Loop Hero

INTRO:

In the 2020s, it is difficult for any game to appear as new and fresh. There had been many gameplay elements that have been established and utilized to as far as they could be stretched.

There had been attempts at “innovation”; some are mere ploys to build revenue through microtransactions, some are fads like VR, some introduce so much complexity that the user interface is a busy mess, and yet some others put off people with vision problems.

Yet, although there had been lulls in design ingenuity, there had been games that are peculiar enough to attract the attention of the very jaded.

Loop Hero is one such game, despite its rather generic name.

STORY:

The title of the game belies the depth of the story-writing in this game. Indeed, after having read a number of passages in the lore of this game, there is the impression that the writers are veteran cynics that have no qualms about giving the game an unimpressive title.

Anyway, starting a new game immediately brings up a rather dour intro. Reality, as the protagonist perceives it, has ended. It would appear to have been dissolved and cast to darkness; the seeming perpetrator is a lich of considerable power.

Yet, as the story-writers would put in a cynical but stoic manner, there are still those who would resist and reject the inexorable, with nothing more than their defiance and stubbornness. The protagonist is seemingly one such individual.

The protagonist – simply called the “Hero” in in-game text but not by other characters – wakes up in the middle of nowhere with darkness all around. The Hero makes a campfire with some wood and stones that he somehow has on hand.

With the illumination, the Hero sees a path away from the campfire, yet the path always leads back to the campfire. Perhaps admirably, the Hero refuses to fall into despondent despair, and would go around in a closed circuit even if it is the only thing left to do.

Curiously though, things did not remain the same. When the Hero returns to campfire to recuperate, there are more people that have somehow arrived at the campfire, albeit with their memories impaired and hazy. The titular looping path is also different each time.

The Hero would turn out to be their only means of survival. Anyone else who tries to foray out finds themselves hopelessly lost, at least not without the direction of the Hero. The Hero is the only one that can reliably collect resources from places away from the campfire.

However, the Hero’s effort to improve the settlement around the campfire eventually increased their chances of eking out an existence amidst the darkness that is all around them, albeit that they cannot move too far away from the originating campfire.

Eventually, it would be revealed that the Hero is the crux of their continued existence, despite the darkness wiping out everything around the settlement each time the Hero returns to recuperate. The lich and other beings of great power would notice this, and confrontations between them and the Hero are inevitable.

MIXED FIRST IMPRESSIONS:

All of the above are abridged spoilers that have been included in this article both to preface the gameplay designs and to point out how bizarre the story is despite the simplicity of the game’s title.

Besides, the game can pose a gamut of first impressions. One of these includes the presumption that it has gameplay that is aimed at casual pastimes. This, and many other first impressions, would turn out to be quite mistaken.

There is considerable depth in the gameplay that would satisfy meticulous players that like to plan ahead and reiterate plans. Indeed, it would inflict woe on those who thought that they have a working strategy that would keep working.

GAMEPLAY – OVERVIEW:

The briefest overall description of the gameplay is that Loop Hero is one of those run-based rogue-lites: each run that the player attempts contributes something to an aspect of the gameplay that is longer-term, but otherwise whatever else that has been achieved is simply gone when the player ends the session.

Of course, there are many possible methods of achieving such an otherwise open-ended goal of gameplay. Loop Hero uses a mix of gameplay elements that make further classification difficult, if not outright moot.

There are two major portions of the gameplay. One occurs with the titular loop on-screen, whereas the other concerns the development of the aforementioned settlement.

THE LOOP – FOREWORD:

Perhaps the first-most gameplay element is the titular “loop”. After having napped at the campfire, the Hero goes on a patrol across the lands around the settlement. Yet, every time that the Hero goes out, the lands are different.

The lands also link up, forming a circuit in which the campfire is both the start and the end (literally, actually; more on this later). For the sake of brevity and to reprise a term that is used in the game itself, the circuit is called “the loop”.

Each tile in the loop is also called a “road” tile, because this is the path that the player character would take and the places that monsters and enemies would loiter in, waiting to accost the protagonist.

(The matter of waiting to accost the Hero is not a statement made in jest. A certain conversation between one of the sentient enemies and the Hero strongly implies that they are instinctively driven to try to kill the Hero – as futile as this ultimately is.)

PASSAGE OF TIME:

As the Hero goes on his journey around the loop, time passes – or at least it passes as he perceives it. Time is measured in seconds, equal to real-time seconds at the default game speed and without pausing.

The passage of seconds is notably significant for things that affect the hit points (HP) of the Hero or other characters. For example, if the Hero has regenerative powers, the player will be restoring hit points over every second.

One in-game “day” is about 60 seconds, and days matter to things that are more significant than damage-over-time or HP regeneration. For some examples, enemy-spawning locations measure their frequency of activity in terms of days, and the Hero always regains HPs by the dawn of the next day (even during combat).

NO GAME-SAVE ON THE LOOP:

There is no game-saving for when the gameplay is occurring on the loop. Granted, each run is not terribly long, but they can still last an hour or more if the player is meticulous, especially in the last chapter.

The build of the game at this time of writing is quite stable, fortunately, at least to me. I have yet to experience any crash.

WASTELANDS:

Initially, the loop is composed of wastelands, surrounded by darkness. They are proverbial blank slates, waiting to be filled with things that would eventually be revealed as constructs of the Hero’s memories.

The placement of the wastelands is one of very few things about the loop that are not in the player’s control. Indeed, the player will have to make do with the configuration, if the player does not want to repeatedly quit the game and restart runs until an advantageous layout is offered to the player.

That said, there is no reason to leave the wastelands be; they will not spawn a lot of things for the player to exploit. The most that they have is a 5% chance to spawn a Slime every day, and Slimes are generally not worth fighting if the player wants to have a fruitful run.

TILES:

The loop and the darkness around it occur in a grid of square tiles. The player will be filling these tiles with other things so that these other things can generate yet other things that the player can exploit. However, there can only be so many tiles that can be filled, so the player will need to make some wise decisions in order to optimize the use of limited space.

The proximity of the tiles to each other and the tiles in the loop itself does matter, so the player will have to be careful when planning how to fill out the map. Indeed, without having access to a wiki or a guide, the new player would be learning things the hard way about how certain things interact with things that are close by. There will be more on this gameplay element later.

“CARDS” - FOREWORD:

The gameplay element that perhaps perplexed players the most is the deck of “cards” that the player brings into a run.

This plays out a lot like the card-based gameplay that has been prevalent in video games during the turn of the decade around the year of 2020. The player configures a deck of cards to bring into a session. During that session, cards from that deck are drawn and placed into the player’s “hand”. The player then selects cards to be “played”.

However, the similarity ends there. There are more than a few designs that has this card-based gameplay element deviating from the norm.

FILLING IN THE DARKNESS:

The cards represent things from the Hero’s memories. The cards are used to place things that the Hero recalls, thus bringing them into existence on and around the loop. Spent cards disappear, but the things that they conjured stay in place until the player removes them with the Oblivion card (which in turn represents forgetfulness).

MULTIPLES OF THE SAME CARD:

In most deck-building games, the cards in the player’s deck is all that the player would get. This is especially so in games in which the player is competing against another player, or an opponent that is bound by the card-based gameplay too.

