Ruinarch News

Hello. We've applied a few fixed to critical issues recently reported:

• [FIXED] Witches that increase chaotic energy cost can be killed to reduce costs again, but upon saving and loading after killing them, the costs go back to being increased.
  
• [FIXED] Anytime a werewolf transforms, they lose all their equipment even after reverting back to original form.
  
• [FIXED] Issues when loading due to some errors in load order of Intels.
  
• [FIXED] Issues when loading due to missing Structure data.
  

We keep a lot of internal data to keep track of Villager and game states for our Save Files. But, we try to minimize this to reduce loading times. Due to this, when major updates occur we occasionally miss out on some data that may turn out to be needed on rare instances. This is what causes most Load issues where the player gets stuck while loading a Save File. Please if this happens to you, we request that you submit a Bug Report using our in-game tool so we can resolve them as soon as possible. The Save File and the log file would be really helpful.

Hi everyone! Our newest update is here! While the update title is called Grudges, perhaps the biggest change here is the revamp of the Portal Upgrade tree. This is an important step that makes us much closer to being ready to exit Early Access this year. Our next update will now switch focus to changing the game's Victory Condition and further progression tweaks. We're also ready to begin localization!


Villagers may now develop Grudges against each other. This has a chance to occur in the following situations:
- a Villager experienced betrayal
- a Villager experienced resentment while in Bad or Critical Mood.
- a Villager felt rage towards another Villager that is not within vision

While a Villager has a Grudge, the following behavior will take effect:
- if they will ever judge a crime of the Grudge target, they will always punish with death
- they won't help even if they see them unconscious, restrained, etc
- as party leader, they won't take up quests that will help their Grudge target
- as party leader, they may kick out party members they have a Grudge on
- as party member, they will eventually leave the party if they have a Grudge on the Party Leader

In addition, players may now activate a new Ability called Trigger Grudge. This will consume a Grudge in exchange for a choice between 3 negative actions against the Grudge target.

We originally planned to also introduce Favors but there's not much interesting things the players can do with the idea we had. So it was scrapped for now.


Player progression has been significantly revamped! Players can now see their Upgrade Tree. Some slots unlocked in the Upgrade Tree now asks the player to choose between 3 different Powers. This includes random lower-tiered Powers from the other Archetypes. This allows the players to make their Powers more well-rounded regardless of their Archetype without fully losing each Archetype's thematic focus.

As this is the first iteration of the new Upgrade Trees, expect some slight pacing issues. Please don't hesitate to provide gameplay feedback so we can assess player thoughts while we balance these Trees.

This is only the first half of our Progression revamp. On the next update, Victory will no longer be linked to fully upgrading your Portal and will instead require the player to perform a variety of tasks.


Monster Spawners can now also be placed in the wilderness. It will then spawn only one random monster. If there is enough empty space around the Monster Spawner, the monster may build a new landmark around it. This effectively allows the player to create new landmarks in the world.

We want the world to be a bit more dynamic so most landmarks will also now eventually be wiped out if it is not occupied for several days. In future updates, we intend to enhance this dynamism by allowing more instances of monster and villager occupation of different landmarks.


We've introduced more Powers to fill out the newly updated Portal Upgrade Tree. This includes:

• Stampede
  
• Hellspawn
  
• Finger of Death
  
• Summon Skeletons
  
• Lich Graveyard
  
• Trigger Grudge
  

Now that we have most Powers we want pretty much in the game, the next step is to ensure usefulness of all existing player Powers. In particular, we intend to make different damaging Spells have more specific purposes rather than simply having different Elemental types. This will probably be done by adding new Flaws for Villagers that can be activated/exploited when hit by the required Elemental damage.


Finally, some more Sound Effects! We ended up having to use premade sound effects from different sources since our contact Sound Designer was no longer available but we hope these are at least satisfactory in providing additional audio feedback for game events.


