Classic game mechanics have been getting flipped on their heads in the last year. Mediocre Monster, which received funding last summer via Kickstarter, casts players as average RPG enemies who must “die” to entertain adventurers. Loot Rascals, from Hohokum developer Hollow Ponds, is a loot-fest with a twist: the enemies can loot you.
Loot Rascals begins with you crashing on an alien planet. It then tasks you with escaping back to space, but you’ll have to explore and gather resources to do it. The game’s world is presented as a series of hexagonal tiles, not unlike some board games, but you can only see a few tiles in front of your character; this should create a nice sense of tension as there’s no way to know when you’re walking into a crowd of enemies. Loot is acquired, naturally, by killing the enemies you find, and the “Loot Chips” you receive are used to customize your abilities. But there’s a catch.
“When you die in Loot Rascals, you will be looted by the enemies! And when that happens, the cards they steal are beamed up and will drop into someone else’s game,” Hollow Ponds says. “Defeating strong enemies will get you a card belonging to someone else — which was looted from them earlier by that baddie.”
Hollow Ponds has always been known for its bright, colorful visuals, and Loot Rascals is no exception. The team has also brought on board David Ferguson and Brent Kobayashi, from Adventure Time and Road Not Taken, respectively, to lead the art team. Monsters made out of hair, evil robots, and giant, one-eyed, bipedal fish all sound like something those people would create.
Expect to see Loot Rascals in a playable form next month at E3. It’s planned for a PlayStation 4 and PC release in early 2017.
