Loop Hero Proves That Players Want Games that Play Themselves
Okay, idle game fans, don’t get too upset. You might just be onto something.
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The latest indie game success, Loop Hero, is unorthodox by every means. The game’s name implies some kind of tower defense or even conjures thoughts of mobile gacha games. In this situation, you really need to take the title at its most literal meaning — Loop Hero is about a hero, after a major catastrophe piecing together their memories while attempting to save the world. And gameplay takes in loops around the map, on a path whose environment is built out by the player.
Your map is unique, as you create it as your little hero traverses the loop over and over. Each iteration gets harder and harder, and only a well-oiled machine of well-placed baddies and terrain will help you make it to, and complete, the final boss of each level.
When you put down mountains, you are raising your max HP. When you place a meadow, you are giving yourself regen on each time you complete a day without dying. On the flip side, you need to place tiles that will spawn baddies that will eventually pile up in the loop. Put too many, and your hero will die overrun by monsters. Put too few, and your wimpy hero will have a one-way ticket to a Boss-sized beating.
This balance is key to playing the game. Put all this on top of a base-building system, where you need to collect resources from your loop iterations to use to build up stations in your base that give you buffs; Now you have quite the complex system to manage. As you can see, nothing in this game goes without purpose!
Within the loop that your hero traverses, the core gameplay loop revolves around getting equipment drops from enemies, then gearing and re-gearing your champion with the best of the best loadout. You will be constantly questioning whether vampiric properties in your spear beat out the critical rate and regen per…
