faster than your opponents.  At the start of each round, each player may secretly choose one ruin card to flip over from the day side to the night side.  This flip can change the rank of the card as well as the discovery effect.

Card play is a very basic climbing game.  The lead player plays any set (any number of cards that have the same rank).  Then, going clockwise, players may play any set of exactly the same number of cards but they must be of equal or higher rank than the previous play.  If you pass, you are not out for the round.  If you play a set which is the exact same as the previous play, the next player in turn order is forced to pass their turn.  When all players but one have passed in a row, the remaining player wins the trick; all the played cards are discarded and the winner gets to lead any set they want to start the next trick.

Whenever you play a card (i.e. do not pass), you have the opportunity to upgrade the ruin card(s) that you are playing.  You could add a claim to a card – each player starts the game with 2 claim cards.  When you add your claim card, you will get this card in every hand for the rest of the game.  In future rounds, any player that is dealt a card with your claim on it must give you that card.  You could also buy discovery cards from the market – you must pay fire tokens based on the market location of the discovery card you want to buy.  Slide the transparent card into the card sleeve of one of the cards you are playing this turn – the discovery is immediately active.  Discoveries are permanent for the duration of this game and cannot be covered up by other discoveries.  Slide all cards in the market to the right and refill the market to 4 cards.

If you play the last card in your hand, you are out and you score points based on your finish position for that hand (see the scoring card).  Continue playing until all players have a rank for the round – and have been awarded the appropriate number of points.

Check to see if there is a winner:

• If a player started the round with 9 or 10 VP and they went out first, they automatically win the game

If no winner, play another round (up to 4). Collect all the cards, shuffle the deck and deal 9 cards for each player.  Any cards with claim markers must be given to the player who claimed those cards.  The player with the lowest current score starts the first trick.

If there is no winner at the end of the fourth round, there is a final showdown.  The player with the most points and the player who went out first in the final round play one last round – whoever goes out first in that fifth round is the winner. 

My thoughts on the game

I have always liked the card crafting games from John D. Clair, so I was interested in seeing this one.  I’m also a pretty big fan of climbing games, and this game has some climbing aspects to it – though you only can play sets here (no runs!)

At first, I thought this limitation was going to be a bit restrictive, but once we started playing the game, I realized just how much flexibility you have with the option to buy upgrades from the market and add them to the cards that you are playing.  With the one-time ability to flip a card from day to night each round, you can also do a bit of hand-shaping from the deal.  One note of caution – inexplicably at least one rank of cards is a dark blue making you think they are on the dark side when they are in fact not!

Your supply of three sun tokens can be used up quickly, so you really need to make the most of them.  Of course, the catch with every upgrade is that they will work for you NOW, but they’ll be shuffled into the deck and dealt out at random in the next turn… so don’t get too attached to anything that you craft.

One thing that I will note is that the graphic design makes it hard for me to read the cards.  The art, while beautiful, goes edge to edge, and it’s hard for me to pick out the expansion bonuses on the clear cards.  I’d definitely recommend using card holders to play this game because if you fan your cards out in the traditional manner, it’s really hard to see the bonuses granted from the discovery cards – as those notations are much further down the edge of the card.  

Sure, each player also gets two claim cards, and there is some interesting strategy behind that.  As most of the deck is dealt out each round, it’s likely that you’ll get your claimed cards in every round of the game.  While it does make your hand larger (and the goal is to go out first!), it can be helpful to get these powerful cards each turn.  I have seen a couple of interesting strategies with card claiming.  Making a high pair and keeping them is a good idea.  I also have seen players buy “refresh torch” upgrades and then claim those cards – guaranteeing that they will have more ability to buy from the market in later rounds.

The game does take a while to play; our games definitely take longer than the 30 minutes on the box.  Each round for us is about 10-15 minutes – and this is a game that needs a minimum of 3 rounds, but likely goes 4 or 5.  Be sure to set aside ten minutes or so at the end to unsleeve all the clear cards and flip all the dark side cards back to the light side.  (Also, on your first play, be prepared to spend a fair bit of time peeling the plastic protective wrap off all the upgrade cards!)

So as I mentioned, it’s possible for the game to end after round 3 (if a player wins three rounds in a row).  I’ll admit that I really don’t like the weird end-game rules.  I suppose they are there to build some tension into the game starting possibly in round 3, but they really have only confused most of the people I’ve tried to teach the game to.  Additionally, it’s really super un-fun to have 3 people sitting around doing nothing in round 5 while the 2 combatants play for the win.

As this series promises, there is definitely a lot going on here for a small box.  Ruins gives you the chance to craft some cards to help you play your hand, but there is a bit more luck involved here as the majority of the crafted cards are re-dealt at random each hand.   The game does run a bit long at the moment for me – but as the game can possibly end early due to the varying win conditions, YMMV.  I’d prefer a simple rule – like maybe – first player to 12 – but I’m sure the designer/developer have set this end game condition for reasons.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it.
• Neutral. Dale 
• Not for me… John P