- Map Sizes have all been slightly increased.
- Slightly increased the number of landmarks spawned on world generation.
- Sped up migration when there are no more major factions in the map.
- Empty villages will be completely cleared if it is not occupied within 3 days.
- Landmarks will also be wiped out if it is empty for about 3 days.
- Ankh of Anubis will disappear after spawning a fixed amount of Ghosts.
- Villagers will now only be considered Missing from their Village if they are restrained, paralyzed or stoned somewhere outside their home Village. They will be considered Found the moment they return to their home Village.
- Players can now undeploy a Demon Party by right-clicking on the Lesser Demon and choosing Undeploy.
- Immigrants to Wiccan and Divine Church factions will be of the appropriate religion but won't already be Witches or Clerics on arrival. This will allow the players some time to prevent their conversion.
- Previously, Villagers are unable to rescue your prisoners if they are unaware of your territorial location yet. Now, combatants may search for your presence. You can still stop this by zapping them or using other distractions.
- When Raiding, the player may now choose between Harass Villagers, Destroy Structures or Destroy Supplies.
- Added new monster: Ifrit.
- All characters will now be aggressive while patrolling a Village.
- Villagers will now repair a structure that is less than 2/3rd remaining walls or less than 50% remaining HP.
- A popup will now also display to notify player when a Lesser Demon charge is refreshed.
- Increased negative mood modifiers of Griefstricken and Traumatized.
- An "Attack Village" button has also been added beside the Monster Spawner nameplate.
- Sleeping monsters will be awakened when the player uses a Monster Spawner's Attack Village ability.
- Hovering over Element icon should show the Element text tooltip,
- Villagers will no longer Booby Trap torches.
- Villagers will no longer trigger their own Booby Traps.
- Landmines will now also stun characters.
- When a non-lethal attack would reduce the target's HP to 0 or less, it will now set it to 10% of max HP and render them Unconscious.
- Villagers will no longer return just to open very distant treasure chests or items.
- Stalkers will now destroy Werewolf Pelts instead of picking them up.
- Lightning and Arrow Towers will no longer attack Unconscious, Restrained, Prisoners and carried hostiles.
- Parties on Exterminate Quest will also destroy Monster Spawners.
- Reduced success rate of Brainwash for Priests and Great Witches.
- Added a separate SFX meter on Game Settings.


- [FIXED] Some Villagers react negatively when they see a Faction-mate assault a hostile monster.
- [FIXED] Snatch Party occasionally kills their target.
- [FIXED] Parties still sometimes get paid even when they prematurely drop the quest.
- [FIXED] Crimes of Faction Leaders are ignored even when reported to a different Faction.
- [FIXED] Character goes into endless loop when trying to pick up a dead monster while carrying a food item.
- [FIXED] If hovered over a corrupted tile, right clicking to deselect summoning monster consumes Chaotic Energy.
- [FIXED] Intrusion to a Ratmen cave may increase Retaliation.
- [FIXED] Villagers don't pick up dead bodies of those killed through Psychopathic ritual.
- [FIXED] Demonic defenders attack prisoners released by the Player.
- [FIXED] Succubus sometimes do not transform before seducing a Villager.
- [FIXED] Target Menu did not disappear after clicking Join faction.
- [FIXED] A Devout Evil Witch can turn into a Necromancer but not become the Undead faction leader.
- [FIXED] Reconciliation Ritual may improve relationship to a dead character.
- [FIXED] Some Villagers may still attack an already apprehended criminal.
- [FIXED] Repeating notifications about a Villager becoming the Bandit's Faction Leader.
- [FIXED] A Snatch Party may stop moving if their target gets stolen.
- [FIXED] Wyvern Rider HP may sometimes not decrease during combat.
- [FIXED] Beast Lairs leave invisible walls when they are destroyed.


We quietly launched our 2nd game's Steam Page! Please wishlist it. More Wishlists would help a lot in making the game more visible on Steam.


Nona's Game is envisioned to be a party multiplayer game like Among Us but plays much more similarly to the TV Show called Survivor. We originally want to self-publish the game and will ramp up marketing once we have a good gameplay video. But, there are a few Publishers that have reached out to us and if we get a good funding offer, we will likely consider going for that.

Hello everyone. As we mentioned last time, we took a break from Ruinarch for the entire month of February. Aside from rest, we also spent some time working on a new game to get our creativity flowing. We'll give a short preview of that at the end of this post.

We are all now back again developing new content for Ruinarch for all of March and April and will do testing, tweaks and balancing on May. We plan to have the next update released around the 3rd week of May.

Here's what to expect from it:

[h2]Reworked Archetypes[/h2]
This is a significant rework. Essentially, choosing an Archetype will still provide the player with a different starting loadout, but each time they upgrade their Portal, they will learn a couple of fixed Powers but will also now be given a few choices from both their Archetype's pool, as well as from other Archetypes (but from a lower Portal level). This is intended to make each Archetype more well-rounded as well as to make repeat plays more interesting. Even the same Archetype could feel vastly different depending on the choices made per Portal level.

The next step which will be added on a different update, is to separate the Victory Condition from the Portal Upgrades. There are a lot of exploits to produce Chaos Orbs easily which right now makes winning the game sometimes a matter of tediousness. We are still discussing how best to approach Victory Condition but we are currently leaning towards providing the player Archetype-based goals or challenges.

