Rubinite

Overview

Rubinite is a top-down boss rush action game from Cup Dog Games, a first-time studio, released July 22, 2026 on Steam for Windows and macOS. You play Ruby, a princess of the fallen Scarlet Kingdom, cutting her way through the Bloodstained - bosses corrupted by an ancient cult, undying parasites, and a creeping plague. There are no trash mobs and no filler: the whole game is a string of memory-framed duels, each introduced by a short vignette from Ruby's past.

The hook is one mechanic. Ruby's blade barely scratches the Bloodstained on its own. Hold Focus to read an enemy, stack marks on its body, then unleash a Strike that spends those marks for real damage. Every boss is a puzzle of "when can I safely stand still and mark?" layered on top of pattern learning. It's closer to a fighting game's risk-reward than a typical action RPG's DPS race.

Reception has been strong for a debut title: Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam, roughly 93% of several thousand reviews, with 2,300 reviews landing in the first two weeks. Players consistently call out the combat feel, the pixel art, and a story told almost entirely through imagery. The most common complaint names one specific worm, which we'll get to.

Who it's for: players who like learning a boss until the kill is clean. If you enjoyed the duel structure of a boss rush but always wanted more build variety, the Talisman system here scratches that itch. Souls veterans will recognize the pacing: commit, punish, reset.

Who it's not for: anyone expecting exploration or loot. Movement between fights is short corridor and hub navigation. The monastery is the only real "level," and even that is compact.

Getting Started: Your First 30 Minutes

1. Play the opening normally, but treat the tutorial fight as a Focus drill. The Beast is your first real exam. Its 200 HP sounds low, but you'll notice plain slashes tick for 1.2 damage while a full 5-mark Strike hits for 40. From the first fight, the lesson is: slashes build the opening, Strikes cash it in.
2. Learn the mark table early. Marks scale Strike damage hard: 1 mark = 7 damage, 2 = 15, 3 = 24, 4 = 32, 5 = 40. After 5, each additional mark adds 6 more. This table is the entire economy of the game, and it should drive every decision about when to release.
3. Spend your first Blood Dust on Sunder Slash (200). Hitting an enemy while focusing (a Sunder) does 2.6 damage versus 1.2 for a normal slash, and the upgrade line that follows enhances it further. It's the cheapest real power spike in the tree.
4. Grab Rolling Recovery (200) next. Recovery frames kill more runs than boss attacks do in the early hours.
5. Talk to everyone in the monastery between fights. Mira, Wichiwi, and the Penitent all gate progression beats, talismans, and memory battles. The monastery statue lets you re-fight any boss you've met, which matters for both grinding and the fight-challenge achievements.
6. Pick the Priest route first if given the choice. The map forks after Guardian Faye: north to the Dual Cultists, south to the Gravekeeper. Most players find the Dual Cultists fight friendlier to learn, and the Gravekeeper's poison pods are the more annoying of the two gimmicks. You'll do both eventually; order is preference.

The mistake to avoid: mashing slashes into a boss's body and calling it damage. A full slash combo does about 6 damage per cycle. One 3-mark Strike does 24. If you're not marking, you're wasting the fight clock.

Core Mechanics Explained

The Focus loop

Hold Focus and Ruby reads the enemy, stacking visible marks up to your current cap (5 by default, expandable to 7 with Mark of Courage, effectively uncapped with the Rubinite talisman). Releasing Focus and attacking spends all marks in one Strike. The loop that wins fights looks like this:

1. Slash combo (builds chip damage + some Focus)
2. Boss attack telegraphs → dodge
3. Focus while boss recovers → stack 3-5 marks
4. Strike: spend marks (24-40 damage)
5. Reset spacing, repeat

Focus decays over time, so marks aren't a bank, they're a countdown. Two talismans directly manage this: Pensive Eyes cuts Focus decay by 45%, and Keen Gaze speeds Focus accumulation by 20%.

Damage math (this is the most important section)

All modifiers add together first, then multiply your base. A 1-mark Strike with Bloodblade Strike (-30%), Direct Hit (+10%), and Enhanced Strike (+10%) resolves as:

1 - 0.3 + 0.1 + 0.1 = 0.9 multiplier
Base 7 damage × 0.9 = 6.3 final

That additive math changes how you build. Stacking three +10% sources beats one +20% source only if you have no penalties; once Bloodblade's -30% is active, every plus matters more. Explosive Strike's 7.2 per mark can't be boosted at all, so it's pure flat value.

