Rubinite caught my eye one day while I was trawling the Steam storefront. It primarily appeared in my feed because it’s a “Souls-like”—a term that has evolved during the last decade from novel to helpful to semi-meaningless, but one that also happens to apply to most of the games I play on my computer. My recommendations are full of them, and I do check out demos this way from time to time.
Rubinite is being developed by Chinese studio Cup Dog Games, and its arresting fairy-tale-princess-meets-gothic-horror aesthetic was what initially pulled me in. (We’ll circle back to this, but this description isn’t actually that accurate.)
But the gameplay is where Rubinite really shines, and if the final game can continue to expand on the tightly knit and intricate balance of its game systems in a way that scales with the variety of enemies you face, Rubinite could be an indie darling much in the same vein as Hotline Miami, Dead Cells, or the more recent Nine Sols.
It’s Time to Lock In… I Mean, Focus
To be clear, Rubinite is mechanically a Souls-like in the sense that the titular Ruby has a health bar that can be restored with a phial she carries and her dodge roll has invincibility frames. What Rubinite actually is, though, is a top-down boss rush game broken up by short sequences of party camaraderie and hub world exploration, with the second-to-second gameplay defined by a singular mechanic the game dubs “Focus.” (Admittedly, it’s difficult to ascertain the degree to which exploring an interconnected world will play in the final product, which might disappoint fans who gravitate towards Souls-likes for the level design and exploration elements over fast-paced combat.)
Focus is a gauge Ruby can build against an enemy by holding a button and aiming toward them. When Ruby is focusing, she can’t move freely; she can only dodge-roll. It’s a simple execution of a core foundation of any game, digital or not: risk and reward. The Focus bar goes up to level 3. At each level, Ruby can unleash a critical blow against her enemy; the higher the level of Focus, the more damage she does.
The developers have added one more layer here, though: The further away Ruby is, the slower the gauge fills. Will you risk standing right next to an enemy, within striking distance of their blows, or slowly fill the gauge from afar? Between the slowness of the gauge at range and the rate at which Focus depletes, the intended play style is quite clear: Get as close as you dare.
This is augmented by another cute tweak to the typical dodge and roll formula: Executing a “perfect” dodge also increases focus. The developers have clearly made an effort here to reward aggressive players as well: Many attacks can be avoided through spacing or fleeing, but dodging with perfect timing yields much more reward than turtling or playing defensively.
The result of these intertwined systems is a frenetic dance—a push and pull between staying stationary to build focus and dodging attacks to strike back with critical blows. Combine this with an RPG-lite system where Ruby can craft talismans that provide a variety of tweaks—both mechanical and numeric—to her build, and Rubinite shows it has significant potential for theory-crafting unique builds.
The demo only showcased two bosses—The Beast and The Guardian—but both showcased that Cup Dog Studios has quite a few tricks in its bag. Both fights involved shoot-em-up elements, as well as attacks that came from above and below. The Guardian in particular incorporates a neat element where her attacks can originate from a variety of swords she places around the battlefield—swords whose view becomes largely obscured due to the visual filter that is applied when Ruby uses Focus on an enemy.
Overall, despite the low enemy count, both bosses felt fair, challenging, and, most of all, addictive to fight. I spent most of my time in the demo in the post-content time trial mode, which is a great addition and something I wish more games were willing to incorporate.
That’s a Mighty Bloody Knife You’ve Got There, Miss
I previously mentioned that it was Rubinite’s aesthetic style that first appealed to me. The game employs a cute pixel art style during gameplay that becomes much more intricate during cutscenes or menus. The trailer for the demo displays this higher fidelity style well:
It’s not uncommon for beloved children’s stories to be reimagined (or, more truthfully, faithfully adapted) with a bloodier, more brutal sheen, and Rubinite certainly leans into this. Body horror and parental abandonment are paired with decapitations, executions, and blood spatter in this vertical slice, the pixel art style clashing wonderfully with the guts and gore Ruby leaves in her wake. Even her character design displays this dichotomy, a pair of cute bunny ears on her hood with a fist clenching a kitchen knife at her side.
While narrative sections and boss fights have a dark and gory fantasy leaning, the interstitial areas, especially the monastery that acts as the hub world for the game, are much more lighthearted and sweet, almost Ghibli-esque. Ruby has two companions, an older mentor-type named Roy and a gecko potion-maker named Witchiwi. Roy is gruff but caring, and Witchiwi’s comic relief cuts through the macabre elements nicely. The three of them sitting around a fire, sharing their evening soup, was a cozy scene that feels sorely lacking in other games of this nature.
Future content that was teased in trailers, however, showcases a wide variety of enemies: fallen knights, tainted dragons, misshapen beasts, tall women with swords, and Eldritch horrors. The horrors in particular recall a “Kirby final boss”-esque style with the pixel art, which is a stunner to see:
Story cutscenes and interstitial conversations between boss fights also hint at a large storyline that has yet to be revealed. The hints that have been shown so far are reasonably compelling, but only time will tell if the final product lives up to these promising teases.
Try the Demo Out Yourself!
Cup Dog Games has the release date for Rubinite slated for some time in 2025, and I’m excited to try the full game when it releases. In the meantime, you can try this vertical slice on Steam.
The demo is free, short, and appears to carry over some of your progress to the full game. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Rubinite, developed and published by Cup Dog Games, is scheduled to release in 2025 for PC (Steam).
Huge video game, comic book, and anime fan. Spends way too much time watching things he doesn’t like. Hates Zack Snyder. Mains Falco.
