Every ruin has two faces. In Ruins, the card-crafting game from John D. Clair (the designer of Mystic Vale and Space Base), published by Allplay with isometric art by Jake Morrison, you uncover ancient ruins and the treasures buried in them. Your cards start on their day side, but each round you can secretly flip one to night, and its number and its powers change. Clear discovery cards slide into your sleeves and layer new finds onto your ruins, until one card counts as four elevens and you shed your whole hand in a single, glorious play.
This soundtrack is an expedition of its own: 71 minutes of animated dig sites, each one living through a full day while you play. Dawn breaks over a floating slice of earth, the sun sweeps the shadows round, the diggers get to work, and one by one the chambers below are uncovered. At dusk the lanterns come on, the fireflies rise, the stars come out, and the next dawn carries you to the next site.
🎶 The Soundtrack — Eleven Sites, Eleven Days
An epic, cinematic orchestral score with soaring strings, French horns, wordless choir and big drums, and a different colour for every site. Each piece follows its day: it opens softly at dawn, rises to a heroic theme at noon, glows warm at golden hour and ends in a starlit night. And there are two different pieces for every site, one for each half of the video, so nothing repeats in the whole 71 minutes.
- The Expedition Arrives — Tents go up at the edge of the jungle and the first trench is dug around a colossal stone head. A lone horn call over warm strings, marimba and hand drums: the excitement of setting out.
- The Green Terraces — A stepped jungle temple where a stream spills off the edge of the world as a waterfall. Wooden flutes, harp glissandi and tribal toms under a broad, majestic melody.
- The Sunken Lagoon — A flooded colonnade in turquoise water, mangroves on stilt roots and a canoe gliding between the columns. Flowing harp and celesta, an airy choir and a gentle waltz, full of wonder.
- Gate of the Sun Kings — A golden sandstone gate in the desert, obelisks and a lion guardian slowly freed from the sand. Duduk and oud, frame drums and brass fanfares in the heat haze.
- The Crystal Caverns — A lift hauls glowing crystals up from a shaft while an underground river shines blue below. Glassy bells, glockenspiel and celesta over echoing low brass and choir.
- The Cliffside Pass — Two crags, a shrine and a beacon tower, and a team of climbers laying a rope bridge plank by plank. A driving string ostinato, bold horns and taiko: a heroic climb.
- Hall of the Ancient Bones — A giant fossil emerges from the earth layers, tail first, then the ribcage, then the horned skull. Low cellos, bass clarinet and a deep choir, tension turning to triumph.
- The Star Observatory — A great stone star dial dug out of the hill, a domed tower with a brass telescope, and constellations that light up on the dial and in the sky at night. Piano, celesta, solo violin and starry strings.
- The Frozen Sanctuary — An ice-bound temple on a snowy peak, a guardian chipped free from a block of ice, and an aurora rippling overhead. Celesta and glass harmonica, high violins and an airy choir.
- The Ember Forge — A forge temple on a volcano, a trip hammer striking all day and a river of lava pouring off the edge. Pounding anvils and taiko, growling brass and a fierce choir.
- Heart of the Ruins — The deepest chamber at last: a painted ziggurat with a ruby heart turning in golden rings above it, and below, a treasure vault with a golden king. The full orchestra and choir in a grand finale of discovery.
🎨 The Art — Dioramas Through a Day and a Night
The game’s art shows its ruins as isometric cutaways, the surface on top and the buried chambers beneath. The video takes that idea and brings it to life. Every track is a floating diorama built in Blender: a block of earth with wavy coloured strata, a little world on top (a jungle camp, a desert gate, a snowy temple, a volcano forge) and rooms hidden in its sides. Low-poly shapes, warm saturated colours and dark outlines give it the look of an illustrated board game.
Then time passes. The sun climbs and the shadows swing across the ruins, golden hour turns everything amber, and sunset paints the sky pink. While the day goes on, the dig goes deeper: an earth panel slides out of the cut face like a card pulled from its sleeve, and a chamber appears behind it, lit by the expedition’s lamps and torches. A burial alcove, a pillared hall, a jaguar tomb, a pearl grotto, an orrery, a treasure vault. When night falls, lanterns glow, fireflies drift over the grass, lava and crystals shine brighter, and the stars come out.
🎬 Watch & Listen
Deal the ruins. Light your torches. Let the soundtrack of Ruins carry you from the first dawn at the jungle camp to the golden heart at the bottom of it all, while you claim your ruins, flip them to night, layer on your discoveries and race to play your very last card.