Library Of Ruina (PC)

Library of Ruina is a turn-based card combat RPG from ProjectMoon, set inside a bizarre, liminal library that exists somewhere outside normal reality. You play as the Librarian's side, fielding a roster of staff called Librarians against waves of Guests who arrive seeking the fabled "one perfect book." When Guests lose, they become books themselves, expanding your collection and fueling your growth. The setup sounds strange because it is, and that strangeness is the whole point. The combat runs on a card system where both your Librarians and the enemy Guests draw and play pages each round. Clashes happen when opposing cards meet head-on, and the outcome depends on dice rolls modified by stats, emotion levels, and the specific card type. Managing your Librarians' Emotion Coins is critical: landing hits and surviving attacks charges their Emotion Level, which unlocks passive abilities and boosts dice rolls. Let your team's emotions spiral out of control in the wrong direction, though, and you'll find fights turning ugly fast. The system has real mechanical depth without being impenetrable, though it does demand attention. Deck-building is where the long-term hook lives. You build custom page decks for each Librarian using cards looted from defeated Guests, and you can equip Key Pages that define a character's stat profile and passive bonuses. There's a substantial amount of build variety here once you get past the early hours, and synergy-hunting across a party of five Librarians gives the game a satisfying puzzle quality. Some fights hit a wall that sends you back to the deck editor rather than the retry screen, which is the right instinct for this kind of game. The narrative is where Library of Ruina either hooks you hard or loses you entirely. It's a direct sequel to ProjectMoon's earlier title Lobotomy Corporation, and it assumes you're either familiar with that world or willing to sit with ambiguity for a while. The story is told through long visual-novel cutscenes between combat encounters, heavy with philosophy, grief, and surreal world-building. It is genuinely good writing, but it is also a lot of writing. Players who skip cutscenes will find the whole thing feels purposeless. Players who lean in will find one of the more memorable stories in indie RPGs from the past several years. Rough spots exist. The early pacing is slow, and the tutorial drip-feeds mechanics over several hours before things open up. The UI is functional but cluttered, and the partial controller support means keyboard-and-mouse is really the intended way to play. The art direction is striking and consistent throughout, mixing gothic architecture with hand-drawn character portraits that hold up well at any resolution. If you want a card combat game with real strategic texture, a world that rewards curiosity, and a story that actually goes somewhere, Library of Ruina delivers on all three. If you want something you can play half-distracted, look elsewhere.

Alex · Scout Team

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