Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Easier to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
More strategic control
How it plays
How does it play?
Upgrade transparent cards, stack discoveries into powerful combinations, claim two creations for the whole game, and shed every card before your rivals.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Hand Management
Time and sequence a limited hand of cards to preserve future options.
Ladder Climbing
Play increasingly strong combinations until opponents cannot or choose not to respond.
Layering
Place components over earlier pieces so their order and overlap affect play.
Ownership
Claim assets or areas that remain under a player’s control.
Lose a Turn
Use Lose a Turn as a recurring structure for player decisions and resolution.
Read the full game description
Ruins is a card-crafting shedding game built around transparent discovery cards. On a turn, a player upgrades a ruin by sliding a transparent top, middle, or bottom discovery into its sleeve, then plays a valid card or set to the shared sequence. Layered discoveries can transform simple numbers into wild, game-altering combinations, while torch tokens and matching ranks manipulate tempo and may force the next player to pass. Every player has only two claim cards for the entire game; claiming a crafted ruin means opponents must hand it over whenever it appears in a later deal, so the most extravagant upgrade may benefit someone else unless ownership is secured. Hands and the evolving deck change from round to round. Empty your hand, score efficiently, and make the two claims that turn short-term treasure into a lasting engine.