Base damage reference:

Blood Dust and the skill tree

Blood Dust drops from bosses and breakables, and it's the only currency for the skill tree. The tree has two halves: survival (Pureblood Heart +15 HP per rank, Enhanced Heal +7 HP per potion) and offense (Strike/Slash/Ranged enhancements). A mid-game respec toward pure damage is normal; the game refunds your dust at a key story moment, so over-investing in HP early isn't a trap.

Known quirk: Enhanced Critical Strike and Enhanced Explosive Strike have been bugged with no observable effect since the July patch. Don't budget dust for those two.

Talismans: the real build system

Twenty-eight talismans exist: most are bought or crafted at Wichiwi's shop with dust, and eight or so drop from story and fight milestones. Colored broken talismans unlock in a fixed order (white, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, red), which gates how many slots your loadout can have. Slots are the real constraint: Strike Master costs 6 slots, the endgame Rubinite talisman costs 5.

The standouts:

Slot arithmetic matters more than individual power. Pensive Eyes (2) + Sharp Blade Sharp Eye (2) + True Hunter (3) needs seven slots, which you won't have early. Build around what your current talisman colors allow instead of forcing a template.

Memory battles and the monastery

The monastery statue lets you re-fight any encountered boss. This is simultaneously the tutorial system, the grinding venue, and the home of the fight-challenge achievements. Your loadout persists, so a "failed" first encounter can be repeated with better talismans once you've unlocked more.

Boss Guide: Every Bloodstained, With Numbers

Bosses scale from 200 HP to 660, and every fight after the first is multi-phase. Here's the full board with first-clear priorities.

Universal fight template: first attempt is reconnaissance. Die, learn one pattern. Second attempt, hunt one specific opening for 3+ marks. Third attempt onward, execute. The game's fast restart and no-death-penalty design means this loop costs you nothing but time, which is why the community rates Rubinite's difficulty as "high but fair."

Faye rematch note: her grabs are all counterable, and countering them all is an achievement. If you dodge one by accident, the achievement run is dead; reset via the statue.

Ghost specifics: the Ghost possesses soldiers (45 HP each). Kill armor fast so it can't self-harm its way out, which is the Out-Of-Body achievement condition. Thorny Rose ticks damage through the armor phase while you focus elsewhere. One focus mark on the Ghost lets you track it while invisible.

Plague-Bearer specifics: it's a segmented worm. Cut it in two, then cut the larger half again while keeping the small piece alive, and you have all three segments active (the Plague It Cool achievement). For normal clears, most players just burn the segments down. For farming, this fight is the entire economy (next section).

Progression Strategy

Skill buy order that works for most players:

1. Sunder Slash (200)          - biggest early multiplier
2. Rolling Recovery (200)      - safety
3. Darts (200)                 - ranged poke for 0.3/hit
4. Enhanced Slash (200)        - +10% on your bread and butter
5. Bloodblade Strike (400)     - +40% slashes for 4s, range up
6. Pureblood Heart ranks       - survivability for Normal mode
7. Enhanced Darts (800)        - +2 needles on charge
8. Explosive Strike (800)      - 7.2/mark, ignore its -40% via math
9. Blood-Tipped Strike (800)   - only if running a ranged build
10. Enhanced Power (2200-3000) - last, +3% everything

The dust economy: bosses are finite dust, memory battles are infinite dust. Once you can clear the Plague-Bearer memory in about a minute (build below), money stops being a constraint. Until then, Greed (+50% dust) during any farm session, and break every urn in the monastery.

Achievement path planning: nothing is permanently missable, but Normal difficulty is the only gate that requires a fresh choice - the RUBINITE achievement (27.7% of players have it) needs a Normal-mode clear. Story mode players finish the narrative and then start a Normal run for the full board. Fight-challenge achievements (no-damage, no-talismans, no-pods-detonated, no-grab-escapes) are all done through the statue's memory battles, so plan them for when your build is strong, not during progression.

The eight monastery chests (for Finders Keepers?): main room behind the statue, left corridor corner near the dining hall path, dining hall right side, library under the right staircase, courtyard behind the low wall by the pillar, mirrors room bottom behind the oval mirror (the mirror reflects its location), office left side by the bookcase, infirmary far left by the last bed. A soft sound cue plays when you're near one.

The Plague-Bearer Farm: 9,999 Dust in Minutes

The community's standard farm, and it's legal, repeatable, and fast:

1. Equip Bloodblade Strike and take Spinning Slash. Bloodblade's +40% slash damage and extra range hits multiple worm segments per spin.
2. Start the Plague-Bearer memory battle from the monastery statue.
3. Dodge and spin. Spinning Slash across the worm's coiled body stacks marks and multi-hits; with Bloodblade up, the first split falls in roughly 20 seconds.
4. Keep slashing through the split. Each severed segment pays out dust; full clear takes about a minute.
5. Repeat. Two or three clears fund every remaining skill purchase and most of Wichiwi's shop, including the 9,999-dust Turquoise Pigments for the last color.

