Loop Hero

I've always been into the idea of idle games, but there's so little input in most of them that it gets boring after a while. I wouldn't call Loop Hero an idle game because you (mostly) can't leave it running forever. But it has a lot in common with the genre. The biggest difference is that there is a fail state, which forces me to make better decisions.

Those decisions are made before you even start a run. You have to make a deck. This is normally overwhelming for me. But given the small number of cards to consider and only three classes (I went Necromancer all the way) to consider, it felt manageable to develop a gameplan that mostly worked for me. You go into a run with that deck, class, and the ideal stats you want to focus on for your equipment.

During the run, it's a great feeling when you finally pull the card you've been waiting for or get that piece of equipment that improves the main stat you're focusing on. Each run is an experiment to see if your theory works. Most of the time, it will fail and then you have to decide how to proceed. Do you tweak what you had going on a little or completely abandon your current strategy for something new? Form another gameplan and try it again.

It's a very satisfying loop. Keeping me engaged the entire time I played it. I went through the whole thing (about 15-20 hours for me) in just a few days. I don't normally play games that voraciously, but Loop Hero really dug its claws into my brain.