Debrief: Ruins by John D. Clair

We break down Ruins by John D. Clair—how card crafting, day/night flips, and a live upgrade market twist a classic shedding game into a tempo puzzle with real stakes. We share what worked, what dragged, and why the match-to-skip rule has us debating house tweaks.

• first impressions from World Series of Board Gaming pickup
• core shedding structure and exact-size matching
• mid-hand upgrades using torches and transparent sleeves
• day versus night flips and torch relights
• claiming tricked-out cards for future rounds
• timing, tempo, and saving a single as a closer
• cognitive load of late hands and sorting by effective value
• strategy heuristics for anchors, markets, and triples
• debate on the match-to-skip rule and table feel
• final verdict and why the game sticks with us

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Chapters

• 0:15 Kickoff & Hot Takes
• 0:49 First Impressions at WSBG
• 2:35 Shedding Basics Reframed
• 4:18 Card Crafting Market Explained
• 6:03 Claiming Cards and Long Game
• 8:05 Day vs Night Sides & Torches
• 10:36 Strategy Tension: Sets vs Singles
• 12:35 Timing Upgrades and Open Information
• 14:03 The Match-To-Skip Rule Debate
• 16:10 Verdict & Listener Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:15

Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast. Back in better than ever. I'm your host, Travis Smith. Joining me as always is my co-chair, my co-captain, the co-owner and proprietor of Operation Game Night. Uh Clayton Gable. How are you doing, Clay?

SPEAKER_00: 0:33

I'm doing good. I'm glad to hear I've been promoted to co-owner. Well, I was wondering when that was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01: 0:39

It's worth nothing. So congratulations. I guess.

SPEAKER_00: 0:43

In fact, in fact, I've incurred some debt.

SPEAKER_01: 0:45

That's right. Yeah. You now owe me money. Today we are talking and actually a new game. We're talking Ruins from 2025 by John D. Clare, published by All Play. Clayton, hit me with your debrief of ruins.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03

Okay, so a little background. I'm an All Play fanatic. I love their small boxes, and they're almost an insta-buy for me because I just like the way they all look together. So I truly knew nothing about this game. I had seen that it existed, and we were at the World Series of Board Gaming. They really blue balled me by not having a vendor library set up. So we had to go off site to a little board game store. Shout out to night and day games in Las Vegas. Um and I saw Ruin sitting there and I picked it up. And so did Travis because he too likes all play small box games. We took it back to the hotel, and boy, was I tickled when I opened this thing up. It is a John Declare game. So I didn't even think about this, but it is a card crafting shedding game. So we're talking games like oh my gosh, I'm trying what what scout games where you're trying to get sets of cards out of your hand. You want to be the first one to go out. So someone leads with a pair of twos, and now I'm the next player. I have to beat that pair of twos by playing a pair of sevens. The next player plays a pair of eights until everybody passes, and then the person who played the strongest pick um set gets to start another round. The interesting thing about this game, and there's many, is that before each round, John Declare, card crafting. All right, we're talking about Mystic Veil, Dead Reckoning. Like this is a system he's kind of made his name on. I had no idea it was in ruins, but it was so cool to see those sleeves that you could slot transparent cards into to make upgrades to this card. So at the start of a hand, everybody gets to pick one of their cards and flip it over to the night side. So, you know, you start with cards from like one to ten, and on the bottom you can see what the night side of the card is. So maybe it's like a 13. So you can just right there at the beginning of the round, flip a card over and know you have the strongest card in the game, maybe. Um, and then there's other upgrades on the back that'll make more sense later. But you do that at the start of the hand. So now maybe I've given myself like a triplet where I didn't have it before because I just flipped one of those cards over. And then on your turn, say you're trying to follow Travis has a mean three fours he played, and I only have two fives. Well, there's a little market of transparent sleeves that you can spend these torches to grab. So maybe there's a sleeve over there that gives me plus three to the card I sleeve it into. So before I lay down, I can spend my torches, grab that sleeve, stick it in my card, and now boom, I have three fives, and I'm still in the game. So that's pretty freaking sweet. And each hand you get three um torches to spend, and there's ways to relight those torches with different abilities on the cards. So you're adding these abilities to cards. You know, I I gave a basic example of just adding value to the card, but there's also um symbols on the cards that will make it count as two cards instead of one card. So if I played one three with this the plus one card symbol, it would count as two threes instead of one. And so there's just cool things like that. There's ones that make it a wild card, so you can just add this card to anything and it it adds to the strength of the set. So really interesting deciding what to buy off of that card market with the transparent sleeves. There is another twist that if you match the person before you's set exactly. So Travis played those three fours and I played three fours. I now auto pass the next player. So they're out of the round, it doesn't matter. They can't they can't play any more um sets that go around, and that's just an interesting dynamic as well. Uh, what am I missing here, Travis?

