Rutrum is a physics roguelike about dropping gems, popping rocks, and unlocking chests. Build a deck of gems, inscribe them with runes, merge them together to cause damage, touch them to acquire loot from enemies. DROP, POP, UNLOCK!
3recent developer posts shown belowSelected from the developer record, separately from press coverage. Announcements are not necessarily shipped patches.
Last successful news check: This is our collection date, not the date of the latest patch.
Newest in this record ·
Ver 1.0.7a - 1 New Crate, 1 Bug Fix
From the recorded announcement
Ver 1.0.7a: This might be too small for a "regular update", but I'll be traveling internationally next week and so it may be about 7 days until the next patch. Introducing new crate "Ancient Tree"! Unlock Ancient Tree by upgrading a Rare Amber (e.g. via quest). Spoilers! Ancient Tree doesn't let you collect any gold…
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Ver 1.0.7a: This might be too small for a "regular update", but I'll be traveling internationally next week and so it may be about 7 days until the next patch. Introducing new crate "Ancient Tree"! Unlock Ancient Tree by upgrading a Rare Amber (e.g. via quest). Spoilers! Ancient Tree doesn't let you collect any gold during battles, but in exchange, you start with 3 Rare Ambers. It was inspired by one of my favorite Balatro special quests, but with gacha, can play quite different. (Conceptually it's the opposite of the Gold Crate.) Bug Fix: I think the last version 1.0.6b incorrectly displayed all the handles in the view book, even the ones that hadn't been unlocked. This is now fixed.
Ver 1.0.6b - Vulture shovel changed, several handle changes, minor bug fixes
From the recorded announcement
Ver 1.0.6b patchnotes:\Changed Frog Leg Handle -- Pops coins now. Cleanse Curse Handle is now the old Frog Leg Handle. Changed Ruby Shield handle -- Nullifies instead of pops. Vulture Shovel now focuses on Coins as trigger rather than Gems. Vulture Handle : now also gives +10 sell valueVulture decreased price from 20…
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Ver 1.0.6b patchnotes:\Changed Frog Leg Handle -- Pops coins now. Cleanse Curse Handle is now the old Frog Leg Handle. Changed Ruby Shield handle -- Nullifies instead of pops. Vulture Shovel now focuses on Coins as trigger rather than Gems. Vulture Handle : now also gives +10 sell valueVulture decreased price from 20 to 16, given that you need to pay for bribes to grow it. Holy dice strength changed from -10 to +5Stubborn quest increased from 5 rocks to 15 rocksHeated enemy no longer makes allies angry if the Heated enemy is asleep or stunned. Sling handle was incorrectly a rare, now fixed to be a common. Changed one item's achievement condition to be a little easier. (may need further debugging)Renamed some items -> "Letter of Debt" -> "Debt Letter" to make them fit better.A certain unlockable handle had the wrong (placeholder) artwork, now fixedPickaxe Rune for Rubies toned down a bit more (less spin)Anchor rune mass increased by 75%\Text on damage indicator was too pixellated, now smoothed (higher resolution + filtering on)Made the bubble pop animation juicierWhen 3 enemies were on screen, damage indicator to bottom enemy was sometimes behind the locks of the top enemy. Now fixed. Fixed the centering of titles on Shovels in View Book"Rewards" button at end of run should now say "Continue" if no rewards left\Charcoal was not working properly with Quick Draw, now fixed. Handles that would instant-upgrade a shovel in the starting free shop incorrectly showed a price > 0. They are still free. (Very rare case.)Tower Rune now works on Quick CrateOn Glass Beaker, if you healed…
Ver 1.0.6a - Big Balance Patch, 2 new items, many reworked, 1 new song
From the recorded announcement
Ver 1.0.6a Patchnotes2 new item: Anchor Shovel and Torch ShovelAnchor has an effect that has been requested by several playtesters. Also incorporates some of the Queen's Gaze elements, as Queen's Gaze has been reworked.(Anchor Handle is the old Queen's Gaze Handle)Torch Shovel is oriented at supporting lava-based…
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Ver 1.0.6a Patchnotes2 new item: Anchor Shovel and Torch ShovelAnchor has an effect that has been requested by several playtesters. Also incorporates some of the Queen's Gaze elements, as Queen's Gaze has been reworked.(Anchor Handle is the old Queen's Gaze Handle)Torch Shovel is oriented at supporting lava-based gameplay. Both shovels and handles are immediately available, no need to unlock via in-game achievements.(If you haven't played recently, I also recommend Potion Dice Shovel, it's also nice.)7 significantly altered items:\Queen's Gaze: Now gives runeless gems on the bottom of crate the mirror rune! Queen's Insignia: Copper that hits bottom forges into diamond! Chisel: Open chest -> Draw 1 extra drop next turn. Sleight of Hand: Now triggers an immediate drop instead of adding to coffer. Penny Ante (handle): Now decreases all shop prices rather than a free reroll for handle shops. Recharge Shield: Now triggers on Ability Use rather than Coffer Refill, and uses charge cost of ability. In short, 1 charge stone is now 1 shield, but you can decide when you want to apply the shield. Quiver: Basically, the base version now throws the rocks directly, like the old upgraded version of Quiver, but can only store 20. The new upgraded version still throws rocks directly, but stores 50. Other item changes:Rock Combo price reduced from 20 gold -> 15 gold nuggetsSling price reduced from 12 gold -> 5 gold nuggetsPenny Ante price reduced from 6 gold -> 4 gold nuggetsCopper Knife price reduced from 10 gold -> 5 gold nuggetsCopper Knife base / default effect increased from 0 to 3.…
The developers post roughly every 2 days and were last heard 6 days ago — within their normal range. 23 substantial updates recorded in the past six months, 14 classified as major.