This is not the case in Loop Hero. Only the player has to deal with cards. No one else does; there is not even a CPU-controlled opponent that has cards.

Thus, there are multiples of the same card, even though the player’s deck has only one of the card. These copies will be needed, especially for filling out the darkness away from the loop; the reason for this will be elaborated further later.

RARITY OF CARDS:

With multiples of the same card being possible, there has to be a system to balance the appearance of certain cards. This system is a probability-based occurrence of a card of certain type being drawn.

This has been used in card-based games before, usually to control the reward of new cards in games oriented around deck-building. However, it has also been used to control the appearance of cards that the player can use right away, such as in Fallen London. The latter system is used in this game.

For example, the Oblivion card is one that is very useful to the player because it is needed to make very productive arrangements. Thus, the Oblivion card is among the rarest cards that the player can get.

LACK OF INFO ON CARD RARITY:

Unfortunately, there is next to no clear indication of how rare a card is. The player can only learn this from other players that have more experience with the game, or learn this first-hand through observation.

CATEGORIES OF CARDS ACCORDING TO PLACEMENT:

Most games that depend on cards, or things that appear as cards, have a system that typifies the cards for ease of reference and recognition. There is such a system in this game too, though its tutorial does not make a very good job at pointing out the association between the visual designs of the cards and their categorization.

Anyway, the category of a card is denoted by the circular pip above the image on the card. Cards with pips that are wholly dark can only be placed on dark tiles away from the loop; they also cannot be placed on the tiles that are adjacent to the loop. Cards with pips that are wholly lit can only be placed on the tiles of the loop itself. Cards with pips that are partially lit can only be placed on the tiles that are adjacent to the loop.

Finally, cards that have all types of pips can be placed on any tile. The Oblivion card is the only example.

FURTHER CATEGORIES OF CARDS – FOREWORD:

Next, the cards are further categorized according to the tiles that they create or the function that they provide. In the part of the user interface for deck-building, cards of similar function happen to be arranged in their own rows, so the new player would have some idea about how they are supposed to be used.

CARDS FOR TERRAIN TILES:

Terrain cards represent the Hero’s memories of journeys and landmarks; these memories bolster the Hero, or diminish him. (The story-writing appears to establish the Hero as a male character, by the way.)

Placing the cards creates terrain tiles in the darkness. Most terrain tiles can be placed anywhere, with some exceptions. The first of the River tiles have to be placed at the edges of the map and any subsequent River tiles have to be placed next to the River tiles that have already been placed. Likewise, the first Suburb tile can be placed anywhere in the darkness, but subsequent ones have to be placed next to the first.

Terrain tiles generally increase the player character’s statistics, but there are some tiles, such as the deserts, which reduce statistics instead, as well as those of enemies. The player will need these tiles so that the Hero’s statistics remain competitive throughout the run; the need to do so will be described further later. However, there is only so much space that can be used for these tiles.

INTERACTION BETWEEN TERRAIN TILES:

Interestingly, some of the terrain tiles can interact with each other or themselves. The earliest example is the Meadow, which turns into a Blooming Meadow if it is adjacent to any tile other than a Meadow tile.

Another example is the Rock and Mountain tile; nine of these in a 3 by 3 arrangement merges into a Mountain Peak, which grants substantial bonuses to hit-points in return for spawning harpies every day.

However, not every terrain tile has an interaction with every other terrain tile. For example, the Desert and Sand Dune tiles have been described as being inimical to life, but placing them next to Meadows and Forests does not appear to do anything. (Rather, they have an interaction with River tiles, which only appear much later in the game.)

CARDS FOR ROAD-SIDE TILES:

Cards for road-side tiles represent memories of places of interest and sources of danger off the road in the Hero’s journeys. Placing these tiles creates opportunities and dangers – both of which are one and the same.

These cards are meant to be placed on tiles adjacent to the loop. They spawn something onto the road tiles that they are adjacent to, or they impart some effect on the Hero when the Hero passes through those road tiles.

Unlike the terrain cards, these – and the road cards – should be placed with caution. Most of them indubitably populate the loop with monsters. Dense concentrations of road-side tiles typically lead to dense gauntlets of enemies to carve through.

CARDS FOR ROAD TILES:

These cards turn the wastelands into something else. These other places are more productive. For example, the Hero gains some resources from passing through them. However, they also spawn enemies more frequently than the wastelands, or in the case of the Villages, upgrade one of the enemies.

SYNERGIES BETWEEN TILES – FOREWORD:

The main appeal of the game is the synergy between the tiles. This is nothing new in video games, of course – they have been there since Populous and the first Sim City. On the other hand, this gameplay design does not occur frequently in game development, likely because of the complexity in the coding and so many places where glitches can happen.

Anyway, after the player has become more familiar with the effects of the tiles, the next step in getting better at playing the game is to mix and match the tiles.

For ease of reference, tiles that can affect other tiles are called “originating tiles”. The originating tiles have areas of effect. To facilitate recognition of these areas, they are shown to the player as a tinted highlight of the tiles that may be affected. If multiples of the originating tiles are already on the map, their areas of effect are shown too.

Among the highlighted tiles, the ones that are cardinally adjacent to the originating tile happen to have a more saturated tint; this is important to keep in mind, because cardinally adjacent tiles may be affected in different ways in the case of some originating tiles.

For better or worse, the game does not directly inform the player of any synergies. Players either stumble upon them or are informed about them by other players. There is an in-game encyclopaedia, but their entries are only revealed after the tile synergies have been encountered, not before.

Such omission of information is a deliberate design strategy by some game developers, especially indie ones, who believe that this poses a genuine challenge. However, it also frustrates players who would prefer not to learn things the hard way or spend time away from the game to read forum threads or wikis.

Anyway, the following are brief descriptions of the usual synergies.

ADJACENCY BONUS:

Some tiles have stronger effects if they are adjacent to other tiles. Meadow tiles have been mentioned as an example; Rock and Mountain tiles also have bonuses when adjacent to each other.

However, most other adjacency “bonuses” empower the enemies instead. For example, building a swamp next to a Goblin outpost spawns Goblin archers, in addition to the usual Goblins.

MERGING TILES:

Some tiles merge with each other. The Mountain Peak has been mentioned as an example; only one Peak can be active at any time, however.

Merging tiles often come with the caveat of spawning powerful monsters when the results of the merging appear.

STRICKEN TILES:

Last, but not least, there is the antithesis of tile synergy: removing tiles from tiles that depend on the former tiles. The tiles in case are those that come from pairs of cards that are related to each other; specifically, one of the cards can only be included in the deck if the other card is included.

That said, tiles that are made from these cards can change into something else when striven from the tiles that they depend on. This can be achieved by applying the Oblivion card to the latter tiles.

For example, Blood Groves are placed next to Groves and Forests. When the Groves or Forests are not next to the Blood Groves for whatever reason, the Blood Groves turn into Hungry Groves. Their primary effect – finishing off weakened characters – become stronger, but they also occasionally harm the Hero outright.

Generally, stricken tiles are detrimental to the player’s efforts; they are there to discourage the player from placing or removing tiles willy-nilly. Still, there can be some strategies that can be formed around them.