This farm is also why the Plague-Bearer is the community's least favorite boss: it's simultaneously the most annoying fight and the most profitable one.

Advanced Tips

Ranged builds are secretly great. A charged needle volley (0.9 × 3 with Enhanced Darts) plus Blood-Tipped Strike (+120% ranged) plus True Ranger (+40%) out-damages melee on the fights that keep distance: Roy, True Alcina's second phase, and the Ghost's armor cycling. Roy's Dagger (0.8, 1.6 charged) nearly triples needle damage and drops from Roy himself.

The additive math punishes mixing penalty builds. Bloodblade (-30%) and Blood-Tipped (-30%) on the same loadout stack to -60% on Strikes before bonuses. If your build leans Strikes, drop Bloodblade and use Enhanced Strike instead. Run the numbers before you equip; the game never shows you this math.

Paralyzing Strike is crowd control disguised as a damage talisman. 0.6 seconds of stun, +0.1s per mark, means a 5-mark Strike buys you a full second of free repositioning. Against True Alcina's third phase, that second is everything.

Scorched Trail does 25-27 damage per proc if the boss cooperates by moving through its own fire. It's niche, but the Gravekeeper and the Tree sit in predictable spots. Four slots is expensive; this is a final-loadout toy, not a progression tool.

Mark Master looks useless and is, mostly. Locking Strikes to 1-mark (7 damage) only matters in two cases: the Killer Instinct miss-punishment build, where low-mark strikes never whiff, and specific no-damage achievement runs where fast, safe 7-damage pokes beat greedy 40s.

Count your talisman slots before a milestone fight. The Red-Eyed Tree drops Strike Master (6 slots), and the Puppet Master drops the Rubinite talisman (5). If your favorite loadout already costs 7+, one of your pieces is coming off. Plan the swap before the fight, not during the loadout screen with your heart rate up.

Achievements: The 20% Club

The four rarest visible achievements, and how to actually get them:

• Talisman Connoisseur (20.3%) - every talisman, including the milestone drops. Buy every craftable from Wichiwi, then collect the story talismans in order. The real Rubinite (post-Puppet Master) is the last one most players need.
• Finders Keepers? (23.8%) - all eight monastery chests. Use the locations above; the sound cue does half the work.
• RUBINITE (27.7%) - clear on Normal. Do your learning runs in whatever mode you like, but the clean clear has to be Normal. Mira's Shadow + Undying Blood gives you two free deaths per fight while you learn.
• Fully Fledged (31.0%) - every skill. The illusion wakes up, refunds your dust, and swaps survival skills for damage skills. Grind the worm memory a few times and buy the whole second tree.

And the meme: 83.4% of players share "I'm Not Tasty At All..." because letting the Priest swallow you is both an achievement and, apparently, irresistible.

FAQ

Is there difficulty selection? Two modes: Story and Normal. Story keeps the narrative accessible; Normal is the full combat experience and required for the RUBINITE achievement. Nothing scales between them except enemy aggression and damage.

Does dying cost anything? No. Restarts are instant, death has no penalty, and progress persists. The design intentionally removes frustration friction; the challenge comes from the fights themselves.

Controller or keyboard? Both work. The top-down movement and dodge timing feel most natural on a controller, but Focus is a hold-input that maps fine to either.

How long is the game? 10-15 hours for a first Normal clear, plus 5-10 more for the full achievement board and the True Alcina fight. The one-minute worm farm shortens the grind considerably.

Is there a New Game Plus? Not as such, but memory battles + the post-illusion skill refund effectively give you a second build pass without restarting.

Mac support? Yes, macOS ships alongside Windows. No Linux build.

What are the system requirements? Very modest: an Athlon X4 or i5-4460, 8 GB RAM, and a GTX 950 handles it. Recent patches added a Graphics Quality toggle and performance fixes, most visible during the Plague-Bearer fight.

Any bugs to know about? Two skill upgrades (Enhanced Critical Strike, Enhanced Explosive Strike) have had no observable effect since July. Occasional hitbox generosity on perfect dodges is the other recurring note in reviews. Neither blocks completion.

Final Tip

When a fight feels impossible, the answer is almost never "get better reflexes." It's "get more marks." A 5-mark Strike deals more than five full slash combos, and every boss in Rubinite has at least two reliable windows per cycle for stacking them. Find the window, respect the decay timer, and the Bloodstained fall exactly as fast as your patience allows.