[h2]New Powers[/h2]
With the reworked Archetypes System, we also needed to introduce more Powers to round out all Archetype's Upgrade Path options. There will be 8 new ones available. We also intend to improve some existing ones to make them more useful and interesting.

[h2]Grudges[/h2]
Villagers may now develop Grudges towards other Villagers. A Grudge affects a Villager's behavior, they may quit a Party if they have a Grudge on its Party Leader, they won't assist a Restrained or Unconscious Factionmate they have a Grudge on and they will harshly punish a Criminal they have a Grudge on. The player can also eventually consume a Villager's Grudge using Trigger Grudge (one of the new Powers) to make them perform a deadly action against the Grudge target.

[h2]Improved Emotions[/h2]
We're taken a second pass look at Share Intel and Emotions. We want Share Intel to have more useful effects when used by the player. Since it gives the target various Emotions, our approach is on making the effects of these Emotions a bit more intense.

[h2]Manipulating Mood[/h2]
There will be more ways for Players to exploit a Villager in Critical Mood. One new approach for players will be to turn a Villager's Mood to Critical and then activate Exploit Mood on it. This will provide the player with a few choices randomly available based on the situation. They can make the Villager go berserk, murder a Rival, leave a Faction, etc.

[h2]Sound Effects[/h2]
Finally got to add more of these to the game!


Nona's Game will be the second game coming out of Maccima Games! During the height of the pandemic, one thing that kept us entertained are streamers playing multiplayer games like GTA RP, Raft, and most significantly: Among Us. Now that the Among Us craze has died down, we wanted to develop something that could potentially take its place without being another clone of it. This is a complete departure from Ruinarch's genre so we do think there may not be a lot of overlap in terms of audience but it is refreshing to work on something very different for a change. We'll discuss more details about the game soon!

So that it will not distract from development of Ruinarch, we've hired a full second team to work on Nona's Game concurrently. Aside from me who also works as the game designer, there is a tiny but complete team working on it separately.

It's quite risky taking on multiple projects at the same time but we do feel that there is a void left by Among Us for Streamers that we want to possibly occupy as soon as possible. We're hoping revenue from Ruinarch could continue funding both teams but we do expect there will be months (like March) where we go into negative and draw from savings instead. Something that players may not be aware of regarding revenue for games is that the dev team gets only around 30-50% of the base price due to tax, chargebacks, discounts, cheaper price on other countries, revenue sharing with Steam and publisher (even though our Publisher has already closed, we still have revenue sharing ongoing with them). The good news is that we do get some sales bump whenever we go on sale and usually that should be enough to sustain us for that month. We hope our sales continue as they are now at least for the entire year and we should be able to develop the two games in parallel without too many financial worries.

We'll leave you with a Promo Art for Nona's Game:

We have a small update today to fix a critical performance issue and tweak down some of the new features. This should reduce frustrating situations.


- Reduced the drop rate of Structure Scrolls from Treasure Chests.
- Devout characters will turn into Cleric or Witch at a slower rate.
- It will now usually take multiple Preach actions before a Villager will turn into a Cleric or a Witch.
- When a Faction transforms into a Demon Cult, Divine Church or Wiccans Faction, there will now be more Villagers that will decide to leave. There are other factors to consider but Villagers decide whether to leave or stay mostly based on their relationship with the new Faction Leader.
- Clerics can no longer disable Demonic Structures.
- Nullchild and Jinxed are much rarer now.
- Reduced how quickly succeeding Beast Pens, Lightning Towers and Arrow Towers are built.
- Slightly reduced chance that a Chaos Orb will be produced by player-sourced Poisoned, Burning and Ensnared Villagers.
- Golems spawned by Monster Spawners will no longer begin as Hibernating and Indestructible.
- Removed the possibility that Lycanthropy can become a crime on a Lycan Clan faction.
- Removed the possibility that Vampirism can become a crime on a Vampire Clan faction.


- [FIXED] Newly added Traits are missing from a Psychopath's criteria list.
- [FIXED] Game may sometimes lag especially on large maps.
- [FIXED] Killing Clerics may sometimes not release the Power they stole.
- [FIXED] Legendary Weapons are also dropped by wild monsters and demonic minions.
- [FIXED] NullExceptionError may sometimes occur when relationships between a new Faction Leader and other characters are initialized.

Note that existing Save Files will no longer be compatible with the new update.

Hello everyone! Our first update of 2022 is here. In this update, we've introduced several random events and introduced new challenges by adding the new Wiccans and Divine Church factions as well as various new Villager Traits that can make some game sessions more spicy.

