Heroes Suck

Heroes Suck casts the player as the Keeper, hired by a dwarf named Kaelviir who bought a mountain and opened a dungeon beneath it. Heroes enter the dungeon to reach the treasure at the far end, and the player builds the route between the door and the gold one tile at a time. Traps act within a live physics simulation, so heroes can be launched, set alight or knocked into other heroes. The campaign has a prologue and four chapters across 45 stages, each with optional challenges. Afterwards, harder difficulties continue up through Brutal and into Abyss. The story concerns the Shadow Guild, which is cornering the world’s cheese market on the Guild Master’s written order, and a Mayor who takes this personally.

There are seven traps: Hidden Spears, Pendulum Axe, Wall Crusher, Flame Jet, Lightning Pylon, Arrow Rain and Time Warper. The Lightning Pylon arcs from one hero to the next until its charge runs out. The Time Warper deals no damage and slows everything within its radius. Each trap has five grades and upgrade lines, and a Forge in town triples the damage of everything the player owns. The player also has seven powers but only four slots, so three must be left out at the start of every stage. Powers include throwing a crowd across the room, resetting a trap mid-cooldown so it fires twice, disabling the healer, stripping heroes of their buffs and dropping a large object on those still standing.

Defeated heroes yield gold, gear, treasure chests and arcane knowledge. Building the Storehouse lets the player keep these rewards even after a failed attempt. Knowledge is spent on three mastery trees, and every purchased node and unlocked trap grade is permanent and carries into later stages without resets. Between stages the player rebuilds a ransacked town made up of a forge, shop, scriptorium, storehouse and town hall, all of which can be upgraded permanently. The Town Hall collects taxes while the game is closed. The game’s Steam review rating is currently Mostly Positive, having previously been Mixed.