Heroes Suck

Heroes Suck is a dungeon defence game set beneath a mountain owned by a dwarf named Kaelviir, who has hired the player as the Keeper. Heroes enter the dungeon aiming to reach the treasure at the far end, and the player lays out the route between the entrance and the gold one tile at a time, filling it with traps. All traps interact with a live physics simulation, so heroes can be launched, set alight or knocked into one another rather than simply falling down, and they react with voiced complaints as they go.

There are seven traps: Hidden Spears, a Pendulum Axe, a Wall Crusher, a Flame Jet that continues burning after heroes move on, a Lightning Pylon that chains between nearby heroes, Arrow Rain, and a Time Warper that deals no damage but slows everything within its radius. Each trap has five grades and its own upgrade line, and a Forge in town triples the damage of the player’s traps. Alongside traps there are seven active powers, of which four can be equipped per stage. These include throwing groups of heroes across the room, resetting a trap mid-cooldown, disabling a healer, removing buffs and dropping a heavy object on remaining enemies. Gold, gear, chests and arcane knowledge are collected from defeated heroes, and building a Storehouse protects these gains on failed runs.

Progression is persistent, with three mastery trees paid for using knowledge taken from fallen heroes; every node and trap grade unlocked is permanent and carries across all later stages. The player also rebuilds a ransacked town containing a forge, shop, scriptorium, storehouse and town hall, each of which can be upgraded, with the Town Hall generating tax income while the game is not running. The campaign consists of a prologue and four chapters across 45 stages, each with optional challenges, followed by post-campaign content in which Kaelviir posts fake quests to draw in further heroes at Brutal and Abyss difficulty. The story involves the Shadow Guild attempting to take over the world’s cheese market on their Guild Master’s orders, and a Mayor who takes this personally for reasons that are not explained.