Our next update will be a bit further than usual (May), We are taking a month-long break from the game to improve mental health, study modding and explore concepts for future games. Once we get back to work this March, we're going to give some attention towards improving Villager interactions via a new Favors and Grudges system. We'll also improve reactions to Share Intel to make it more consequential and we'll begin work on gameplay and progression balancing. Finally, we also plan to add more sound effects.

Here are the changes added by the new update:


A new landmark called Legendary Forge may now spawn in the game. A nearby Village may decide to claim it as their own. If so, one of their Crafters may visit and forge a new legendary weapon. The Forge can only be used once and will crumble after producing one weapon.

One of the following Legendary Weapons may be crafted at random:

• Mantra - A sword that provides immunity from all Afflictions and cleanses its holder of all Flaws.
  
• Fang - A dagger that may occasionally afflict its target with a random Affliction.
  
• Savage - An axe that deals triple damage against Demonic creatures and structures.
  
• Eclipse - A staff that steals some Mana whenever it deals damage to characters and structures belonging to the player.
  
• Citrus - A bow that may tame its target if it is an Undead creature.
  

You may sometimes encounter a Faction with Tower Defense Ideology. This Faction is capable of building Arrow Towers all over their Villages. These Arrow Towers shoots arrows targeting hostiles in range. Lightning Tower Defense Ideology is similar but provides the Faction with Lightning Towers instead.


You may sometimes encounter a Faction with a Breeders Ideology. This Faction can build Monster Pens that will occasionally spawn tamed Beasts.


You may sometimes encounter a Faction with a Wyvern Tamers Ideology. This Factions can build Wyvern Coops that will occasionally hatch tamed Wyvernlings. These will eventually grow into Wyverns after a day. Combatant Villagers of a Village Tamer faction can mount adult Wyverns. When mounted characters receive damage, the mount tanks the damage until it dies.

Mounted Villagers magically hide their mounts when they sit on a chair or sleep on a bed, just because it would be needlessly complicated to have them dismount and re-mount everytime they do these actions.


The Wiccans Faction is a Nature Worshiping rival of Demon Cults. A Devout Nature Worshiper can become a Great Witch (Cult Leader counterpart) through strong faith in Nature Worship and then found the Wiccans Faction. Like Demon Cultists, Witches (Cultist counterpart) can preach and spread Nature Worship, converting other Villagers to Witches.

Each living Witch in the map increases the Chaotic Energy cost of all the player's Abilities by 5%.


The Divine Church Faction is a Divine Worshiping rival of Demon Cults. A Devout Divine Worshiper can become a Priest (Cult Leader counterpart) through strong faith in Divine Worship and then found the Divine Church Faction. Like Demon Cultists, Clerics (Cultist counterpart) can preach and spread Divine Worship, converting other Villagers to Clerics.

Each living Cleric in the map will disable one random player Ability until they are killed.


This is an uncommon landmark that can be claimed by nearby religious-based factions: Demon Cult, Wiccans, Divine Church. These factions will fight over it as it provides all of their members a powerful buff - giving them double damage versus any target that has a different religion from them.


This is an uncommon relationship that may occur between two starting Villagers that we added as a fun flavorful event. Tip: We don't recommend killing off an obsessed character's target of obsession.


Stalkers have now been enhanced to be dangerous against Lycans, Vampires and Cultists. The following enhancements have been added:
- Stalkers cannot be turned into a Lycan, Vampire or Cultist
- Lycans, Vampires and Cultists cannot change class to Stalker
- At Martial Arts Lvl. 2, they will always deal critical damage to Lycans, Vampires and Cultists
- At Martial Arts Lvl. 3, they will be able to identify Lycans and Vampires on sight
- At Martial Arts Lvl. 4, they will be able to identify Cultists on sight
- At Martial Arts Lvl. 5, they may be able to purify Lycans, Vampires and Cultists from their Faction instead of attacking them


In order to make different Faction Types more distinct, we are limiting the type of monsters they prefer to recruit. This will also somewhat reduce the likelihood that monsters will take up a majority of a Major Faction's population.

Elven Kingdoms will usually only recruit Beasts. Rarely, they may recruit Demonics. If the Faction Leader is a Demon Worshiper, they will often recruit Demonics instead.

Human Empires will usually only recruit Humanoids. Rarely, they may recruit Demonics. If the Faction Leader is a Demon Worshiper, they will often recruit Demonics instead. They may keep a few Beasts for Food.