CHARGE-UP TILES:

Some tiles are not altered by placing other tiles next to them. Rather, they are “changed up” or “prepped” by fulfilling certain conditions. These conditions include simply passing by them to get whatever effect that they impart. After they have been prepped, they either turn into something else, or spawn something.

For example, the Smith’s Forge is there to ostensibly help the Hero; the facility takes one to two of the oldest pieces of gear in the Hero’s inventory (more on these later) and gives him a much welcome defensive buff.

Unfortunately, according to the lore behind the forges and the “geniuses” who work them, a Forge also eventually cobbles together a living suit of armor, which is an idiotic thing that resolves to fight the Hero for some half-baked reason. (The living armor happens to be one of the most bothersome enemies in the game.)

For another example, there is the Blood Grove again, which is perhaps the most complicated yet most desired of tiles. After consuming enough corpses through its primary effect, it spawns a Flesh Golem, which is – macabrely – the fruit of the trees in the Blood Grove. However, unlike the other tiles, Blood Groves (and Hungry Groves) do not show how close they are to creating Blood Golems. (That said, Blood Golems are powerful and tough enemies, but are quite beatable.)

MORPHING TILES:

Some tiles change entirely when certain conditions are met. This change is more than just their previous functions being bolstered, i.e. their previous functions are completely replaced by others.

For example, when Vampire Mansions are placed cardinally adjacent to Villages, the latter are turned into Ransacked Villages. Ransacked Villages spawn cannibalistic ghouls after every loop. If the Mansion is still around, they will be led by a Vampire (whose corpse the ghouls would eat if he/she goes down).

Generally, these changes pose danger to the player. The aforementioned Ghoul throngs is one such example. However, risk-versus-reward is a thing in this game. Returning to the example of the Ghoul throng, such a fight with a large number of foes may reward the player with the rare Orb of Expansion if the player prevails – more so if the Ghouls are led by vampires. (There will be more on Orbs of Expansion later.)

(That said, the Ransacked Villages do not stay ruined for long. After a few loops, they turn into Count’s Lands, which restore much more hit-points and offer more rewarding quests than Villages.)

ENEMY SPAWNING – OVERVIEW:

Perhaps the most sophisticated nuance about tile placement is how it controls the spawning of enemies. This is a very important thing to keep in mind, and would likely be the one of the last few lessons that the experienced player would have learned.

PARTY OF FOUR:

Enemies can only accumulate on road tiles, and they can only number up to four individuals, not counting any “support” individual that may be included as a fifth enemy as part of the effects of road-side tiles. This maximum can be reduced by placing the tile under the area of effect of road-side lanterns.

That said, road-side lanterns eventually become undesirable because the Hero needs to defeat enemies in order to power up.

ON-TILE SPAWNING:

Wastelands and road tiles that spawn enemies spawn them right onto the tiles themselves. These are the easiest to observe.

ROAD-SIDE SPAWNING:

Road-side tiles that spawn enemies have them emerging from the road-side tile itself before they move onto any road tile that is adjacent to them, cardinally or diagonally. This means that road-side tiles that are bounded by road tiles can spawn things onto many tiles.

In particular, the Blood Grove poses a considerably greater risk if it is surrounded by more road tiles. The number of weakened enemies that the Grove has eliminated can accumulate more rapidly, resulting in higher spawning rates of Flesh Golems and wider distribution of them.

CAMPSITE PREVENT ROADSIDE TILE SPAWNING:

The campsite poses a noticeable exception to the mechanism of road-side spawning. It is unclear whether this is intended design or a design oversight.

Any road-side tile that is placed cardinally adjacent to the campsite but not cardinally adjacent to anything else will not spawn anything. This is important to keep in mind, especially when filling tiles in to prevent the Lich from bringing in his research labs when he makes his incursion.

MIGRATING ENEMIES:

Some enemies, when spawned, may move onto adjacent road tiles. The most notable examples are the Ratwolf and the Spider. This can be exploited to populate tiles with otherwise weaker enemies in order to prevent tougher ones from spawning. For example, blood path tiles spawn Blood Clots, which are difficult opponents. Since they have low spawn rates, the player can attempt to prevent them from spawning by crowding their tiles with migrating enemies.

VILLAGES PREVENT MIGRATION OF ENEMIES:

Villages, like the Campsite, prevent migration of enemies, i.e. enemies that can move onto adjacent tiles are prevented from moving through Villages. Most enemies cannot occupy Village tiles either, with the exception of Bandits.

RESOURCES – OVERVIEW:

The main reason to place down tiles and power them up is to create opportunities for the Hero to gather resources, either from passing through the tiles or from destroying their occupants if he is able to.

According to the lore, the Hero is the only person that is able to accumulate resources like pieces of wood. No one else could, unless he directed others to take what he collected. Considering that everyone came to the settlement out of a literal fugue, he and anyone else are not about to question anything when they are living after the end of the world as they know it.

PASSING THROUGH:

Anyway, the Hero can gather resources through the simplest of means: passing through road tiles other than wastelands. The Hero is compelled to collect bits of things; this turns out to be quite a necessity instead of a mental issue.

This is the only guarantee that the player gets in the matter of gathering resources when going around the loop. Other sources require RNG rolls.

DEFEATING ENEMIES FOR RESOURCES:

As with loose bits of knick-knacks, the Hero is compelled to scavenge from the corpses of fallen foes. His remarks about the resources gained from them does mention that he is perturbed by this, but he has the impression that the bizarre things that he gets from them will be somehow useful to the settlement.

Anyway, gameplay-wise, the main source of resources is the remains of fallen foes. Each type of enemy has a chance of yielding resources. Later chapters have them yielding more types of resources and have higher yields. However, later chapters also make them more troublesome to deal with. HwHow(There will be more on chapters later.)

SPECIFIC RESOURCES FROM SPECIFIC ENEMIES:

One of the deliberate impediments to the player’s progress is that specific types of resources are only yielded by specific types of enemies. This has been mentioned already, and will be mentioned again here because this is the only reason for the certain categorizations of enemies.

For example, only “Cosmic” and “Mage” type enemies drop “time shards”, which are a late-game resource. Cosmic and Mage type enemies are among the most troublesome in the game, and they only drop time shards in the third chapter and onwards, in which they can be particularly troublesome.

This aspect of enemy categorization has mostly to do with the resources that they yield. However, there are a few notable examples for more being done with this. For one, enemies that are categorized as having souls are fodder for the Ancestral Crypt’s effects.

RESOURCE “SHARDS”:

The Hero gains resources in the form of “shards”. These are loose bits of substance, too little to be of immediate use to the settlement.

Some shards are familiar, like branches and pebbles. Others are more peculiar, like writhing roots (or possibly sinew) that came out of formerly living things or shapeless semi-solids that gain form when they are held in a sentient person’s hands.

RESOURCE “CHUNKS”:

On their own, the shards do nothing much. However, after enough of them has been gathered (usually about eleven shards), they merge into something else. For example, the aforementioned living roots merge into an “Orb of Unity”, for lack of better words on the Hero’s part to describe it with.

Gameplay-wise, this means that the player can only make use of resources after the shards have been made whole. The main reason for this gameplay element is to stretch out the resource grinding portion of the gameplay.