Last successful news check: Oct 19, 2026, 2:02 PM UTC. This is when we checked Steam, separate from when the developer last posted.
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Distilled by the oracle
Our coverage
1 dispatch written from this game’s announcements
releaseSep 6, 2026
Rutrum Hotpatch 1.0.0c Swaps to Single-Threaded Physics to Chase Crashes
Stability has been the headline concern for Rutrum since release, and developer uncertainkey has responded with a targeted hotpatch — even without being able to reproduce the crashes locally.
What changed
Physics engine re-architecture: The multi-threaded physics engine has been replaced with a single-threaded approach. The developer describes the multi-threaded version as prone to "looking for gems that are no longer there" — a likely cause of the reported crashes. Performance impact is described as negligible in local testing.
Multi-threaded option preserved (tentatively): The developer intends to offer the multi-threaded engine as a launch option for players not experiencing stability problems.
Enemy tower display fixed: The large tower of defeated enemies continued appearing after all unlocks were obtained; this patch addresses that.
Mole Meat shovel and handle: Received new artwork.
"Shrinking" enemy artwork corrected: It was displaying the mushroom-with-coins sprite (belonging to the "Greedy" enemy) rather than the intended floating plant bulb.
Uncertainkey notes that at least one further stability improvement is in development, and commits to staying in communication as the situation evolves.
For players who have been hitting crashes, the physics change is the meaningful intervention here — everything else is polish and correction. Whether single-threading holds as a permanent solution or serves as a diagnostic stepping stone remains to be seen.
Two years of development
■ substantial ■ routine
49 announcements · 23 substantial · 19 months with nothing
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Ver 1.0.7a: This might be too small for a "regular update", but I'll be traveling internationally next week and so it may be about 7 days until the next patch. Introducing new crate "Ancient Tree"!Unlock Ancient Tree by upgrading a Rare Amb…
Ver 1.0.6b patchnotes:\Changed Frog Leg Handle -- Pops coins now.Cleanse Curse Handle is now the old Frog Leg Handle.Changed Ruby Shield handle -- Nullifies instead of pops.Vulture Shovel now focuses on Coins as trigger rather than Gems.Vul…
Ver 1.0.6a Patchnotes2 new item: Anchor Shovel and Torch ShovelAnchor has an effect that has been requested by several playtesters.Also incorporates some of the Queen's Gaze elements, as Queen's Gaze has been reworked.(Anchor Handle is the …
Ver 1.0.5b Quantum Crate now correctly requires Quantum Box to have been upgradedPotion dice is now correctly unlocked, my apologies.Minor text improvement to Quantum CrateA certain secret item's upgrade had it's image fixedWill continue wi…
3 New Crates: Quick Crate -- Available immediately, no unlock neededThis is slightly intended for shorter runs. (Artwork somewhat placeholder).Each Battle is only 2 waves, but each non-boss enemy has twice as much health.However, the crate …
Ver 1.0.4a Patchnotes:New Crate: "Target Crate"Unlock by triggering a regenerative enemy, a toxic enemy, and a charger enemy in the same run.Can Trigger these by touching the relevant combinations -- for example, touching a ruby and a coppe…
Anchor Rune Weight increased by 50%, so it should sink deeper, especially on Stone Box.It seemed the music player was not switching "playlists" after entering a new area properly, and would instead play the remaining tracks of the "playlist…
New Rune: Lockpick rune -- Inscribed Gem also counts as one lower tier for the purposes of unlocking. This was inspired in part by The Cat's Eye Nebula's comments in discord, thank you!Pickaxe Rune spin speed adjusted (tier specific) and fu…
Ver 1.0.2c Micropatch Notes: New Rune -- "Music" Rune (name pending). "Drop: Put a random non-boss enemy to sleep."One followup bug fix for the music player -- while it was randomizing correctly, once it finished the playlist, it tended to …
Ver 1.0.2a/b It came to my attention (during TimeToGrind's recent stream) that, depending on the settings, the Music Player would sometimes get "stuck" on a song for an entire run. This was completely unintentional and is now fixed.In short…
