Bite-sized Review:
Demon Loop

By Chris Picone, 08 September 2024

Demon Loop is a digital boardgame from Alexander Pfister - who I've never heard of but I gather he's made a bunch of other great games (Great Western Trail looks pretty cool). As far as digitisation goes, the controls are easy and well-integrated but this one plays out like a boardgame rather than a video game based on a boardgame. 

Aesthetics

The layout of Demon Loop's interesting.  You have a world map which provides access to various villages where you progress through your campaign, and you're treated to little comics and cutscenes as you work your way through the story.  IIt's cheery, easy to see what everything is (and represents) for the most part - the colour coding is great but some of the activation shields are hard to read and the tooltips can be a bit twitchy. The overall aesthetic's quite nice too.  Each village is the next step in the campaign, featuring some over-arching mission made up of smaller challenges.  The villages are laid out like a traditional boardgame, with various buildings scattered about the place and a trail with coloured checkpoints connect them all.

Gameplay

Each level comes with a sometimes bizarre list of "quests" to be completed - gain x resources, kill y monster, play specific cards... - and you have a turn limit to complete these in.  You start with a hand of usually three card.  Some have an activation cost, some don't. Each card is also colour-coded; you have to be on a matching tile to be able to play a card. Some tiles also have buildings which may provided bonuses or resources. This is a key aspect of the game as it forces you to move around the map and you will need to plan your movements as there are demons on the map. The demons don't chase after you, instead moving around the map semi-randomly while threatening several tiles. As each level progresses, the threatened area grows larger, adding pressure. There's further pressure to finish each level quickly as you get bonuses for doing so. The demons also damage buildings over time, preventing you from accessing them, but thankfully you can fight back. It's not easy though - the resources costs for combat are hefty, and some of the monsters are pretty tough. To beat them you need to roll dice and assign your attack scores against the demon's body parts. Kill them all and you win; if not, you take damage, and you're pretty frail.  There are lots of cards you can unlock as the game progresses and a big chunk of that involves swapping cards for other cards as you research new ones to add to the deck.  There are lots of moving parts to Demon Loop - lots of mechanics that appear quite chaotic but they do in fact work together to create some intriguing gameplay. 

Verdict

Lovers of boardgames should enjoy Demon Loop.  The gameplay loop's a bit strange but it is interesting and it does work, and the cutscenes and progressive story keep things interesting.  It's absolutely not what I was expecting but I've been enjoying it.

Links: 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2439830/Demon_Loop/