Loop Hero – A World of Creativity, Adventure, and Strategic Planning 

Loop Hero takes gaming to a whole new level. Instead of directly controlling the characters, your main objective is to create and design items and skills to aid the game hero’s movements. Some things you can craft include their general environment and weapons. When created, the main character would have a higher chance of completing missions. This unorthodox game was developed by Four Quarters and published by Devolver Digital in March 2021 and is available on Windows. 

A Beginning After the End

Loop Hero’s story begins after the world has ended. The game hero finds itself stuck in a loop, not knowing why the world had ended or what happened to everyone. While traveling in the loop, the hero encounters different monsters trying to destroy it. To survive, it must fight and defeat all the monsters. Typically, the player expects to defeat the enemies by controlling the character. Loop Hero is, however not your typical game. Hence you don’t get to fight the hero’s battles. Don’t worry though. There are many other ways to help your hero in his journey. 

Helping or Killing the Hero

While trying to create a world to help the hero achieve its aims, the same world that has been created produces the monsters that try to kill the hero. To make the hero more powerful and competent, you must create monsters for your hero to fight. The nature of the monsters depends on the kind of environment and the weapons you create. 

Players may see the creation as a conflict between their goals, which is to help the hero survive, and the results of their creations (appearance of more monsters in the game). Luckily, there is a way around these monstrous effects. Once you have understood the cards and their effects on the loop, you can then understand how best to help your hero. The game will then become fun and creative, as you now understand how each affects your hero and how to use the cards to your hero’s advantage. 

Know Your Enemies 

Enemies drop different resources during encounters with the hero. These enemies vary in every way, including what they look like, how strong or weak they are, or the kinds of resources they drop. The kind of environment and weapons you create determines the kind of monsters your hero will fight. Some enemies are much weaker than others, while some enemies drop better and more useful resources than others. 

When initially playing the game, you won’t know which monsters are more valuable to your hero, making the game process look like a trial and error situation. Once you have mastered the game and the abilities of the monsters, you will find it easier to understand each monster and what your character can benefit from their existence. You can also learn more about the monsters and the cards by interacting with other players in the community. When playing Loop Hero, don’t worry about failing, as each failure would help build your skills and enable you to understand the game even better. 

Creating a Unique World With Cards 

By simply using cards, you can create a world loaded with different resources and monsters. Each card has different effects and implications for your hero. Some cards are great for your hero, while others are challenging and imply trouble. When placed, the cards can earn you more hit points. The placement of the cards is crucial to the game, as it determines what happens to your hero, where, and when it happens. Apart from creating the environment, the cards you place will also spawn new monsters attacking and fighting your hero. 

To create a particular environment in any area, simply link the same cards in the loop. The environment will automatically spring to life. When you place two cards side by side, you make the monsters tougher, thereby making them more difficult to kill. There are also ways you can arrange your card to make things more difficult for the monsters by forcing them to fight both your hero and the environment.

When placing the cards, you must try to balance your hero’s needs with the needs of the environment. You must keep your hero healthy and alive while providing enough enemies to make the hero strong enough to fight the main villain. If your hero doesn’t fight enough monsters, you are bound to lose the battle and loads of resources as your hero is sent back to camp. While fighting these monsters, the hero collects different materials and resources that will help build the base camp.

Creating an Adventurous World Through Strategic Planning 

Loop Hero is a game of adventure and planning. I found the game to be quite interesting as it constantly pushed my planning abilities. The game has modes which are the planning state and the adventure state. Just as the name implies, the planning state enables the players to strategize and build their worlds according to their heroes’ tastes and needs. In this state, you can plan how best to place your cards to help your hero win battles. 

When planning your move, you must note that if you make the game too difficult, it will make things more complicated for your hero, making it impossible to move forward. If you make things too easy, on the other hand, your character will be too weak to fight the boss. 

The adventure state, on the other hand, is all about moving and fighting. The major aim of the adventure state is to kill and destroy as many enemies as possible. You can easily alternate between both states with a simple press of a button. The switch makes the game easier to manage, with more efficiency by switching between both modes Loop Hero, you eliminate every sense of urgency, thereby eliminating unnecessary pressure. 

Final Thought 

Loop Hero is not a conventional game, but I love how it lets me explore my creativity. While I couldn’t decide what direction my hero moves to or how it attacks, I loved the build-up leading to the battles, and I loved the fact that I got to create a world of my own and also determined the kind of villain that my hero will encounter while traveling.