Vampire Clans will usually only recruit Undead. They will also always recruit any monster that is already a Vampire. They will keep a few Humanoids as prisoners to drink Blood off of. Rarely, they may recruit Demonics. If the Faction Leader is a Demon Worshiper, they will often recruit Demonics instead.

Lycan Clans will usually recruit Beasts. They will butcher captured Humanoids. Rarely, they may recruit Demonics. If the Faction Leader is a Demon Worshiper, they will often recruit Demonics instead.

Wiccans will usually recruit Beasts and Humanoids. They will always kill Demonics and Undead.

Divine Church will kill all captured monsters.

Bandits may rarely recruit some Humanoids.


We've added a few more Villager Traits to the mix. Many of these provide buffs to Villagers that will make it dangerous for the player to mindlessly attack random targets.

• Slick - A Slick character cannot be added as a Stored Target.
  
• Heavy - A Heavy character cannot be seized.
  
• Nullchild - Any Power used against the Nullchild will be disabled until the Nullchild dies.
  
• Grounded - Whenever a Grounded character is hit by a player Power, all of the player's Mana will be drained.
  
• Jinxed - Whenever a Jinxed character enters Bad or Critical Mood, it saps a small amount of Chaotic Energy from the player.
  
• Negative Nancy - A Negative Nancy reduces the Mood of other Villagers around them.
  
• Devout - Devout characters are more likely to Pray. They are the only Villagers that can spontaneously become a Wiccan or a Cleric and start the Wiccans and Divine Church factions.
  

- Added new monster: Gorgon.
- Demon Worship is no longer initially a crime for Human Empires and Elven Kingdoms. However, certain actions against a Faction may make them turn against you and declare Demon Worship a Heinous Crime.
- You can now instruct monsters spawned by Monster Spawner to attack a nearby Village. The Attack Village action is available in the Monster Spawner's Target Menu.
- Reduced cost to reveal Villager info from 8 Chaotic Energy to 4.
- Added a log when a monster is summoned to defend a village through a Shaman ritual.
- Defending minions can now be Unsummoned via Target Menu.
- Dead bodies outside houses of unknown characters will no longer trigger Murder assumption of other nearby Villagers.
- Reduced Nature Spirit HP to 1800.
- There is a small chance that a Treasure Chest may drop whenever a Villager slays one of the player's minions.
- Migration can now also occur for Lycan Clans, Vampire Clans, Wiccans and Divine Churches.
- Migrants will now have a 100% chance to appear early in the next morning once there are no more hostile Factions in the game world.
- Possible items obtained from a Treasure Chest may now include special Scrolls that will teach a Faction how to build the new special structures like Wyvern Coop, Beast Pens, Arrow Tower and Lightning Tower.
- Poison Cloud now deals Poison Damage to living characters it touches.
- To slightly rebalence Agoraphobia, we have reduced max stacks of Anxious from 5 to 3. Once an Agoraphobic character is already at max stacks of Anxious, it will no longer trigger Agoraphobic effects.
- Vampire Lords are now Melee Combatants that can equip Swords.
- At Combat Magic Lvl. 4, Mages may learn Polymorph - a combat spell that can temporarily turn a hostile into a weak animal.


- [FIXED] Overthrow Scheme still uses removed flaws when determining new faction ideologies.
- [FIXED] Vampire planning fullness recovery repeatedly even if vampire cannot reach anyone.
- [FIXED] Hunt beast party follows cursor.
- [FIXED] You have the option to Afflict Necromancers with Plague. It says it afflicts them with Plague, but the Plague actually fails unless you have bought the upgrade to infect Undead.
- [FIXED] Demon icon switches to vagrant on scheme dialog window.
- [FIXED] Vampire gets stuck in Bat form if you remove a flaw while it is in Bat form.
- [FIXED] Demon sometimes gets stuck while snatching.
- [FIXED] In some specific circumstances, a character that reaches zero health may still be considered alive.
- [FIXED] Killing villagers with a Combat Skill does not create Intel.
- [FIXED] Trapped villager can still report demonic structure.
- [FIXED] No snatch target option for Ratmen.
- [FIXED] Snatch party sometimes may not carry its snatch target.
- [FIXED] Snatch object party gets stuck if object is destroyed.
- [FIXED] Necromancer not becoming faction leader even though he is the only member left in the faction.
- [FIXED] Optimist increasing happiness instead of halving happiness reduction rate if the Villager is patrolling.
- [FIXED] Zero member demon cult faction is still at the villager tab.
- [FIXED] Hunt quest: Endless dropped quest loop.
- [FIXED] Insufficient charges tooltip stays on screen.