Ver 1.0.1c Patch notes: When it takes damage, Sticky Crate now "unsticks" stuff stuck at the top(Also, can now sell gacha properly instead of auto-sell, minor bug)Pickaxe Rune now added!If the inscribed gem hits the bottom of the crate, the…
Ver 1.0.1b Notes: If you beat Stone Crate, it now unlocks Glass Beaker.If you ever beat Stone Crate in the past, as soon as you start a new run, it will unlock Glass Beaker. (You can use escape -> Retire run to go to the Glass Beaker right …
Ver 1.0.1a (Despite the numbering, this is the 7th patch in the 7 days since release. Please see patch notes for Ver 1.0.0 a, b, c, d, e, f and g if curious.) \ It is a common shovel locked behind the requirement of: "Defeat a Goliath by po…
I received an interesting bug report that sometimes the end of rewards screen (giant corpse pile) crashes on launch, but the very next time, it was fine. After reorganizing load times, I'd been doing some debugging to see if there were any …
Ver 1.0.0.f patchnotes: There was a story bug where the paper drawings were being drawn in the wrong order, and indeed, it was technically impossible to see all 5 at once. My apologies. I've now fixed it, and for some time will make it so t…
Ver 1.0.0.e patch notes: Altered the way the MetaTower (Corpse Pile) loads so that there is less loading when it first loads, but then when you hit the exit button, it takes a little longer to loading the main menu.There were some cyclical …
No longer loads the tower at the end of run screen unless there is still stuff to unlock. This should hopefully speed up the "end of run" process somewhat."Shifty" boss was misaligned, now fixed."Lunch Box" Crate stated an incorrect (old) c…
Dear Players, I have been working to replicate the stability issues that some report on my local machines without much success. However, looking through the bug reports / crash logs, I have tried switching the multi-threaded physics engine …
I am still working on improving stability, but in the meantime I wanted to fix three small things: Enemies when Angry used to increase their future attacks as well. (So that every turn angry result in future attacks being more difficult). F…
Thank you everyone for your patience! Rutrum v1.0.0 is now officially released. Because I tried to add a lot of new content, the balance may be slightly off for the next few days. So I will be looking closely at feedback and data (from thos…
Hello everyone!I've been reading the comments every day and trying to polish the game more and more while fleshing out content. Important notes: After release, the save files from the demo will not automatically carry over. I am sorry for t…
Ver 0.956a Patchnotes:\ First, I want to apologize to players playing in other languages, I need to update the localization, as I've been changing several items. I will try to update this in the next patch.まず、他の言語でプレイしているプレイヤーの皆様にお詫び申し上げます。…
Ver 0.954c Sorry, even though I thought I had solved "crate sometimes mysteriously drops everything" in 0.954a, it somehow got worse! I think this time I got it...
Ver 0.954bPenny Rock shovel and handle was producing large rocks due to a typo, rather than charge stones. It is now fixed.Sapphire Sleep has been renamed to Sapphire Energy (placeholder name)
Ver 0.954a patchnotes\Sprint's upgrade has also been slightly altered, it was previously bugged.Sapphire Stun received a moderate debuff. Old: Forge Sapphire: Stun all enemiesNew: Forge Sapphire: Stun one random non-boss enemyThe upgrade an…
\ I'm sorry this patch took quite some time. The "gem preview" system and localization both had a lot of situations that I didn't anticipate and required additional polish. \ Language can now be switched to 日本語 / 简体中文 / 繁體中文 by selecting op…
Ver 0.952a\Increased Stability throughout, should be less likely to crash and may slightly help performance. (Rigidbody2Ds were changing some of the collisionshapes out of the physics loop, now fixed to defer.)View Book button is now on scr…
Ver 0.951bLocalization debug mode was incorrectly displaying for non-english operating systems / locales. My apologies! It should now display the english strings as usual, as I gear up for a larger (initial) localization patch.
Ver 0.951a Patch NotesRELEASE DATE: I'm targeting August 27th for the full release. I'm sorry if I end up needing another 2-4 weeks and end up delaying, but you should know that delay at least 2 weeks in advance. Of course, there will be mo…
