Rise to Ruins is at heart a godlike village simulator, but it also throws in plenty of familiar game play mechanics from classic real-time strategy and resource management games like Black and White, Settlers, ActRaiser and many others. It also throws in some twists by melding in some tower defense and survival elements in an attempt to create a new kind of godlike village simulator. The goal is to try to bridge the gap between the depth and complexity of traditional village simulators, the fun of godlikes and tower defense, with the simplicity of real-time strategy games.