History VideoGame / LoopHero

* OptionalBoss: A secret boss encounter can be activated by [[spoiler:overlapping six different geo effects on one road tile and then using Oblivion on it]]. The encounter is significantly harder than the boss from the same act.

* ParanoiaFuel: The first encyclopedia entry for the Mimic is a man explaining the chest-type mimics are the least dangerous of their species, as the most cunning have already snuck into houses as more mundane furniture. He planned to issue a warning about the lurking danger but was found dead with a metal rake wrapped around his neck.

* BonusBoss: A secret boss encounter can be activated by [[spoiler:overlapping six different geo effects on one road tile and then using Oblivion on it]]. The encounter is significantly harder than the boss from the same act.
** Another secret boss can be found by [[spoiler:Filling the entire road with swamp tiles; however, unlike the other secret boss, it's mostly treated as a joke, and is unable to damage to the Hero]]

* DeadlyBook: Accumulations of knowledge in one place are magical in and of themselves. Of course people still build libraries even though they occasionally lose one to going prompt critical, and ''of course'' they concentrate the magic they learn in spellbooks, even though it's an obvious bad idea. Spellbooks kill people when angered, or in driving them to obsessed with magic until they learn enough to add a spell to the book, or if you can't withstand their wisdom, or if you walk up to them in game.

** Placing a Vampire mansion next to a Village will turn it into a Ransacked Village, which spawns four ghouls every two days. However, after three Loops it turns into a Count's Lands, which grants greater benefits than a normal Village tile (better healing and quest rewards).

* FishPeople: Reeds will spawn Fishmen while Shipwrecks spawn the Sirens who act as their leaders. The Hero notes that ordinarily they should be coming out of the ocean rather than the river.

* FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire: ZigZaggingTrope. Prior to the end of the world Vampires had a symbiotic relationship with humanity at large, protecting their settlements in exchange for blood, [[FalseUtopia though it's implied that this didn't usually work out as well as the vampires would like to pretend]]. After the calamity they've been driven mad with insatiable bloodlust. This is demonstrated in-game by how villages near a Vampire mansion will initially be Ransacked before eventually getting rebuilt and prospering under the rule of Vampires.

** The Bookery shuffles up to three of the cards in your hand every time you pass it which seems like a useful if boring ability. However it can only do this twenty times before it becomes empty and causes a Tome to join combat in any adjacent tile. Tomes, along with the Mages they can produce via geoeffects, are the most reliable source of the rare Time Shards.

** Overall, this is the effect of the Lich's spell. The ''Obliterate'' card available to the Hero destroys a tile and reverts the surroundings as if it's never existed.

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Killing a living enemy near a battlefield may cause a ghost to spawn, which in turn can spawn a "Ghost of a Ghost", [[spoiler:and THAT has a chance to spawn a "Prime Materia", who can kill you instantly if you're not careful.]]

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: The Vampire mansion tile will spawn Vampires as enemies. Aside from being able to drain health they can summon bat swarms to fight alongside them.

* ShoutOut: The names of every single song in the game's soundtrack are all ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure JoJo]]'' references, with names like "[[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable Lich Is Unbreakable]]", [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureSteelBallRun Steel Boss Run]]", "[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind Golden Win]]", and many more.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Conversations with a [[FlyingBooks Tome]] enemy consists of a series of images of pages. While incomprehensible at first glance, reading them closely will detail the entire plot. In particular, when the hero asks them "what's happening now?", they respond with an alchemical diagram that details[ [spoiler:what's happening to the universe, the role Alpha and Omega play in it, and the three other bosses]]; when the hero expresses confusion, they follow up with a page full of religions iconography whose images detail how [[spoiler:Alpha died and became Omega, kickstarting the game's plot]]. But you're unlikely to to understand any of it unless you've already beaten the game.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Conversations with a [[FlyingBooks Tome]] enemy consists of a series of image pages. While incomprehensible at first glance, reading them closely will detail the entire plot. In particular, when the hero asks them "what's happening now?", they respond, randomly, with either a page full of religions iconography whose images detail how [[spoiler:Alpha died and became Omega, kickstarting the game's plot]] or with an alchemical diagram that details [[spoiler:what's happening to the universe, the role Alpha and Omega play in it, and the three other bosses.]] But you're unlikely to to understand any of it unless you've already beaten the game.

* {{Forshadowing}}: Conversations with a [[FlyingBooks Tome]] enemy consists of a series of image pages. While incomprehensible at first glance, reading them closely will detail the entire plot. In particular, when the hero asks them "what's happening now?", they respond, randomly, with either page whose images detail how [[spoiler:Alpha died and became Omega, kickstarting the game's plot]] or one that details [[spoiler:what's happening to the universe, the role Alpha and Omega play in it, and the three other bosses.]] But you're unlikely to to understand any of it unless you've already beaten the game.

* GuideDangIt: Astral Orbs, which are necessary for several end-game buildings, are the hardest material to acquire as very few enemies drop the required Time Shards. While [[spoiler:Prime Materia]] drop them, the chance of one spawning is exceptionally low. Time Watchers can drop it normally, but they tend to flee combat before death. Instead the best method is to exhaust a Bookery so it begins spawning Tomes on nearby road tiles and place either a Vampire Mansion or Temporal Beacon overlapping the road to create mages.

* DeadlyBook: Accumulated knowledge is magical in and of itself. Of course people still build libraries even though they occasionally lose one to going prompt critical, and ''of course'' once they have enough magic to study, they concentrate it in spellbooks, an obvious bad idea. Spellbooks kill people when angered, or in driving them to obsessed with magic until they learn enough to add a spell to the book, or if you can't withstand their wisdom, or if you walk up to them in game.

* CrapsackWorld:
** The game does ''not'' shy away from portraying how terrible it is to live in an EldritchLocation that used to be a universe.
** The encyclopedia entries make it clear that life wasn't all that great before the end, either. Vampire nobles could be just as dangerous as the monsters they protected people from, the forests were deadly for multiple reasons, and humanity was under constant pressure from hostile races who wanted their land.

* DeadlyBook: Tomes are filled with arcane knowledge and anyone who reads them will become obsessed with magic, reading the tome until they can develop new spells to add to the tome. If angered or there is no reader handy, the tome will lash out and kill with the stored magic.

* ThisCannotBe: The Lich's reaction to being defeated. In a delightful variation, the hero brushes it off as villainous ranting, and it takes two more bosses for him to catch on to how the Lich is ''right'': it's patently absurd that some of the entities he's been killing could be defeated by whacking them with a sword.

* CreativeSterility: Goblins are extremely good at copying human design as a means of self-preservation, but are completely incapable of understanding the things they're copying. Every one of their forts are constructed the exact same way, and they always put up tents inside despite never using them.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: The destruction of reality by [[spoiler:Omega]]is the result of [[spoiler:the Hero's ancestor killing Alpha, resulting in his rebirth as Omega]].