SPEAKER_01: 5:29

Uh the card market has the different values ranging from one to three of your torches, and as people buy them up, all those cards slide to the left to the right, becoming less expensive. I don't think this is set up incorrectly. It's most expensive when it just comes out and then it gets cheaper as it goes along. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I missed missed that one. But regardless, the price changes as people buy these up, and so timing when you're going to pick up those clutch cards uh can really be a strategic advantage. We played it once. I don't know what that timing looks like it for good strategy. Um, but you do also only have three upgrade slots on each of these cards. So there's like ones that do special abilities, there's one that change the value, and then there's you know one other position. You cannot layer multiples on top. So like deciding which card needs what boost. I'm sure that there's math behind that that we did not figure it out in our one play. Um, but the cool thing is you can claim cards. So if I get a card that has three upgrades, it's fully kitted out. I know that it can help my hand in the future. I invested a lot of torches in this card. When it is my turn, I can take my little claim card. So this looks like if you're watching the video, it has my little player symbol up here in the right. It's got my color border on it. I can slot that into my card, and then in future rounds, when that when that card gets dealt out to any other player, if they see my player logo on it, they have to give that card to me, and they play with a one less card in their hand. So I clay, you were the only person that claimed cards in our game. I don't know what the right timing of that is.

SPEAKER_00: 7:18

Nor do I. But I really, I really liked, and I don't I won't want to drop this on you now, but Jared and I played this a second time the night before I left at two players, and he did claim some cards as well. He had one card that he tricked out all the way up to like being worth 22, which was pretty cool, and he threw his claim on there. So I don't know what warrants getting claimed, but I mean, I think if you got a card you really like, it's nice that you can ensure that you get it back. Um, I did find it as the game went on, it became a little harder to ascertain what my hand was when it was dealt to me. So the game's played over four rounds, maybe five, if nobody has won yet.

SPEAKER_01: 8:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:10

Um, and you know, the first hand, everybody, you got your numbers in the top left corner. You can easily sort it into your sets of three, your threes, your sevens, your whatevers. Uh, but as you start uh sleeving it up and getting these different bonuses on it, it becomes a little bit of a chore to be like, okay, I have a three, but I have a plus five modifier down here, so I can play this as an eight. So now I have to put it with my eights. I mean, that's a minor gripe because overall I think this is pretty cool and it adds a lot to a standard shedding game. Um, and but yeah, I just the later rounds started to wear on me a little bit with the yeah, trying to figure out what my cards could actually do.

SPEAKER_01: 8:58

Yeah. And I the one thing that I really didn't pick up on when we first played, or not until multiple rounds in, was that when you get dealt your hands, the very first round, all of them are on the day side of the card. And the numbers are different on the opposite side. You might choose to flip them over, you might not, but the night side primarily has more of the bonuses associated with that side of the card. So, like uh, if you're watching the YouTube video, there's a seven that's on the night side. You can tell by the little moon up here in the corner, but the night side also has this flame symbol up here, which means that when I play that card, I can relight one of my torches that same round. Typically, they reset all three of your torches, reset between the overarching rounds. But like during that hand, uh, I can relight that torch that torch immediately. And so, like you said, like that was one of my complaints is you you get dealt the heart the hand of cards, and it's really hard to like do all the math in your head. Yeah, we're not bright people per se, but uh mental math is a challenge for us, so putting them in order and making sure you know exactly what what each card is equal or uh what it adds up to is um a little bit tedious, but man, it feels so good to buy those upgrades and slide them in there, and now you have a card that's worth way too much, and you gotta figure out how to match something with it. Um like Jared had the card that added up to 22 previously. We had mentioned that you're trying to play sets, right? That's the primary method of getting cards out of your hand. You're gonna get them out faster if you can play sets of two or three or four cards that all match the same value. Uh, but you can, if you have nothing, no other option, you can play that single card. And so that maybe he kept that for like kind of the trump card, or maybe he had another one.