Still, there is some attempt to utilize this gameplay design for something more than just grinding. For example, there are buffs that only apply their effects after a whole resource chunk has been formed from merging shards.

RESOURCE CAP:

The player might be able to achieve a build that can trounce the boss of the current run and then continue circling around, despite enemies becoming stronger with each circuit. The player would do this in order to get more resources.

The developers had not designed their game so that players can be this opportunistic. Thus, there is a cap on the resources that can be gathered; there is no story-related explanation for this cap, other than fatigue and fugue on the part of the Hero.

Anyway, the resource cap depends on the Chapter that the player is playing on. Later chapters have higher caps, in return for being riskier. Incidentally, the fourth Chapter has no cap at all, but it is the toughest chapter.

UNSEEN WAGONS:

Shortly after the Hero and the first arrivals founded the settlement, the Hero is shadowed by a pair of wagon drivers, who collect anything that the Hero could no longer hold in his pockets. (With entire stones and logs appearing somewhere on his person, this becomes unmanageable quickly.) The wagons are also used as the excuse for the gameplay element of retreating (more on this later).

These wagons are never shown in-game though. In fact, their existence is only acknowledged in just one conversation, and in the text of the Encyclopaedia entries for “supply items” (more on this later too).

LOSING RESOURCES:

If the Hero is defeated, the player only gets to keep 30% of the accumulated resources. This is a very punishing penalty, so the player will want to learn about when to return to the settlement and end a run instead of continuing.

RETREATING:

The player can have the Hero retreat when he is near the tile with the campsite. This lets the player keep all or most of the resources that have been accumulated.

At this time of writing, the build of the game implements two tiers of retreating. The first tier occurs when the Hero is exactly on the tile with the campsite. This lets the player keep all resources gained.

The second tier occurs if the Hero is on a tile that is adjacent to the tile with the campsite. This second tier was implemented recently in order to balance against strategies about concentrating a lot of enemies and tiles near the settlement.

RESOURCE TYPES – FOREWORD:

The resources, as bizarre as some of them would seem, can be used one way or another to develop the settlement. The resources that are needed for base-building will be described next, together with how they are usually obtained.

WOOD, STONE AND TERRAIN TILES:

Wood and stone are the basic resources that the settlement needs for the earliest amenities, like the farms and field kitchen. Later facilities and edifices still need these and they are the best fodder for alchemical work too (more on this much later), so the player will be collecting these resources throughout the game.

Incidentally, these resources are obtained through the application of terrain cards. When the player places the tiles, bits and bobs appear somewhere on the Hero’s person. Thus, the player collects these resources as the darkness is filled in.

METAL AND INVENTORY OVERFLOW:

Metal is needed for the forging of tools and more permanent structures.

Curiously, the main source of metal is the pieces of gear that the Hero would be gathering, and the overflow of inventory as more gear is gathered than the Hero would ever need.

The gear inventory only has a dozen or so slots; the Rogue class has one less. (There will be more on classes later.) Newly gained pieces of gear appear on the topmost row of slots; older ones will eventually be pushed to the bottom row.

Eventually, all of the slots would be filled, and any incoming new pieces of gear would cause the oldest ones to be reduced to scrap metal automatically. The in-game lore suggests that the Hero wills this to be so, after having considered that low-grade gear would only be useful as scrap.

Fortunately, the player can rearrange the pieces of gear in the item slot, if the player intends to reserve any of them for whatever purpose (and there are practical purposes for doing so). This is busywork though.

NO RESERVE FEATURE:

Meticulous players might want to preserve certain pieces of gear from being subjected to inventory overflow. Unfortunately, there is no apparent way to do so without fiddling with the items in the inventory. A feature to freeze at least one slot would have been much appreciated.

FOOD:

Having to eat to live is still a thing for the people that have somehow returned from oblivion, though the pangs of hunger are less felt when they realize that they are living in a surreal existence. Still, people still have to eat if they intend to do and achieve more than what they currently have.

This is the vague excuse for the player not having to worry about maintaining food supplies for the settlement; they can somehow make do with whatever that the player has accrued. In other words, units of food are just there to be spent on things, just like any other resource.

Food is gained by killing certain creatures that are known to be edible to humans. These include rat wolves and even flesh golems. The player can also build farms at the settlement, which harvest adjacent fields for food whenever the Hero returns.

MEMORIES:

Among the resources that the player would collect, memories are not strictly needed to progress in the game. They manifest as torn pages and unfinished books filled with incongruent text. They are only of use to those that have a knack for archiving lore.

Gameplay-wise, the player can spend these after having built the “intel center” – which is really just a library that has been renamed that way just so that it is relevant to going-ons at the settlement.

Anyway, spending them unlocks passages of lore about the things that occur in-game. For example, spending these to unlock the lore about the resources reveals the Hero’s first-person observations and remarks on the occurrence of these resources.

APPEARANCE OF RESOURCES IN CHAPTERS:

As mentioned a few times already, some resources only appear in the later chapters. Rock, wood and metal can be gathered in all chapters including the first, but the others only appear in later chapters. This is important to keep in mind, because these other resources can only be obtained from specific enemies – some of which are troublesome.

The following resources only appear in Chapter II and onwards.

ESSENCE OF CHANGE & METAMORPHOSIS:

When tiles are altered, they yield resources that are manifestations of the concept of change itself.

In the lore of the game, these remind the Hero of the mutability of existence. These are needed to bring into existence things that should not be. For example, forests and a river can appear from the darkness around the settlement.

Gameplay-wise, these buildings unlock cards, especially terrain cards, for use in the runs.

“LIVING FABRIC” & ORBS OF EVOLUTION:

Pieces of living fabric can only be obtained from living things that have peculiar hides or clothes. These include Harpies, Doppelgangers and Flesh Golems, among other enemies that are spawned from special tiles. These enemies tend to be formidable, but otherwise worthwhile fighting. For example, Harpies gain the ability to evade attacks in later Chapters.

As for the resources, they are used to raise plants in the settlement. For example, they can give rise to forests that seem to have been there for a long time despite being recently grown, and herbs that could only have grown at isolated locations (according to the resident herbalist).

REMAINS AND ORBS OF AFTERLIFE:

Some resources are practically the corpses of fallen fleshy opponents. Their corpses appear to coalesce into clusters of sinew and bone that can actually be handled; with enough of them, they form into orbs that contain their deathly essence. (The Hero is very much alarmed at first, but realizes that this resource is somehow needed to give meaning to life after the apocalypse.)

In the settlement, these are used to develop the cemetery, which is a vital amenity that can help the Hero prevail against tough opponents. Some other buildings need these too, though for reasons that are less clear.

CRAFTINESS IN LITERAL FORM:

In the backstory of the game, prior to the destruction of existence, there were endeavours to create artificial life-forms. These can be living suits of armor, semi-sentient tomes and treasure-guarding gargoyles. These things occur in the loop too, albeit as foes that the Hero has to put down.

When defeated, they often yield fragments of what they are made of, and these coalesce into shiny balls of metal that the Hero somehow recognizes as the literal manifestation of ingenuity. These resources are one of the very few but otherwise good reasons to have these rather formidable foes appear.

