Backpack Hero is a roguelike Puzzle Game developed by Jaspel and published by Different Tales and IndieArk. It entered Early Access on Steam in August 2022 and was released in full on November 2023.
You play as a cute animal adventurer who's fighting to clear the dungeon, slay monsters, etc. But you have one big advantage; a magical backpack that can hold all manner of shields/potions/thunderbolts, however heavy or dangerous they would be otherwise. It even increases in size with every level you gain… but there will never be enough space to contain all the dungeon's loot. What items will best help you survive to the end? Is survival even worth anything if you can't bring that +5 Candy Blade of Evisceration with you?
Purse (The Vanilla Experience): A humble commoner packrat who wants to make money for her village, and the main character of the game. Purse has a mundane-ish giant backpack; it starts with a 3X3 box of inventory slots in the center, it has maximum 'range' of 7X9 slots, and when she levels up, she can place a small number of inventory slots within the bag that are connected to any other inventory slot. Purse begins each game with a 3X1 7-dmg wooden sword, a 2X2 7-block wooden shield, and a 2X1 food item which can restore 2 energy and can be used up to 2 times.
Tote (The Deck Builder): A banished frog mage who seeks new species of plants to introduce to the village. Tote has the power of dream magic, which lets her draw 3 from a deck of carvings each turn; each of these carvings manifest with real powers when they're placed in empty spots in her backpack. When she levels up, she can either add to adjacent slots a tiny number of regular inventory slots, or twice as many illusory slots, which can't take regular items but can easily fit any carvings and manastonesnote . Tote's initial deck consists of a sword, a shield, defensive acorn, and offensive prickly pines. As of the Valentine's Day 2023 update, Tote has been reworked so that she no longer uses illusory spaces, but instead gains more carvings and mainly finds consumables and accessories in treasure chests.
CR-8 (The Pipe Dreamer): A marsupial robot warrior looking for his origins and spare parts to restore order. When CR-8 levels up, he gains blocks of inventory slot setsnote that can be connected to adjacent inventory slots — but any inventory slots that overlap or go out of range are completely wasted. Unlike most characters, CR-8 cannot use most of his inventory items directly. Each turn, CR-8's Core fires out a jolt of 3 energy that uses anything in its path until its energy or maximum length runs out. The jolt can be redirected, refracted, or even amplified in energy. CR-8 starts with a Core, an adjustable energy-bending pipe, two wooden swords, a shield core, and a microchip.note
Satchel (The Small Spacious): A bluejay bardic prince on the run from a usurper's forces and seeking a mystical set of feathers to take back his kingdom. Satchel's bag is ripped; it has a semi-randomized initial loadout of nine squares, an 8X10 range, and when he levels up, he gains blocks of inventory slot setsnote that can be placed anywhere in his backpack. Each set of disjointed inventory slot sets is called a 'pocket', and many of Satchel's unique items depend on maintaining many distinct pocketsnote . Like CR-8, any inventory slots that overlap or go out of range are wasted, but this may be preferable to maintain distinct pockets. Satchel starts with a 2X2 wooden shield, a flute, and one of his signature feather shivs. note
Pochette (The 'Mons Master): A kind beastmaster porcupine who was raised by monsters. Her bag starts with 3X3 slots, has a maximum range of 7X5, and gains slots every even level-up. Every odd level up, she'll gain another pet who can fight alongside her. Each pet has their own inventory, health bar, and energy pool. Some pets have special abilities and passives. Each character in Pochette's ongoing party can only use what is in their own inventory, but they all share with Pochette's energy pool. Pochette starts with the same inventory as Purse. The April 2023 update overhauled her mechanics so that she gains extra slots every level up like the other characters. For pets, she can find them in dungeons and add them to her backpack, and she also gets a pet of her choice and a Summoning Stone as additions to her starting gear. Pet inventories have been revamped; they can no longer carry standard items, but they can carry 'treats' which give them passive power-ups. Pochette can summon up to three pets in combat, though she can collect as many as she can find.
This game contains the following tropes:
- Bag of Holding:
- The backpack is visibly heavy and large, but otherwise incredibly light for all the stuff it carries. The hero's death animation shows the backpack crushing them, implying that it either runs on their life force or caused their death because they got too weak to carry it.
- The September 2022 Update added Pouches, which are recursive bags of holding that carry 3X3 spaces each. The downside is that you can't use or get the benefits of anything in a pouch before, during, or after combat.
