How do you play Ruins?

Explore grid-based ruins with WASD, collect materials, then return to the town hub to craft and equip better gear before diving deeper.

What is the goal in Ruins?

Use crafting and equipment upgrades to push further into the ruins on each run; the game is a roguelike dungeon crawl rather than a single-ending story.

What are the controls for Ruins?

WASD moves through the ruins, C or Page Down zooms out and E or Page Up zooms in, the mouse wheel adjusts zoom, and the arrow keys, Tab, Enter, and Escape navigate menus.

Is Ruins free to play?

Yes, it runs free in the browser from the project's GitHub Pages site.

What language is Ruins in?

Ruins is a Japanese-language roguelike, as noted in its description, with a pixel-font retro interface.

What do I do in the town in Ruins?

The town hub holds the shop, crafting, and equipment screens, where you turn gathered materials into upgrades before heading back into the dungeon.

What are the best tips for Ruins?

Bank materials and craft upgrades before every deep dive, save from the menu regularly, and experiment with builds as your equipment improves.

Ruins

A roguelike written in Go—gear up in town, descend into the ruins for materials, and use crafting to push your adventure further.

Gameplay overview

Feature-rich roguelike built in Go

Ruins is a Japanese-language roguelike developed in Go with Ebitengine. In addition to classic dungeon exploration, it features a town hub, crafting, equipment management, and save/load menus. Each major screen is automatically captured in continuous integration, keeping the project documentation up to date with the latest build.

From the main menu you travel between the ruins and town, combining gathered materials at the crafting screen to upgrade your gear. Pixel fonts and a retro interface underpin the atmosphere while you experiment with builds and push deeper into the dungeon.

Your objective

What you are trying to achieve

Ruins is a Japanese-language roguelike in which you prepare in a town hub, then descend into grid-based ruins to gather materials and push deeper. The goal is to craft and equip better gear from what you find, using the town's shops and crafting screen to survive longer on each dive.

The interface is retro and keyboard-driven, and there is no single ending—progress is measured by how far your gear and builds let you travel into the dungeon.

Controls

Dungeon exploration

Action	Input / gesture
WASD	Move up, down, left, and right through the ruins.
C / Page Down	Zoom out to see more of the floor.
E / Page Up	Zoom in for a closer look at rooms and corridors.
Mouse wheel	Adjust zoom level smoothly.
Up / Down arrows	Move between menu entries.
Left / Right arrows	Move horizontally when navigating grid-style lists.
Tab	Jump to the next interactive element.
Shift + Tab	Return to the previous element.
Enter	Confirm a selection or activate a button.
Escape	Cancel or back out to the previous menu.

Beginner guide

Your first few minutes

Start in town rather than charging straight into the ruins, because crafting is how you get stronger.

Move through the ruins with WASD to explore rooms and corridors one grid square at a time.
Use C or Page Down to zoom out for a wider view, and E or Page Up to zoom back in.
Pick up materials in the dungeon, then return to town to visit the shop.
Open the crafting screen and combine gathered materials to upgrade your equipment.
Manage your gear from the equipment screen before diving again, and save from the menu so you keep progress.
Experiment with different builds as your gear improves and push deeper into the ruins.

Features

Go-based roguelike engine

Entity–component–system–style game state management and logging developed openly on GitHub.
Multiple dedicated screens including town, shop, crafting, equipment, save/load, and message log views.
Documentation that links to reference repositories and font resources used to build the project.

Our take

Why Ruins is worth exploring

Ruins combines classic roguelike structure with a modern Go + Ebitengine tech stack, making it interesting both to play and to study. The town hub, crafting, and equipment systems give runs a sense of continuity beyond a single dungeon dive, while the retro UI and fonts reinforce the traditional vibe.

From a development perspective, the project is also a strong reference for building multi-screen games in Go: you can see how dungeon exploration, menus, and logging are factored into separate views and kept in sync under test.

Who will enjoy it?

If you like roguelikes and are curious about seeing one implemented in Go rather than more common engines, Ruins is well worth a look. Programmers and technical players will get extra value from browsing the source code and documentation while they experiment with builds and explore deeper floors.

Frequently asked questions

Need a quick answer?

How do you play Ruins?: Explore grid-based ruins with WASD, collect materials, then return to the town hub to craft and equip better gear before diving deeper.
What is the goal in Ruins?: Use crafting and equipment upgrades to push further into the ruins on each run; the game is a roguelike dungeon crawl rather than a single-ending story.
What are the controls for Ruins?: WASD moves through the ruins, C or Page Down zooms out and E or Page Up zooms in, the mouse wheel adjusts zoom, and the arrow keys, Tab, Enter, and Escape navigate menus.
Is Ruins free to play?: Yes, it runs free in the browser from the project's GitHub Pages site.
What language is Ruins in?: Ruins is a Japanese-language roguelike, as noted in its description, with a pixel-font retro interface.
What do I do in the town in Ruins?: The town hub holds the shop, crafting, and equipment screens, where you turn gathered materials into upgrades before heading back into the dungeon.
What are the best tips for Ruins?: Bank materials and craft upgrades before every deep dive, save from the menu regularly, and experiment with builds as your equipment improves.