- Game Hub
- Review
- Walkthrough
- The Beginning
- The First Letter – Pyramid Above the Seas
- The Second Letter – Realm of the Dead
- The Third Letter – The Tree of Life
- The Fourth Letter (In Progress!)
- The Fifth Letter (In Progress!)
- The Sixth Letter and the Finale (In Progress!)
- 2025 Demo Walkthrough
- Preview: Ruffy and the Riverside – How a confusing drawing inspired the game’s SWAP mechanic
Welcome to the Into Indie Games walkthrough for Ruffy and the Riverside.
For more information on Ruffy and the Riverside beyond this guide, check out the official website here.
Table of contents
The First Letter – Pyramid Above the Seas
Buried City 1
Return to the beach where you found the eye marbles. Instead of going to Water Point, take a right and head south along the cliff to find Sir Eddler.
Go into the Buried City entrance now.
This is your first Buried City and the only one with multiple steps to it. Your objective in each Buried City is to drop the blue ball into the blue glowing socket.
Look at the ball and you’ll find a square symbol on the wall behind it. Copy this square symbol and paste it on any of the red cubes.
Repeat this process for each of the red cubes in this area, and you’ll push the ball into the socket.
Now head to the second step by jumping across the platforms.
Here, copy each of the symbols and paste them on one red cube each. This will create a bridge, allowing the ball to roll into the socket.
If you mess up and use the wrong symbol, simply use the right symbol on the extruded cube.
In the third step of the Buried City, you must once again extend a bridge, this time with one symbol.
As there are four red cubes in this area, the solution is to simply apply the triangle symbol on each of the four cubes.
Once this step is done, head through the blue exit.
Back on the beach, head to the plane and interact with it to get going.
Crash Island
Upon ‘landing’ on Crash Island, head east from the plane and then north when you see the broken television.
Talk to William here. Then, copy one of the broken TVs and paste it on the big TV William is watching.
To help William help you, you need to acquire five bottled messages.
Bottled Messages – Cave Island
Get as close to the island as possible, then copy wood and paste it on the front metal pillar.
Then, climb up to where the TV is and copy the TV to actually copy lava. Paste the lava on the sea.
Once the sea is back to normal, climb up the wooden ramp and grab the bottle.
Bottled Messages – Cliff by the Waterfall
To find this bottled message, simply go up the rocks to the west of where William is.
The message is to the left of a waterfall.
To find this bottled message, go northeast from where William is.
Bottled Messages – Gated Cave
To find this bottled message, go to the crashed plane and look due north to find a cave with an arrow gate on it.
Copy one of the ‘down’ arrow blocks and paste it on the gate.
Grab the bottled message on the other side.
Bottled Messages – Wall Puzzle by the Plane
To find this bottled message, go to the crashed plane and jump onto the moving stone face to the east.
Jump over on top of this rock and talk to Yoogh to solve the riddle of the tiles.
The solution is put an ‘8’ tile in the middle, and ‘1’ tiles along all the edges.
Step through the portal once you’ve solved the puzzle to enter the corresponding Wall Puzzle.
This one is really straightforward – simply go down and right to find the bottled message.
Return to the portal to exit the puzzle and grab the bottled message in the 3D world.
Bottled Messages – Wall Puzzle Near William
To find this bottled message, look northwest of where William is to find Yoogh again. Talk to him for the next riddle of the tiles.
To solve this puzzle, put two ‘1’ tiles on the top row and two ‘6’ tiles on the bottom row.
Before jumping into the portal, however, we need to manipulate the wall puzzle a bit. Follow the cliff wall to the north to find the wall puzzle.
Copy the lava from either the TV or the actual volcano, and paste it on the geyser of water in the wall puzzle.
Then, copy wood and paste it on the stone block above the geyser. This takes care of the stone block.
Next, copy water and use it on the geyser again to restore it.
Copy wood again and paste it on the stone block to the left of the puzzle, near the portal.
This secures us a ride up to the upper level. However, we still have to deal with the monster heads.
For this, run to the wall puzzle near the plane, and copy the ‘sleeping’ monster head. Quickly run back to the wall puzzle near William, and paste the sleeping monster head on the two ‘awake’ monster heads.
Now step through the portal to enter the wall puzzle. Go right, up the wooden log, left past the sleeping monster heads, and up, then right to find the bottled message.
To actually retrieve it, head back out through the portal and climb up to the very top of the cliff (there is a ladder near the gated cave).
Grab the bottle, and then bring all the bottles back to William if you haven’t done so already.
Moon Island
Approach the newly unearthed islands, and as before, copy-paste wood onto the stone pillars to make your way to Moon Island.
Climb up Moon Island stand on the highlighted area past the colored pedestals.
After talking to the sun (!) go back near the wooden ladder. Copy each of the colored symbols and paste them on the respective colored pedestals.
Finally, copy the Moon symbol and paste it on the sun to turn day into night.
Ice Comet
Now return to Crash Island by jumping over the floating wooden pillars.
Make your way to the Ice Comet and jump on top of it to start riding it.
Ride it all the way to the plane and then northwest through the stone arch.
You can now ride the ice comet onto the sea, so make your way to the pyramid while avoiding the tornadoes.
To the Pyramid
Head west after talking to Sir Eddler, avoiding the traps and monsters along the way.
Continue along the path until you run into a wall of stone blocks. Copy wood and paste onto the blocks in a step-like pattern.
Break the wooden boxes you just made and climb up the rock steps to get to the top.
Next, you’ll deal with a puzzle involving a pool.
First, drop down into the pool and copy-paste wood onto the stone blocks. Break all of the wooden blocks in the pool now.
Go back to your starting position and look to the left for a donut-shaped weight. Copy-paste stone onto this weight to lower it.
Once the pool is full of water and the wooden rafts have risen to the top, cross the pool to the other side.
Continue along the path, avoiding the fire totems, and when you get to the corridor of wooden stakes, sprint your way across them. You’ll need to time this one right.
In the next puzzle, you simply need to pay attention and find the stone platforms that have an arrow on them. Then, jump to the platform that is being pointed to, on and on until you reach the end.
If you step on a ‘cross’, you’ll fall and return to the start.
Head past the puzzle and through the tunnel to get to the pyramid.
The Pyramid
This is a straightforward, almost 2D sequence where you must climb the wooden ladders and avoid obstacles along the way. Remember to hit the enemies along the way to make your life easier.
On the rolling disk level, hide in the nooks by bashing the wooden crates inside them. Go from nook to nook and make your way left.
Once on the floor with the vending machine, purchase as many heart containers and bonus hearts as you can with the money you’ve collected so far.
Head left of the vending machine to get into a survival series of fights. Hit your enemies while avoiding their attacks until you win.
After defeating all the enemies, climb up the ladder.
On what seems to be the top of the pyramid, you’ll encounter another puzzle involving symbols.
Jump on the stone wheel and roll it until you find the symbol on the shortest pillar activated. Then, jump on the red button in front of this pillar.
Repeat this process for the mid-length pillar, and then the tallest pillar.
Climb up the very long ladder to the very top now for another symbol puzzle.
Here, roll each of the wheels to match the corresponding symbol in the middle of the area.
Once all four symbols are activated, you will finally unlock the letter you’ve been searching for.
Pass through the portal now to get to the village. Head back to the Basilica of the Besties to deliver the letter and learn where the next letter is located.
Thank you for reading this walkthrough for Ruffy and the Riverside! For more interesting articles on all things indie games, be sure to check out the links below.
- Into Indie Games Homepage
- The Alters Walkthrough & Guides – All Acts Complete
- Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo Walkthrough
- Date Everything Review
- The Precinct Review