SPEAKER_00: 10:48

I mean, yeah, if you the the worst thing that happens in this game, and I I this is all shedding games. I have no idea strategy in these games. Like, I want to know. So if you know what you're supposed to do in this, because it feels like you should come out swinging, you know, throwing your big sets out there, yeah. But then like you're the one in the lead, and if you get left with so like a piddly two or something and throw it out, like you may never get the lead again, and you're never gonna beat anything with that two. So I don't know the right time to do that, but I do know if you leave yourself with a 22 at the end, you're pretty much guaranteed a win because you can't beat uh a set. Like if you play a single, everybody has to play a single, you can't decide to beat it with a double, which is different than some games. I know you know there's a whole host of ways to do these type of games, but in this one, you have to match the number of cards played exactly. So just getting that one powerhouse, like, yeah, you're not gonna play it in a set, probably, but you do have like a surefire. Hey, it's the end of the round, I'm throwing out my 22. You guys can't do anything about it.

SPEAKER_01: 11:54

Like, yeah, and you get to the point where like the triples, because you work so hard to manipulate these cards to make them do certain things, the triples feel really powerful, and man, does it feel bad when you're like triple fives, and then somebody's like, okay, triple tens, and they just come right over the top and you know jack up your plan. But I that if we're getting into like the minutia of the play sequencing, it's really interesting to me that like you have to play the card to buy the upgrade for it to then slot it in. It's a one-time thing. Like, I can't hang back and buy upgrades for cards that I want to keep in my hand until the very end. Like, when I buy that re that upgrade for it, it's out in the open. I've played it into the pile, into the not a trick, that that round, yeah. Uh, and I I might not see that upgrade ever again in my hand. It's out there and it's available to all unless I want to claim that card. So that's a really interesting decision to me. I I'd love to see Decision Space do something about that. Cause it's like, yeah, man, it it's it feels good to slide the cards in and and you know come up with creative ways to shed your hand. But man, it feels bad to like have somebody use that card against you the next round.

SPEAKER_00: 13:16

Yeah, I I think the coolest part of the game for me, and yes, just sleeving cards into it was fun in and of itself. But being able to sit there and uh set gets played and you don't have what you need in your hand, but you look at the marketplace of sleeves available, and you're like, ooh, I'm still in this. I can get that sleeve right there, slip it into my number seven. Now it's a 10. Now I have those triple tens and I'm still in the round. And that's so fun because you know, normally it's just like, well, I don't, I don't, I don't have what I need, I'm I'm out. Like, and just having that that market of four cards that maybe there's that right little ditty in there that's gonna get you what you need. It was it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01: 14:07

Yeah, I'm I'm curious why they added the rule where if I matched the same number that the previous person just played, that you skip the other person. I wish it was like uh I mean, the other person being the third player in a three-player game, instead of saying, like, I matched you, now you are out, like the previous person that just played the set of fours and I played a set of fours. Why wouldn't it skip the person that just got you know doubled versus the following person? It just seems like a strange choice for a rule like that. I would love to hear why that rule exists.

SPEAKER_00: 14:49

Yeah, it is interesting. I I hadn't thought about that. I I don't love the rule, honestly. I don't like when you can just like take that to people like for no good reason. But it's also like a 20-minute game, so it's like okay, whatever, you know, that too. I'll I'll come back in the next round. And these games inherently lend themselves to the fact is as you get less cards in your hand, your possibilities to create things go down. So, like, I mean, you get skipped, but yeah, next next go round, you still have a whole slew of cards that you can, you know, try and make stuff with while the others are you know dealing with less.

SPEAKER_01: 15:30

So, yeah, that's true. Yeah, I I that's like the a very interesting rule. It's kind of been like buzzing around my head the past week that since we played this game. Um like why is it that person that gets skipped and not the other? It feels bad to have your agency taken away from you in games, yeah, even if it is a 20-minute game. Like, yeah, it feels bad to say take that, you can't even play anything. Maybe it's like you can't buy an upgrade from the card row or whatever it is, but to just say like you're out this round just feels bad. So yeah, ruins. We did it.

SPEAKER_00: 16:06

We did it.

SPEAKER_01: 16:07

I think awesome. I think it's great. I I love this game.

SPEAKER_00: 16:11

Yeah, no, super glad I bought this out of impulse and love for those square boxes.

SPEAKER_01: 16:18

Yeah. Uh just as a side note, if you have played this game or if you are liking the show, or if you're listening to the show or watching the show or enjoying the show, please reach out to us on Instagram. Tell us you love the game, tell us you love the show, leave us a review on YouTube or Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Uh, share the show with others, give us a like and subscribe. Uh, however you want to support, please, please support the show. Uh, and thank you for listening. Thank you for allowing us some grace last week when we were coming off our World Series of Board Gaming weekend and and struggling to play catch up with work and life. Uh, so thank you for giving us the grace and continuing to support Operation Game Night.

SPEAKER_00: 17:01

Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 17:03

All right. For Operation Game Night, I have been Travis. He has been Clay. This has been Ruins by All Play, and we're out.