We played the demo of the Devolver game at the Steam Festival and learned about their proposal before its launch in March
Loop Hero already attracted attention when it performed at The Game Awards last December. The aesthetic with the limited palette of colors reminiscent of IBM’s ten EGA cards was interesting, like an escaped video game from the late mid-80s. Once the demo is tested, it is not just a question of aesthetics, the title has that air ingenuity, encompassing many elements at once, as well as a drive to offer something original in terms of mechanics and history.
The game begins in the apocalypse, or rather it should be said that in the end of the apocalypse, once it has passed. There is nothing or no one left, the protagonist awakens amnesiac in a world surrounded by darkness where there is no sky, lights or stars, only a small path that can be seen among the darkest nothing, populated by some slimes that seem to have survived. Reduced to its smallest expression, with no memory or hope, the hero rushes to fight the creatures that remain in the world. To their surprise, the stubborn creatures not only have equipment not digested in their previous one, but also forgotten fragments of the world: mountains, meadows, forests … Through these fragments that we are placing on the map, we enrich the way, finding more creatures and equipment.
Eternal cycle
However, they are baby steps. The world is reduced to a small circular path and everything is lost as soon as the hero has to rest. However, he soon finds that he is not as alone as he thought, there are other survivors, also amnesiac and confused. And that’s when a crack opens for hope: the materials that the hero brings and the memories that emanate from them have a certain permanence. The pieces of wood that we have collected serve to restore the idea of wooden walls that are able to remain in the collective memory to create something persistent that improves the lives of others. Is the hero the key to gradually bring back memories of the lost World? What about the figure of the skeleton in a tunic that persists in the memory of the protagonist? What happened to end up like this?
The story is intriguing, but the gameplay is more so. We do not have direct control of the actions of the lone hero, the world when we rise is always a circular path that we have to repopulate based on the fragments we receive from defeated monsters. The hero will walk and fight without anyone’s intervention, but we will have to place the fragments on the map, determine where on the road we will put buildings and determine where new enemies will appear. Our bonuses increase according to the number of elements we introduce, as well as our chances of obtaining resources and equipment, but at the same time we do that, we will make the path more and more dangerous, running the risk of the hero losing his entire life before I can complete the loop.
An addictive gambling component is guessed where the higher we bet, the more chance we have of losing it all. We can retire to rest at any time, but if we do not do it at the starting point of the loop where the equipment is, we will lose a percentage of what we collected. If we manage to build on a map to a certain extent, we will have an encounter with a final boss that will allow us to advance in the story.
The Loop Hero demo has revealed a game that is overflowing with originality in which you have to do more things than it might seem given the absence of direct control. The demo is tremendously entertaining for the limited content it has and we recommend it both for getting to know the game and for its own ability to have fun for free. Devolver will publish the game from the Four Quarters studio on March 4, 2021, at a starting price of € 12.74.
- Demo Loop Hero
