This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Loop Hero wasn’t supposed to introduce me (
really introduce me) to roguelikes. It wasn’t supposed to make me a believer in deck building. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with tile placement. But Loop Hero has done all of those things.
It’s even made me appreciate its terrible name. Because while it was being workshopped, when the whiteboard was out and everybody was throwing names at the wall to see what stuck, it was probably given names like: Ring of Remembrance: Road of Resistance, or The Round Shape Respawning in the Dark, or Dang It Somebody Already Took Path of Exile But That Would’ve Worked. Then, offline and in casual conversation, while the developers came up with a dozen fantastical names for the protagonist, they somehow kept referring to him as their little “loop hero.” Until one day somebody made the command decision to stick with it. That’s a bold move, Cotton, as they say.