#Loop hero switch Pc

So much has to be taken into consideration with every expedition in every loop, you gather materials that you take back to camp, and what materials you pick up depends on how many loops you do, what cards you place down, and what enemies you fight. If this sounds very simple, I don’t blame you, but Loop Hero is deceptive. Place enough cards down, and the boss of the loop appears, ready to do battle. At the end of each loop, enemies get stronger, and your map will likely get more hectic with each round trip as you place more cards down. These can be rocks, beacons of light, vampire mansions, and even wheat fields. The only thing you can do is stop and start their movement at the press of a button and “build” the world around them by laying down cards representing different fixtures. Loop Hero takes its inspiration from roguelikes, RPGs, card games, strategy games, and more to create something entirely of its own breed, but its most unusual mechanic is that it wrests control almost entirely away from you. No one remembers anything, not even knowledge, but progression helps people remember. The story isn’t the focus here, and while it’s decidedly sombre, there’s some light, surreal humour thrown in, but it just serves to emphasise the game’s core loop. The only sure thing is that the pathway is cobbled stones, it always goes in a “loop,” and you can decide how long to stay and how many risks to take on each journey.

The people the hero encounters don’t remember anything, nor does the hero, so much so that every single expedition, the path is different. Throughout Loop Hero, you send your character on expeditions and gather materials for camp and to find out what’s happened to the world, which has been drowned in darkness. The dreary colour palette won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it helps immerse you in the game’s atmosphere.

And the way the multiple card tiles knit together and create these densely populated maps is wonderful. Enemy sprites are vivid and animated, particularly bosses, who often radiate from the screen for their distinctive appearance. Character portraits show pixelated shading under the eyes and the pale faces of the survivors as they try to live and make do. There’s not a lot of visual variety to Loop Hero, but what is there is both sparse and intensely detailed. Playing the Switch port of Loop Hero nine months later, that same rhythmic quality is there now I’m the one placing the cards down as this small figure loops around and around this dreary and depressing world. I was mesmerised, watching this little pixelated character walk around a looping path and seeing how meticulous the player was in making their decisions.Īs silly as it sounds, watching someone else settle into a routine to play a game that’s about walking along the same path over and over helped get me back into a routine.

#Loop hero switch Pc

When Loop Hero launched on PC back in March, I was struggling and couldn’t settle into a routine, so I’d pop on playthroughs of this cyclical auto-battler in the background. Whether it’s doing the same things or walking the same, familiar paths, all without thinking, it can help give your day a structure or purpose and sometimes help you focus and stop thinking about negative things. There’s something very calming about routine.