Loop Hero is a really fun game and if you haven’t tried it, it’s definitely something to look into. I usually play strategy, simulation, and sandbox games but Loop Hero was the first real roguelike game I’ve experienced. If you’re not familiar with what a roguelike game is, basically it’s just a game type that involves “crawling dungeons,” or searching through randomly generated maps. Also, they usually involve some kind of turn-based strategy. Loop Hero is a game where your character gets to walk around a looped road over and over, collecting resources, fighting monsters, and getting stronger with every iteration. The interesting thing about this game, though, is that you basically get to create your own map. While the initial layout of each level is an empty road that circles back into itself to form a loop, you decide what enemies will be on it, where to place them, and essentially how difficult the gameplay will be. The tougher the road is, the better the loot will be.

I’m going to give a brief overview of helpful hints I wish I had known before diving into this game. There are quite a few things that are really helpful to know when you’re starting out that can save you a lot of time, spare you from confusion, and eliminate frustration. So here we go!

There are a lot of things we don’t start out with, naturally, but as we play we’ll be unlocking new items that can make the gameplay more fruitful.

Terrain tiles

When placing terrain tiles, especially in the beginning of the game, it’s important to note that while they may have some cool benefits that can accumulate some great stat boosts, there are also consequences. Some early game tiles to watch out for are the rock and mountain tiles, desert and sand dune tiles, and forest and thicket tiles. Placing a certain number of these tiles onto the map can create an enemy spawn in a random location on your road.

After placing 9 rocks and/or mountain tiles, a goblin lair will spawn alongside the loop. Goblins aren’t the easiest enemies to get past because they have rapid attacks and always manage to build themselves up to a group of four very fast. One other thing to note about the stone and mountain tiles is that if you place them into a three by three square they can form a larger mountain. This larger mountain comes with added stat boosts, but now harpies will begin to spawn once every two days. They aren’t the most difficult enemies but they have a high chance to evade which can be pretty scary if you’re on your last 20% of HP and have no potions or resurrections left.

Placing 7 desert and/or sand dune tiles will spawn a desert spirit. These particular enemies are quite annoying and can definitely cause you to lose the game if you’re not careful. They spawn once per loop iteration and have a 33% chance to show up in any battle on the road.

If you happen to place down 10 forest and/or thicket tiles, a fake village will spawn. These can create wooden enemies that seem to only attack if you attack them, but their counters are pretty dangerous.

Something to keep in mind, with the exception of the large mountain creation, these consequences accumulate. You can end up having way too many goblin lairs or fake villages to handle and really put yourself in a bad spot.

Enemy tiles

I still find it so interesting that we get to place our own threats down onto the map in this game. It gives you such a sense of control and that’s kind of refreshing because you can take this game at whatever pace you want. If you desire more enemies there’s no shortage, and vice versa. So a few things here… don’t place more enemies than you can handle, try to place them strategically (which I’ll explain), and don’t forget about your terrain-created enemies!

Start small. Don’t place a bunch of enemies down right off the bat because you can very quickly end up losing on the second or third loop. Trust me. I’ve done it. Don’t do it. It’s embarrassing. Once you start getting towards the higher loops, which I consider to be around loop 4-6, you’ll definitely want to have a decent number of enemy tiles down because without them you won’t be getting good enough weapon or armor drops to keep up with the increasing difficulty level. You’ll find that happy medium, I believe in you. It gets easier to calculate what a manageable enemy load feels like the more you play.

When placing enemy tiles, I like to spread them out around the road pretty evenly at first, but as the game progresses I’ll go for more of an “every other space” kind of approach.

Lastly, I can’t tell you how useful the oblivion card can be when you accidentally create five goblin lairs and there’s gargoyles everywhere. Well, I guess I can tell you… it’s useful. Depending on which character you play as, certain terrain enemies can really ruin your day so try to save up your oblivion cards and keep an eye on how many of each terrain tile you place down.

Village tiles

I like to place by village tiles between my groups of enemies early on and then later I’ll place them in between just about every enemy tile. It’s always good to have healing spots between your fights in case things start to get hairy. Village tiles will spawn bandit camps just outside every other village after your first one placed. Thieves can be horrible to fight because not only do they attack quickly, they can also STEAL YOUR ITEMS! Nothing worse than finally getting great equipment and then losing something to a band of thieves. Horrible. Once again, oblivion cards are your best friend. The good ol’ undo button.

Beacons, road lamps, and other area of effect tiles

When it comes to these tiles, try to place them into a spot where they’ll touch the most amount of roads. Some of these pieces, like the battlefields, have a special effect if you overlap their areas on empty road tiles, such as turning into a blood path with special enemies. As for library tiles, know that any time you walk through a road that a library is adjacent to, the first three cards in your hand will reshuffle and become something new. This can be a great thing, but it’s also very easy to have it happen multiple times in a row and way too fast because your library touches two or more spots within close proximity. When you’re approaching these tiles, try to remember to pause the loop quickly so that you have time to check the results of the first shuffle.

Orbs of expansion

These resources can be hard to come across but the easiest way to do it is to place a vampire mansion next to another enemy tile that can spawn at least four enemies on it. In order to get these orbs, you’re going to have to create battles where there are four or more enemies. I personally have been experimenting with this recently and have found the scorch worms to be a fairly easy enemy to take on alongside a vampire, and they spawn quickly which is nice on higher loops.

Other playable heroes

At the moment I’ve unlocked the Rogue and Necromancer characters and have found the latter to be my favorite. The Necromancer is very powerful if you keep your main focus on the skeleton level stat. A good rule of thumb is to keep this number at least one or more levels higher than the loop iteration itself (so a skeleton level of 6 is great for loops 5 and below). Of course, you’re dealt the equipment you’re dealt and you’ve got to work with what you have, but don’t be afraid to sacrifice other stats for skeleton level. Unlockable traits through your experience level can compensate for other enticing necromancer stats like skeleton quality. The Horde trait in particular is one of the abilities you can unlock that will take your mind off of having a high summon quality percentage.

When to call it quits

This is surprisingly hard to do. It’s so easy to get to the end of a loop and feel confident enough to go around again, then lose everything you have in an unexpectedly difficult battle. Here’s my strategy… if at any point during the last loop I get that sweaty “oh my god, no” kind of feeling in the pit of my soul, I stop at the end of that loop. Odds are, if you’re losing health and blowing through potions, it’s not worth it to go through the loop again because you’ll probably die. Unless you pick up some amazing equipment towards the end of the loop you’re in, you call it a day and you LEAVE THAT CASINO.

This game is very easy to get furious at, especially when you’ve put over an hour of your time into a loop. But it’s so rewarding to walk away with a big pile of resources.

Thanks for reading and let me know if you’d like to know of any other discoveries I’ve made about this game!