- Cast from Money: Some items such as the Orksork Axe cost money to use instead of energy or mana.
- Charm Person: The September 2022 Update introduced musical instruments and their Charm effect, a status effect which causes enemies to convert to your side if their HP is lower than their charm. If all non-summoned enemies are charmed, they'll retreat and give you all their exp. Unfortunately (especially with snails), it wears off if the charm weakens or the enemy heals enough damage. Satchel's 'scratch' causes him to whistle and add 3 charm to an opponent.
- Chef of Iron:
- Cleavers are standard weapons with weak DPS — but their gimmick is that they can chain with other cleavers so you use all of them at once with a few energy points.
- There's a chef in the dungeon who, for whatever reason, will either sell food or trade food with cleavers.
- Chest Monster: Hermit Crab Mimics pretend to be treasure chests and ambush the unsuspecting player if they stumble upon an "ordinary" chest or use a key on it.
- Difficult, but Awesome: A fair number of rare and legendary items require you to seriously consider the positioning of your bag. For instance, energy gems have strict comfort zones, and will turn off if you stuff them too close to other items. The Earthshaker gains more damage the more inventory slots are below it — and it always sinks to the bottom of the bag with its 'heavy' tag, meaning you need to keep an unused inventory slot near the top to sustain it or a bunch of bricks to prop it up.
- Enemy Summoner: Some of the bosses are capable of summoning enemies to help them fight you, and their summons will run away on their next turn if their boss is defeated. Certain weapons gain boosts upon defeating enemies, but they won't gain them from defeating summons.
- Glass Cannon: The aptly named Glass Cannon Mode makes you one by giving all your weapons a 150% damage bonus at the cost of making you a One-Hit-Point Wonder, making you rely on shields and armor to block damage.
- Guide Dang It!:
- Nowhere is it explained how magic works, though a lot of items and character builds rely on it.
- The tutorial doesn't explain what status effects do. You have to get them to find out.
- Inventory Management Puzzle: The Game. Sorting your inventory is just as important as actually fighting enemies. In fact, fighting higher-level enemies is impossible unless you position your loot for the right synergies. Many items will boost the effects of others or only function if they're in the right section of the backpack, so item synergy is crucial. At the same time, you need to make tough decisions on whether or not keeping a legendary item you have no use for is worth fighting with a load until you find a merchant or a corresponding synergizing item.
- Lost Technology: Frozen Heart contains a treasure trove of forgotten cybernetic augmentations, which the cultists have grafted onto themselves. Their leader, a fallen priestess of Saint Anna, has cyberized most of her body.
- Power Crystal:
- Manastones are used to power magic items. They recharge after battle, but some items can recharge a manastone. Unlike most items, they just 'show up' after combat ends.
- A legendary black manastone will eat other manastones, which increases its maximum charge.
- Pun-Based Creature: The default PC is, of course, a pack rat. Here meaning a literal rat who carries a pack on her back.
- Saintly Church:
- The healer hedgehog NPCs are strongly implied to be nuns; they make reference to their "sisters", receiving health upgrades from them is described like a spiritual experience, and they deliberately venture into dangerous places in order to minister to needy people. The narration describes enemy hedgehogs as very rare and theorizes that their evil is motivated by some tragic event.
- Donating to statues of Saint Anna, a famous healer, somehow rewards the PC with a health upgrade.
- Shout-Out:
- The Snake's in-game description is "Poisonous, dangerous, keep them away from planes".
- The Cobra wears a karate outfit, a reference to Cobra Kai. Its in-game description is "Strike first, strike hard, no mercy".
- Snakes Are Sinister: Snakes will spew poison, which bypasses your defenses to chunk a large amount of your HP at the end of your turn.
- Theme Naming: The playable characters are all named after types of storage containers.
- Totem Pole Trench: Defeating the Ultra Knight makes them split into three enemies controlling one big suit of armor: the Legman (who controls the legs), the Muscle (who controls the torso and arms), and the Head Honcho (who controls the helmet).
- Unlockable Difficulty Levels: There are various game modes that change the difficulty of the game by modifying your HP amount or the enemies', changing which items can be found in dungeons, or immediately taking you to the Boss Room. Some of them have to be unlocked by clearing other game modes.
- World of Funny Animals: All characters intelligent enough to wear clothes (that is, everyone who's not a typical fantasy monster) are bipedal woodland animals. Of course, the heroes are cuter than the villains.
