Deck-building roguelike RPG

Loop Hero is an indie game developed by Four Quarters and published by Devolver Digital. It drops players in the shoes of a little adventurer caught in an infinite loop. You will travel around in an endless circle and attempt to escape. The catch is, you don’t control your hero at all. Instead, you will make decisions that will determine the hero’s fate. You will alter the loop  your character will walk around in until you either summon and defeat the boss or die.

What is Loop Hero?

Loop Hero is primarily a role-playing game. However, essentially, it is a combination of deck building, town-building, dungeon building, and idling. It opens with your hero—and nearly everyone else—walking from an amnesia-like blackout. Without a clue, you will explore the loop you are in, trying to jog your memory back. In your exploration, you will uncover monsters, landmarks, and increasingly powerful weapons. As mentioned, you don’t need to control your hero every time. Once the opening plot ended, you can watch your character auto-walk and auto-battle enemies.

Of course, it will not be as simple as that. The enemies you slay will drop items or cards, and like in most RPGs, these will help you tweak your battle stats. The cards will play into the rolling-amnesia angle since they will rebuild your forgotten world one landmark at a time. 

There are many hidden combinations to discover that can alter the landscape in the loop. Some of them can give you bonuses, while others can spawn deadlier monsters. There are various classes in the game, and each one comes with its own loop template to tackle. Each template also has different modifiers with it. More than battles and loop building, the game is also about strategizing. 

While in the loop, you will face a value proposition. You will have a choice to either cash out with the full resources you collected or press your luck and keep going once you complete a loop. However, when you die, you can only take home a portion of your haul. With this, you should know when to push through or call it a day. 

A unique experience

All in all, Loop Hero is an interesting and intriguing game to play. It brings not only familiar RPG gameplay but also strategy, roguelike, and deck building. Moreover, it is a game that lets you craft your own perils and then overcome them, which is something you don’t often see in games. The slow start can be a bit of a downer. However, once you understand the gimmick, everything will be a unique experience.