Worldbuilding Taken to the Next Level
Four Quarters’ Loop Hero is an addictive roguelite with deceptively simple mechanics and a story that is far from an afterthought. Publisher Devolver Digital has acquired quite a reputation for supporting retro-themed original titles with top shelf pixel art, and Loop Hero is no exception. The individual elements aren’t anything you haven’t seen before, but they’re pulled off with such flair you’ll wonder why no one’s put them together before in exactly this way. It really isn’t every day you see a deck builder camp sim with traditional tabletop classes and roguelite difficulty. Loop Hero feels like a callback to the wild west of the medium, a time when novelty reigned supreme.
A Story to Die for (Again and Again…)
There’s no making sense of Loop Hero‘s mix of gameplay modes without starting with the story. What ties those mechanics together so well is how developer Four Quarters incorporates them into the narrative. Although the writing itself isn’t anything to write home about, the enemy escalation will have you in some pretty heady territory by the endgame. Until then, though, this is all you know: the world is coming to an end. An encroaching darkness known only as the Cataclysm is reverting the planet to nothing. Even the memory of the world’s lakes, forests and mountains are fading. Survivors struggle to remember their own names as time itself winds to zero. This where you come in: a nameless hero armed with his trusty sword and a handful of tattered memories. In the land of amnesiacs, you are king.
Loop(ing) Hero
It should come as no surprise that the gameplay loop of Loop Hero is a literal one. Runs consist of your character doing laps along a short but randomly generated path, battling monsters and acquiring items as you circle back to the campfire tile that spawned you. Items can be divided into two broad classes: memory cards, and the usual role-playing list of weapons, armor and crafting materials you will need to build up your camp. Since death ends your run and clears the map, the development of your camp is the only real progress that carries over.
This is no turn-based RPG. It’s an auto-battler, so your character attacks and defends without your input. Battles themselves are quick and punchy, featuring some of the most vibrantly designed enemy sprites this side of the indie scene. It wouldn’t suit Loop Hero to have a more involved battle system, since its greatest challenge is arguably time management.
As that loop counter goes up, there are two other timers you have to keep an eye on. One is the brief day timer, which sets the rate of enemy spawns and stat bonuses. The much slower chapter timer counts down to a battle with the chapter’s formidable chapter boss. Since enemies scale with the number of loops you’ve done, efficiency becomes the name of the game. Runs become a balancing act of keeping your hero alive long enough to face the boss, but not so long that the level scaling starts to spiral out of control.
Worldbuilding and its Consequences
“Worldbuilding” is its own mechanic in Loop Hero. The cards you win after every battle consist of geographical features, biomes and dungeons that have a direct impact on your stats and enemy spawns. A battlefield card might spawn a chest that you’ll be relying on for your best loot, or a mountain card might raise your maximum hit points. Some of these cards have to be placed directly on the path, while others can only be placed on the tiled void outside it.
Class builds in Loop Hero rely on the strategic placement of cards and knowledge of their synergies. Correct placement of enough mountain cards might net you a mountain range that provides a significantly higher hit point bonus, but watch out: mountain ranges spawn powerful enemies every couple of days. Regardless of your playstyle, there’s something so bizarrely compelling about levelling up your hero by building a landscape instead of buying a fancier sword. Loop Hero feels best when all of these mechanics gel on a near-flawless run.