Craftspeople back in the settlement can somehow use this to improve things beyond what they could seemingly do with the limited resources that they have. Gameplay-wise, these resources are usually the prerequisites to upgrades of existing amenities.

TIME SHARDS:

Time shards and the orbs that they merge into are perhaps the most frustrating resources to grind. These are dropped by “mage” and “cosmic”-type enemies, which are among the most troublesome enemies in the game. Furthermore, they only drop these at Chapter III and onwards, when these enemies are particularly bothersome.

Incidentally, the bosses are cosmic-type enemies too, and they are the only enemies that are guaranteed to drop time shards (never full orbs, by the way).

That said, these resources are needed to unlock the late-game things – namely Alchemy, which allows the player to convert resources into other resources and thus finally alleviate the grinding experience.

ORBS OF EXPANSION AND BIG FIGHTS:

Orbs of expansion are the only resources that are not gained by having shards fuse. They are granted as whole orbs.

However, the conditions for this grant are quite finicky and risky: the Hero must get into a fight with four or more opponents, and win it. Being granted an orb is an RNG roll, however. Having more enemies means higher chances, but this is still a matter of fickle luck.

Orbs of expansion are needed for many things, especially building upgrades. Considering that the main method of obtaining them is not a reliable risk-versus-reward affair, the Orb of Expansion is the least fun resource to grind, though not the most frustrating if the player can come up with builds that can reliably demolish groups of enemies.

BASE BUILDING – OVERVIEW:

Initially, only the Hero is around at what would become the settlement. After cobbling together a fireplace from a pile of wood and stones, the light begins to attract other people, who emerge from the surrounding darkness.

These other people have more expertise and ability at building things than the Hero; they are the ones who use the resources that he collects. However, building things out of practically nothing and on nothing is easier said than done.

Some of the buildings are not buildings per se, such as the Forest and River, but they will be referred to as such for ease of writing.

EXPANDING OUTWARDS:

Any building must be placed next to an existing building; this is a requirement that has to be observed in the case of most buildings. Thus, the player not only has to consider the layout of the buildings, but also the placement of future buildings.

There may be other requirements which have to be observed; these usually depend on the type of building that is to be made. For example, Warehouses can only be placed next to the Supply Depot.

Unfortunately, these other requirements are not told to the player beforehand.

BUILDING TREE CHART & INFORMATION DEFICIENCES:

The types of amenities that the player can build in the settlement are displayed in a tree chart. The origin node in the chart is the campsite, which lead to the nodes for farms, mud huts and blacksmith’s forge, among several basic amenities.

This would have been mostly serviceable, if not for the lack of information on nodes that have yet to become accessible. The player can only read the information for these nodes after their preceding nodes have been filled in. Furthermore, the nodes do not have any tool tips.

UPGRADING BUILDINGS:

The first buildings to be placed are actually slap-dash constructs, unlikely to even survive strong winds. There are no strong winds to worry about, but their crude appearance does not bolster confidence. Hence, there is the desire to improve things, but this requires resources, including resources that were not used in the creation of the buildings in the first place. Thus, the player will need to grind some more resources out of the loop.

As for the benefits of upgrading the buildings, they range from disappointing to much welcome. The disappointing examples are the upgrades to the dwellings, which have benefits that do not match the amount of resources that are needed. The welcome ones include the resurrection ability provided by the cemetery.

Fortunately, unlike the nodes in the building chart, the game does show the benefits that the player would get from building upgrades, so the player could plan the expenditure of resources.

TEARING BUILDINGS DOWN:

It is more than likely that the new player would make the mistake of placing buildings such that future buildings with more stringent requirements could not be built. Thus, buildings have to be torn down to be rebuilt elsewhere.

Unfortunately, this comes with a hefty loss; not all of the resources that went into the building can be recouped, and the loss is greater if the building has already been upgraded.

FIGHTING - OVERVIEW:

Combat is ultimately what everything else in the game leads to; even the amenities back at the settlement contribute to what passes for battles in this game.

The player is mostly a bystander when combat occurs. The participants, including the Hero, fight at their own pace and there is next to nothing that the player can do.

Still, the player can observe, and perhaps learn some harsh lessons about the factors of combat and how to better prepare the Hero for them. The factors are as follows:

HIT POINT METERS:

Of course, there are hit points (HPs); there are very few games that have combat but do not have these.

All combatants are subject to the trope of “critical existence failure”; they function at full performance as long as they have one HP left. Generally, combatants with zero hit points die permanently; an exception is the player character himself, who has more than a few means of coming back.

MAX HP:

Interestingly, increments to maximum HPs are implemented as their own statistic. This statistic is of significance when swapping out gear that alters maximum HPs; the current level of HP is always maintained in terms of proportional percentage when this swapping happens.

AMBIGUITY OVER MAX AND CURRENT HIT POINTS:

Games with competent in-game documentation usually delineate clearly between “max HPs” and “current HPs”. The former term is usually used for effects that alter the maximum health of a character, whereas the latter term is usually used in the description of healing effects or conditions that depend on the HPs that a character has remaining.

Loop Hero’s in-game documentation is not good at this. A notable example is the description for the Ancestral Crypt in the build of the game at this time of writing; it mentions that the Hero gets 3 HPs for each foe with a soul that is defeated. It is ambiguous whether these HPs are current HPs or max HPs. (The latter is actually the case.)

ATTACK WIND-UP & ATTACK SPEED:

During battle, there is another meter below the health meter of each participant. This meter is represented as a blue bar that fills up as the character preps his/her/its next attack. After the blue bar has reached the same length as the maximum length of the health meter, the attack animation happens.

In the case of characters that are providing ranged support away from the battlefield, their meters are represented as circular arcs that become fuller as they wind up their attacks.

Characters with higher attack speeds have their blue bars growing faster; this should be understandable to observant players.

This gameplay element is ubiquitous enough in video games, and is also described in the current version of the tutorial at this time of writing.

STAMINA:

The Hero has another meter, just underneath his wind-up meter. This meter – coloured grey – represents the stamina of the Hero, who is still very much mortal (or at least he thinks that he is mortal).

The grey bar begins to diminish after a certain number of attacks. This number of attacks appear to depend on the ratio of damage per hit to maximum HPs of the Hero. The depletion of the grey bar is proportional to the number of attacks beyond this threshold.

After the grey bar has diminished in length, the blue bar cannot grow beyond the boundary of the grey bar; this prevents the Hero from making an attack. The grey bar does regrow, but only at the speed equal to the default growth of the blue bar. There does not appear to be any way to speed up the refilling of the stamina meter.

This means that builds that are oriented around having high attack speeds will be impaired if the Hero does not have enough max HPs to match the rise in attack speeds. This is a balancing measure that has been deliberately put in place to balance fast-attack builds (which are certainly potent) against other builds.

EVASION:

The best protection is not to be there when the attack lands. This is the purpose of the Evasion rating. Unfortunately, like the Evasion ratings of so many other video games, it is unreliable at doing what it does because it is merely the threshold for an RNG roll.

That said, most characters, including the Hero, cannot have their Evasion rating be higher than 50%. This limitation is something that must be kept in mind when playing the Rogue class, which greatly depends on dodging attacks.

It should be mentioned here that there are a few attacks that cannot be evaded at all.

