Ruinarch is a brand new project by a small Indie studio Maccima Games and publisher Squeaky Wheel Studio. Ruinarch is slated for a release for release on PC in Early Access on August 25, 2020, however, we managed to secure an early access preview copy of the game and experienced a small beta of the upcoming evil overlord simulator. During our playthrough of this early access demo of Ruinarch, we learned that being an evil overlord is much easier in video games. This is our preview of Ruinarch in which we become the ultimate evil overlord and ruin the lives of many villagers.
Upon booting the game, I was introduced to a small tutorial level before I started one of the main levels of the game. The preview build I received was pretty limited in terms of features and content but it was plenty to make me realize how wacky and crazy this evil overlord simulator can really be. After completing the tutorial, I was the master of all of the evil tricks the game had to offer and I jumped into the first (and only) unlocked map of the game. The levels are procedurally-generated every time you choose them so they will have a new look every time.
Before jumping in the game, I was able to select my Archetype and other options such as spells, afflictions, minions, structures, and other miscellaneous commands. The preview only offered the Puppetmaster archetype who prefers staying in the shadows and uses dirty tricks to manipulate humans and uses their own things and people against them. After setting everything up, I was ready to kill all of the villagers in my very first village. I started slow by choosing a random villager and turned him into a werewolf.
Evil actions cost you Chaotic Energy or in simple words Mana which is also acquired by performing evil actions in the game. After turning the villager into a werewolf, I forced him to convert by spending a little more of my mana, and pretty soon it was wreaking havoc in the village attacking it’s the very first target. While it failed to kill another villager, it was cut short pretty quickly by another villager in no time thus eliminating a villager. It was a win for me anyway.
Next, I constructed an evil structure which is simply called an Eye. This allows me to monitor all of the happenings in the village and storing the important incidents in the form of intel such as someone hurting any other person or flirting with the wrong person as well. I managed to break a happy family by feeding the wife ill information about her husband and they ended up becoming enemies. A small brawl broke up between both of them but it was short-lived as another villager jumped in to stop it.
It was all good fun but I still have more than 10 villagers to kill. Next, I decided to breed my own monsters because the wild monsters are not very tough in the game. I built a Kennel and caged a giant spider and a troll and used them to breed my own spider and troll. The spider is a deadly monster in the game because it can pick up villagers and take them away to its lair where it kills them. It helped me get rid of three, lonely villagers at night but was ultimately killed by a fighter villager.
Next I used a few of my spells to just toy around with some villagers, I made it rain on a patch and then electrocuted the ground which trapped three villagers moving around and they became unconscious. There was not much else I could do at this point so I just waited it out until my next chance when I can strike again. Going back to basics, I chose another villager and turned him into a serial killer targeting the opposite sex. After his first kill, I noted down the dead and passed the information to the village head. After the sun rose, the village leader was heading to the villager’s hut to apprehend him for the murder but at this point, the most random thing happened to me.
Right after the leader apprehended the serial killer, a spider came and knocked down the leader as I had agitated the monster which causes them to attack and terrorize villagers. The spider took the leader to its lair while the serial killer laid unconscious in its place. I was taking it slow in the game because If I rushed too much, my Threat Level would increase too much in the region which could cause the characters to attack my structures in the area. The main problem for me in the area was now the blessed villagers which cannot be affected by our skills such as Affliction.
My only option left was to have them fight them each other or use any other dirty trick up my sleeve to get them. Luckily, I found a villager who was not blessed so I afflicted his plague. With the plague, the villager died and the one who came to pick them up and bury him also got the plague. This killed three additional villagers. I also tried to start a zombie outbreak in my game but somehow the infected villager just stayed dead and I was unable to do it. It may be because the villagers are actual people who come with unique traits, factions, weaknesses, and strengths in the game. They are not just mere skins walking around the villages.
For my final blow, I bred a Troll and unleashed it on the last surviving villagers. While it was tough, I finally managed to kill the last of the villagers and I was deemed victorious in my endeavor. This is how a normal game of Ruinarch plays out. It gives you the ultimate freedom of how you want to kill the villagers and spread your corruption. While you have plenty of spells, using them makes the game too easy and I loved using different creative methods in order to take down the villagers.
You simply give the villagers a little nudge and then you simply sit back and watch them beat each other to death or burn down the entire village. I really enjoyed playing Ruinarch and exploring its various evil options. This was just a preview build as well so I can easily say that once the game releases in Early Access and then progresses towards its final release, it will have tons of new content as well such as new overload archetypes, monsters, villagers, items, structures, spells and much more for you to play around.
There are different things that I would like to see improved in the game as well. For example, the monsters appear to be too weak against the villagers. Even the demons are weak. If they start attacking your structures, the summoned demons die too quickly as well. In addition, moving the mouse pointer to the edges of the screen should move the map around. Having played a lot of Command or Conquer titles, I am used to moving the camera around with my mouse, and for some reason, I kept moving the mouse around in Ruinarch as well to move around the camera. While this is no game-breaking bug but I am sure that many players would love this feature.
Ruinarch is releasing on Steam in Early Access on August 25, 2020. I will highly recommend that you give this unique evil overlord simulator a try because very few games actually allow you to be the evil guy and destroy the lives of innocent villagers who are simply trying to live their normal lives in the game. It really offers unique gameplay and the options are brilliant even for an Early Access title. The content will only continue to grow in the game as the development continues in Early Access. It is super fun and will keep you busy for hours. As for us, we cannot wait for the full version of the game to come out.
