With completely no prior exposure, going to look over @manojalpa's shoulder on a first play of Loop Hero and livetweet some thoughts as a thread.

First impression: hooray for dyslexia-friendly fonts! Nice!

Showing the achievements up front is nice, intriguing. Some of them made me wonder if it's similar to Slay the Spire... or maybe Kingsway? I hope so, I guess? Though if so, I might have to buy it...

So... you pick up "cards" and place them in the world as tiles that spawn monsters and give stats? (agh I love tiles).. and meanwhile walking around is literally a loop? Woah. Wait so is the land basically a 'deck' or... maybe decks don't exist in this context. Not sure.

interesting that the combat and progress is /literally/ idle gameplay, freeing up your cognitive load purely for the equipment and land/card management and risk assessment (pause anytime if it is still overwhelming)

the 'board' reacts to your placement somewhat. for example, after 10 mountainy tiles, a goblin camp spawns. most 'cards' have a clear risk:reward, but some have verrry obfuscated value (why do I want to place a spider nest? do I? what is the treasure?)

there's more narrative/dialogue than I expected! not sure how I feel about that right now. I usually prefer minimalism in these kinds of games, but it's mildly charming so far.

I had a vague idea that it was a tower defense game and it does turn out there is some strategic buff/debuff placement when it comes to tiles, but... it's extremely RPG not tower defense really, other than the fact that space is a resource you spend in placement.

hahaha the first modular roguelikey system interaction observed:
- equip a vampiric weapon
- instead of opening chests, you attack them and defeat them
- therefore, vampirism heals when I open chests!

there are 3 major progress bars to watch:
- time of day (more enemies spawn every X turns)
- chapter progress (boss spawns when X tiles placed)
- health (if it hits 0 before I Retreat, I will suffer)

it's p overwhelming tbh. there's so many systems and things going on (most of which are all happening at once without your interference)... but the combat itself is maybe supposed to be glossed over and gently guided, not micromanaged/perfected like Slay the Spire

alright I'm going to stop livetweeting and go get the game haha, definitely my kind of thing for when I feel like being SLIGHTLY more stressed out than Dorfromantik haha. will update you if/when I have actual design insights from longterm exposure ;)