DEFENSE:

Defense is the statistic that is used to diminish incoming damage from landed hits. The Warrior class particularly depends on this rating to stay alive, typically through soaking hits.

The exact equation of how Defense diminishes is not mentioned in-game, however.

REGENERATION:

Regeneration restores HPs over every second. The regenerated amounts can go into the fractions; these fractions are held in their own counter and accumulated until they equal a full unit of HP, in which case they overflow into the character’s HP meter.

Regeneration is generally only available to the Hero. There are foes that can regenerate lost HPs, but these are fortunately quite rare.

In the case of the Hero’s regeneration, it is active outside of battle too. However, there does not appear to be any means of slowing down the Hero’s travels in order to take advantage of any regenerative powers.

DAMAGE:

The key factor of every battle is the damage that any participant can dole out; higher is usually better, especially in the case of the Hero.

MAGIC DAMAGE:

Magic damage is additional damage, but also happens to bypass the defence rating of the target. Incidentally, there is the noticeable omission of a playable class that utilize magic damage.

CLASS-SPECIFIC STATISTICS:

There are some statistics that are unique only to specific classes. For example, the Warrior and Rogue have access to the Counter statistic, which lets them automatically retaliate if an enemy lands a hit on them. These statistics will be described later together with the classes.

“SUPPLY” – OVERVIEW:

“Supply” is a feature that is unlocked after having built the Supply Depot. Story-wise, the player character is shadowed by a wagon that carries the supplies and gear that the Hero would use.

The wagon that carries the Hero’s supplies and gear can only carry so much. This is represented in the gameplay as slots that appear in the “Supply” user interface.

SLOT CATEGORIES AND LIMITATIONS:

The slots in turn are arranged according to the categories of supplies. For example, there are slots for food items and furniture. This design limits the number of items of a type that the player can include among the supplies.

The number of slots under each category in turn depends on the amenities that have been developed in the settlement. For example, having more hovels increases the number of jewellery items that can be included among the supplies. (The practicality of having shiny baubles would be questioned by more than one character, including even the Hero, but they do have effects on the Hero’s performance.)

In addition to the abovementioned limitation, there is the total number of items of any type that can be included among the supplies. This cap can be raised by building warehouses (of which only two can be built), building housing for the people in the settlement, and upgrading certain buildings.

EFFECTS OF SUPPLY ITEMS:

Players who are experienced in the designs of rogue-lites would recognize that the supply items are intended as gameplay factors that occur in the long-term, i.e. they affect every run and do not disappear after every run.

That said, the effects of the supply items are small, at least individually. For example, a wedge of cheese heals the Hero for one current HP after defeating an enemy. However, the player can select many copies of the same type of supply item, and their effects can stack.

With enough of them, it is possible for the player to incorporate supply items into practical builds for the Hero. However, this would, of course, come at the expense of other supply items.

GETTING SUPPLY ITEMS AS LOOT:

The player’s main but not exactly reliable source of supply items is loot from defeating enemies. It is unclear what conditions that the player needs to achieve in order to get them, if there are any at all besides randomness.

Supply items that are gained as loot are guaranteed to be lost if the Hero is defeated during a run. Most of them are also lost if the player chooses to retreat while the Hero is not exactly on the tile with the campfire.

CRAFTING SUPPLY ITEMS:

The other method of gaining supply items is to “craft” them. The player spends resources to create supply items of exact category but random type. For example, wood can be crafted into Furniture items, but which exact item it is happens to be random.

The option to craft them is not available from the get-go, however; certain amenities must be built before this becomes available.

DISMANTLING SUPPLY ITEMS:

Eventually, the player may accrue more supply items than he/she would ever need. When this happens, the surplus can be dismantled to yield resource chunks. Of course, the yields are much lower than the amount of resources that are needed to craft them.

CLASSES – OVERVIEW:

Although the player has no control over the actions of the Hero during combat, the player can still build the Hero’s loadout around his capabilities. These capabilities are dependent on the class that the player has chosen for the Hero, and incidentally, the pieces of gear that can be obtained as loot so happen to be usable for that class only.

As for the “classes”, all of them are actually the Hero himself. Although the Hero starts the game as a Warrior, he somehow remembers other skill-sets, including the ability to raise skeletal soldiers. However, for some other reason that is only mentioned in a “secret boss fight”, he can only use one skill-set at a time.

THE WARRIOR:

The Warrior is how the Hero starts as. The Warrior depends on his armor and shield to keep himself alive, while hacking away at enemies who generally outnumber him. Durability is his mainstay; there are few other effective builds.

Consequently, runs with the Warrior happen to take longer than runs with the other classes. The player has to hope that the Warrior can prevail and eventually whittle down enemies while sustaining as little lasting damage as possible before getting some healing.

THE ROGUE:

Where the Warrior wields only one weapon, the Rogue can carry two. However, the Rogue cannot wear armor, because he depends on being able to evade attacks. He can wear boots, which generally increase his evasion rating.

Consequently, effective Rogue builds depend on the Rogue being able to quickly finish off enemies while taking as few hits in return. This is just as well, because the Rogue is the only class that has access to the “critical hit” feature, e.g. a chance to hit the target with far more damage than usual.

Unfortunately, the Rogue’s builds are particularly luck-dependent. As mentioned earlier, Evasion ratings cannot go higher than 50%, and critical hits require RNG rolls.

TROPHIES:

The Rogue has a gear acquisition system of his own. He does not get any piece of gear from defeated foes, no matter how powerful or weak it is. He does not even get anything from chests. (This makes Battlefield tiles near-useless in runs with the Rogue.) However, each foe that he defeats yields a trophy (and only one). He can accumulate as many trophies as the player wants, however. That said, the trophies permanently occupy one slot in the inventory.

When he returns to the campsite, the trophies are exchanged for gear. One trophy equates one piece of gear, generally.

The new gear pieces fill the inventory slots, and will cause overflow if there are as many trophies as there are inventory slots. If there are more trophies than there are inventory slots, overflow happens until all inventory slots have their contents replaced. However, excess trophies improve the quality of the gear pieces that would be obtained.

This system requires considerable thought on the choices of cards to bring into a run. The example of not bringing the Battlefield card has been mentioned already (unless, of course, the player finds Chests and Mimics to be easier to fight). Another example is that the Village card still has worth, because completing quests and cashing them in the Villages still grant items anyway.

GOING ALONE AND HITTING EVERY ENEMY:

Runs with the Warrior and the Rogue always bear the concern of the player character being outnumbered. The Warrior is almost always on his own. Although the Rogue can have an ability that summons a ratwolf into battle, the ratwolf will not hold for long against many opponents.

Thus, both the Warrior and Rogue have access to weapons and gear that can apply damage to all enemies; this is in addition to the damage dealt on the current target, which also takes damage from the “damage all” effect.

Yet, weapons with “damage all” effects have lower primary damage output than single-hit weapons. Thus, there is the dilemma of having to choose builds that can smash multiple enemies over builds that can quickly knock out single targets and vice versa.

Furthermore, considering the lack of any feature to reserve specific pieces of gear from being subjected to inventory overflow, switching back and forth between these weapon types can involve a lot of tedious clicking and dragging.

