Ruins (EN)

In Ruins, you explore ancient ruins and craft your own most powerful cards. This shedding card game is played with transparent cards: on your turn, you upgrade a card by layering an illustrated sleeve on it, then you play it. Upgrades stack into surprising combinations, like a card that equals four 11s! The goal is simple: get rid of all your cards before your opponents and score points.

Each round, the makeup of the deck changes, and you must decide which cards to upgrade and when to use your torches. You can claim only two cards for the entire game: when an opponent is dealt a card you claimed, they must give it to you. You had better upgrade it to make it worth it! The game also rewards strategic shedding game play: following a card of the same rank as the previous one makes the next player skip their turn.

Ruins is for you if you love card games where you plan your plays, keep an eye on other players' upgraded cards and a twist can turn everything around. You will probably enjoy Ruins if you want to discover an original shedding game that is easy to bring to the table with friends or family, in a small-format box. At 4 players, it is the count the BoardGameGeek community recommends the most.

An interesting fact: the transparent cards track your upgrades right on the cards. The game was funded by crowdfunding on Kickstarter and is part of the Tricky Card Games series.

Ruins was designed by John D. Clair, the author of Mystic Vale, Ready Set Bet and Space Base, and illustrated in an isometric style by Jake Morrison.

BOX CONTENTS
1 scoreboard
1 scoring tile (for 3-4 players)
1 round marker
5 player aids
5 score markers
15 torch tokens (3 per player)
10 claim cards (2 per player)
60 transparent upgrade sleeves
50 Ruin cards (5 each of ranks 1-10)
39 Discovery cards (13 Top, 13 Middle, 13 Bottom)
4 market tokens

Number of players: 2 to 5
Duration: 30 minutes
Age: 13+