Ah, to be a dwarf. Living underground with your dwarven pals, doing whatever dwarves do, and not caring about those weird people on the surface. And then, one day, you take a trip up there and everything is a mess. Monsters roam the world. Ruins everywhere. Oh, well. Time to do what dwarves do best: time to rebuild.

In Regions of Ruin, city building meets side-scrolling RPG. Starting with little more than a fireplace, you set out into the world to gather resources, go on quests, and seeking out new residents for you budding settlement.

These fellow dwarves can be rescued from captivity and used as workers, happily mining and chopping and harvesting away so you can upgrade your camp and go out on ever more challenging adventures.

The basic gameplay loop is pretty simple: visit a location, make sure that no enemies are left standing, and then grab everything that isn't bolted down and hightail back to camp. Regions of Ruin's combat mechanics are pretty simple as well, but the game manages to make all of this fun and engaging.
Sure, you can just charge screaming into an enemy camp, wildly hacking at everything that moves - but how about making use of the local shrubbery to sneak up on sentries and chucking a few axes their way instead"

The game keeps adding interesting stuff like this. At the same time, it ramps up the challenge. The first time you meet one of these armor-clad orc chieftains will be pretty memorable... and also quite deadly, I suppose.

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