THE NECROMANCER – FOREWORD:

The Necromancer is the last class to be unlocked. Where the other two classes has the Hero fighting alone, the Necromancer raises skeletal soldiers to fight on his behalf. The mechanism of how he does so and the limited variety of skeletons and what they do so happen to make the Necromancer the most complicated of the three classes.

RAISING SKELETONS:

Generally, the Necromancer does not begin battle with any skeletal minions. He will immediately summon one, but needs to do an attack wind-up before being able to summon another. Indeed, attack speed will matter in maintaining a coterie of minions against enemies that can smash them down readily.

Interestingly, the Necromancer cannot raise skeletons when entangled in spider web, but can still raise them if he is bound by the vines of Blood Groves.

SKELETON LEVEL & QUALITY:

The strength of the skeletons that the Necromancer can raise is determined by his “skeleton level” statistic. This statistic is generally provided by his gear, especially his grimoire. Higher skeleton level increases the skeletons’ stats across the board.

The Necromancer raises a regular skeletal swordsman by default, if the Hero does not have equipment that raises "summon quality”. The regular skeleton is not particularly impressive, but due to the vagaries of mixing and matching gear for the Necromancer, it may be the only skeleton that the Necromancer can summon.

A non-zero “summon quality” statistic can be obtained by using gear that grants this statistic. However, this usually means having to forgo other statistics, such as the important skeleton level. Still, there are good reasons to have considerable “summon quality”, because these other skeletons are tactically more valuable than the default skeleton.

For better or worse, none of the above is elaborated to the new player.

SKELETAL WARRIORS & GUARDS:

Skeletal warriors inflict more damage per hit than the regular skeletons and have a higher attack speed; they are also tougher. They are not any more sophisticated, but they are a straight upgrade over the default skeletons.

The Skeleton Guards are there to take hits for the team. They have the trait of drawing enemy attacks first, regardless of the scripting that determines the latter’s targeting. The Guards also happen to have high defense ratings (though these are not shown in their tooltips). Otherwise, the Guards are terrible at knocking down the enemy; their damage output is very low.

ARCHERS AND MAGES:

The greatest number of melee-type skeletons that the Necromancer can raise is four. If the Necromancer’s maximum number of skeletons is greater than four, any additional skeletons that are raised will be placed as ranged support. By default, these are archers, but if the Hero’s “summon quality” is high enough, they are skeletal mages instead.

These skeletons have higher damage per hit than other skeletons, and are obviously not in the line of fire so they will not be struck down. However, they have low attack speeds and will not be taking hits for the team.

BOOK-SMACKING:

The Necromancer is better off raising skeletons throughout a battle. That said, a fight is going smoothly if his skeletons are taking the brunt of incoming attacks and he is replacing them faster than enemies can knock them down. However, after the Necromancer has reached the maximum number of skeletons that can be had, he smacks enemies with his book instead. As to be expected, this is a weak attack, and one that can get him into trouble if the target has Counter abilities.

RANGED SUPPORT:

Most fights have the combatants well in reach of each other. However, there are some fights where there are participants that shoot arrows or magical projectiles at the other side. These participants are placed in their own grouping and have their own visual indicators, such as circles for their attack wind-ups instead of horizontal bars. If these participants are around, they stay in the battle until it ends; there are no means of removing them. (They do not even have health meters.)

The most commonly encountered ranged supports are the crossbowmen that support the Hero when he is engaged in a battle that is close to the campfire; these crossbowmen are made available if the player has built watchtowers in the settlement. The Necromancer may also raise archers and mages if the conditions are right, as mentioned earlier.

Enemies can have ranged support too, but only if the player allows them to exist (though learning how to do so may involve some hard lessons). For example, Goblin Camps that have been upgraded to Goblin Lookouts will provide a goblin archer as ranged support in any battle that occurs close to the Lookouts.

There are very few good reasons to have ranged support on the enemy’s side in battles. They do count towards the number of combatants if the player is trying to grind Orbs of Expansion, but as mentioned earlier, whether the player gets those orbs or not is still a matter of luck.

(FLAWED) AUTOMATIC TARGETING IN COMBAT:

During fights, participants pick their targets based on RNG rolls. This is not an issue if the fight is one on one, and certainly not an issue for the enemies if the Hero is on his own.

This targeting system mostly works against the Hero and the player. Although the Hero – when playing as the Warrior or Rogue - will usually focus on wearing down the weakest of opponents, the Hero might change targets, usually to his detriment.

Playing as the Warrior or Rogue could have been much better experiences if the player could direct the Hero to attack specific targets to the exclusion of others.

(There is the “damage all” effect, as mentioned earlier, but this is nowhere near as tactically valuable as a method to focus the Hero’s attacks.)

EXPERIENCE POINTS:

After the Gymnasium has been built in the settlement, the gameplay feature of experience points (XP) and levelling up is unlocked for the runs. Indeed, the player will want to get this building as soon as possible for easier progression through the game.

When the Hero defeats an enemy, he gains experience points. Generally, more difficult enemies give more experience points, but the differences are often paltry.

Anyway, accumulated experience points go into a meter below the Hero’s health meter in the main portion of the user interface. After the meter is full, the Hero gains a level and the meter empties.

There is no way to lose experience points, by the way. However, each level gained doubles the number of XP that is needed to get to the next level. Thus, it is not likely that the Hero can gain more than a handful of levels in a run. (There is a terrain card that can help a lot in this matter; more on this later.)

LEVEL UPS:

Level-ups grant miniscule increments to the Hero’s statistics – if any at all. Rather, the main reason to gain levels is the point that can be spent on gaining a trait. Traits are powerful buffs; they will be described later.

Points for traits can be hoarded without any limitation, but there is generally no reason to hoard them. More importantly, the options for traits do not change until the player has made a decision of which to pick.

SUB-URBS & TOWNS:

Late into the game, the player can upgrade the Gymnasium into the Academy. This unlocks the “Suburb” card, which lets the player place suburban tiles. Suburb tiles grant one additional XP for each enemy that is defeated.

A suburban tile that is bounded by four other suburban tiles in the cardinal directions turns into a “Town” tile. This tile grants two XP instead of one.

Apparently, suburbs and towns can greatly accelerate the gaining of XP and levels. Indeed, if the player intends to have a run end in victory, these tiles can greatly improve the player’s chances.

The only major setback to suburbs and towns is that they do not contribute towards resource grinds. Building them does not yield any resources, though converting a suburb to a town does yield some essence of change.

TRAITS:

Traits are buffs for the Hero. Generally, they are tuned towards his current class. For example, the Warrior can gain a trait that grants additional damage that is proportional to his defence rating, which is just as well because the Warrior greatly depends on being able to soak damage.

These traits can significantly improve the player’s chances at winning the current run. Having as many of them as can be had is good, but there can only be so many level-ups that can be had.

UNLOCKING TRAITS:

Some traits are available to the player character by default. Some others are not. They are unlocked by defeating the bosses that are endemic to the Chapters.

After beating a boss that is endemic to the chapter, the player is given the choice of picking one of a few traits; these traits are those that have yet to become available through level-ups. Picking a trait grants this trait to the Hero for the run, and also unlocks that trait for acquisition through level-ups in later runs. In lieu of picking any trait, the player may choose to get a gamut of resources instead.

LIMITED TRAIT OFFERS:

Unfortunately, the trait system just has to have a limitation that depends on luck.

When the player gains a level, the player is offered only three of the traits that the player has unlocked. Thus, unlocking more traits make it less likely that the player would be offered the traits that the player wants. There is no way to suppress traits from being offered.

This can be a hard lesson that only elicits frustration when it is learned, especially by players who rely on reliable builds.

GEAR-EQUIPPING (AND FORGETTING):

One of the most important gameplay elements has yet to be described in this article, because others have to be described first so that the description of this one can make sense.

That said, it has been mentioned already that loot dropped by defeated enemies includes pieces of gear. These go into the inventory, of which the overflow system and acquisition of metal has been described already.

If the player so deigns, the player can have the Hero equip a piece of gear by putting it in one of his gear slots. This is par for the course.

What is not so par for the course is that a new piece of gear that is equipped displaces and obliterates the previous piece of gear in the slot. The player gets nothing from the obliterated piece of gear, not even scrap metal.

Thus, the player will have to be very careful in deciding which pieces of gear to replace. This can seem like busywork, however.

LUCK-DEPENDENT CIRCUMSTANCES:

Having described most of the core gameplay, it should be evident by now that luck is a major factor in the gameplay, and not always for the better.

There is the Evasion rating. There is the probability of getting loot, or none at all. Of the loot, there is the randomness of their quality and quantity. Some enemies have luck-dependent attacks, including chances for critical hits.

These are just a fraction of the luck-dependent gameplay elements. There are many more, and all of them can be quite frustrating until the player gains some measure of control over the progression of the game, namely the buildings that occur in the upper parts of the building tree.

NECROMANCER HAS THE BEST CHANCES:

Incidentally, most if not all of the luck-dependent gameplay elements affect the Warrior and Rogue more than the Necromancer. This is because many of the debilitating effects from bad luck affect the Hero more if he is on his own. The Necromancer has the considerable advantage of not being alone, and is the only class that can summon in ranged support.

Indeed, I have managed to obtain a combination of cards and supply items that are quite reliable, and can lead to victory as long as I obtain the trait that partially diverts damage from hits on the Necromancer to the Skeletons.

This is a gameplay imbalance that would be very noticeable to observant players.

RESOURCE-GRINDING:

Much of any player’s experience would be the resource grind, for better or worse.

Run-grinding is nothing new to the rogue-lite scene, but it is rare for a rogue-lite to implement the necessity for multiple types of resources. Having specific conditions to get those resources is even rarer. Furthermore, there is the aforementioned matter of luck being a major factor in the loot that the player gets.

Indeed, if there is anything that might cause players to fall off this game, it is the resource grind.

ALCHEMY:

Fortunately, the developers have the foresight of expecting that some players may not appreciate the resource grinds. Hence, there is the system of Alchemy, which is unlocked after building a late-game building.

Alchemy allows the player to reduce resources into “hydrogen”, which is the term that the game uses to describe the primordial matter that is formed when things are broken down into their smallest constituents. Hydrogen can then be reformed into other resources.

Breaking down and reforming is generally a loss-making process, because more hydrogen is needed to form things than there could be had from breaking them down. However, the player can otherwise make use of surplus resources.

In particular, wood and metal would be accumulated in considerable amounts, more than the player would ever need. Incidentally, these resources have the best ratios of hydrogen needed for forming to hydrogen gained from reductions, and they also happen to be the easiest to grind.

Speaking of the ratios, the user interface for Alchemy initially shows only the icons for the resources. The ratios are not shown. To reveal the ratio for a category of resources, the player needs to break down at least one unit of any resource in that category.

Indeed, the player could not even form any unit of that resource until this has been done, meaning that the player still needs to find at least one unit of that resource in the first place.

VISUAL DESIGNS:

Ever since the renaissance of indies in the early 2010s, the bar for pixel art has been raised greatly. Cheap and lazy pixel work, e.g. sliding sprites and few frames, is noticeable to veteran players.

Game developers that go for pixel art have their work cut out. Fortunately, the developers for Loop Hero have the skills for this.

During a run, sprites appear on the tiles of the loop. These sprites evoke memories of the Amiga era, albeit the sprites have considerably more frames of animation. For example, the strands of pixels that represent limbs have far more than just a few poses, and not just for the Hero’s sprite.

During battle, the player is shown more detailed sprites, which evoke memories of the Sierra era of sprite-work. For each action, there are at least three frames of animations, complete with flourishes like curves that indicate motion.

As for the presentation of the settlement, it uses sprites that would remind someone of the earlier Sim City games and its ilk, prior to their transition to the isometric perspective. There is not a lot of animation here, but upgraded buildings do change to different sprites as they are upgraded.

Conversations have the least number of sprites, however. Characters use the same head-and-shoulders portrait for every situation, regardless of their current state. There are variations, such as the different portraits for the different classes that the Hero can utilize, but he otherwise has the same stoic facial expression throughout the game.

SOUND DESIGNS:

There is generally no voice-over in the game, barring just one moment when the player has defeated the most powerful boss for the first time. However, every character appears to have his/her/its own beeping warble when their lines are printed across the textbox; this is not unlike what has been done in Undertale.

The other sounds in the game are also designed with early 1990s era video games in mind. Many noises do not sound believable in any way. Instead, they sound like sound clips from the era during the transition from 8-bit to 16-bit.

One of the most notable examples is the sounds that can be heard when placing a Grove tile. They sound like someone picked the audio assets that are the closest to the sounds of forests.

Such aesthetic designs happen to appeal to those who have fond memories of eras past. This appeal is likely lost to younger audiences, but at least they do have the benefit of each sound clip being discernible from the others. As examples of sound clips being discernible from each other, there are the unique sounds when resource shards merge into whole chunks.

Finally, there is the music. This part of the sounds designs is perhaps the most modern. The “9-bit” tracks are not numerous, but most of them are thematically appropriate for the occasions in which they are played.

SUMMARY:

Loop Hero is not charming. Its presentation and its very title is not exactly enticing at first glance. Every single bit of its designs has been done before.

Yet, past the first impression, Loop Hero brings together many gameplay elements that would have been previously considered too different to be cobbled together without the result being incoherent. Merging real-time gameplay with no direct control, grinds of multiple resources and run-based progression would have resulted in a disaster. Nonetheless, Loop Hero’s gameplay is surprisingly engrossing, and its cynical writing gives a peculiar take on the otherwise ages-old end-of-the-world setting.

On the other hand, having experienced the game for many hours, Loop Hero has significant problems. It is obtuse with the information that the player needs to know, and where there is information, there may be ambiguity too, such as the aforementioned issue with current or max hit points. These design oversights are all the more noticeable, considering that the game has text options and colour choices that would help the ocular-impaired.

It would appear that the developers have the talent and skill to synergize seemingly disparate gameplay elements, but they are not great with in-game documentation.

These complaints aside, the worst problem that the game has is a problem that is rather pervasive in game design; many parts of it depend on RNG rolls, so luck is a major factor in gameplay. It is unfortunate that for all the skill that the developers have expressed, they could not go beyond the use of digital dice.