The LOOP (2020)

The reviewer considers 'The LOOP' to be one of their favorite cooperative board games from 2020, praising its innovative, creative, engaging, and fun gameplay, which skillfully combines elements from different genres.

“There’s so much to like in The LOOP, that I have to stamp it with the Nerds on Earth Seal of Awesomeness. It’s a worthy challenge for cooperative game lovers anywhere, and it’s a brain-burning puzzle game if you choose to play it solo.”

The reviewer enthusiastically praises "The LOOP" as one of his favorite cooperative board games, highlighting its innovative and creative combination of familiar mechanics into an engaging and highly replayable experience.

The reviewer enthusiastically praises 'The LOOP' as a highly engaging and replayable cooperative game, noting its satisfying puzzle-like turns and unique mechanics make it a definite winner and a keeper for their collection.

The reviewer expresses strong affection for 'The LOOP,' particularly praising its engaging cooperative gameplay, unique theme, and distinctive art style. They also highlight how the expansion effectively adds challenging yet re-playable scenarios, enhancing an already beloved game.

The reviewer expressed strong positive sentiment for The LOOP, highlighting its engaging cooperative gameplay and varied agent complexities that make for a compelling experience.

“Excellent - Always want to play.”

The reviewer highly praises "The LOOP" for its clever and satisfying card-looping mechanic, providing a variable and engaging cooperative puzzle that feels challenging yet fair, making it a favorite despite minor concerns like potential for alpha playering.

Rahdo considers 'The LOOP' to be a highly enjoyable and well-regarded board game, placing it among his top recommendations. He appreciates its engaging gameplay and overall design, contributing to a very positive experience.

The reviewer praises 'The LOOP' as a fantastic cooperative board game, highlighting its innovative deck-building mechanics, varied actions, and strong player agency, positioning it as a significant step up from games like Pandemic.

“What makes it a truly special game to me, though, is its simple-but-fun deck building, its very high replayability, and the consistent challenge it presents. I think The LOOP is a game a lot of co-op fans will enjoy.”

“Geeks Under Grace highly recommends "The LOOP," praising its clever card system, distinctive cube tower, engaging sci-fi theme, and stylized art that together create a fresh and high-quality cooperative board game experience.”

The reviewer highly praises "The LOOP" as a satisfying and challenging cooperative puzzle game with good variability, often leading to close losses that encourage replaying. They consider it a top choice in its genre, though they note minor issues with visual clutter and recommend it primarily for one or two players.

The reviewer highly praises "The LOOP" for its imaginative theme, infectious vibe, and fun combo card play, comparing it positively to Pandemic. Despite acknowledging a significant flaw with the unpredictable cube tower, the reviewer still considers the game a blast to play and a great experience.

The reviewer highly praises 'The LOOP' for its unique take on cooperative gameplay, particularly highlighting the 'loop' mechanism as an innovative twist that sets it apart from other games. He also commends the game's art and component quality, noting its strong replay value.

The reviewer highly praises 'The LOOP' as a crunchy, cooperative, deck-building puzzle with a quirky theme and satisfying 'loop' mechanic that allows for powerful, multi-card turns, making it a strong contender for best game of the year, particularly highlighting its excellent solo mode.

The reviewer finds 'The LOOP' to be a highly enjoyable and innovative cooperative board game, praising its thematic time travel, charming art, asymmetrical characters, and multiple game modes, despite some initial complexity and potential for analysis paralysis during turns.

“The LOOP features a quirky theme and artefacts, different ways to play, and fun combos and interactions.”

“The LOOP is a thinky and inventive cooperative game with clever mechanisms and a unique look.”

“Combining these two restrictions on top of already uniquely innovative mechanics, you have a game that might just be the best cooperative game I’ve played since Spirit Island.”

While primarily focused on the 'Revenge of Fauxzilla' expansion, the reviewers express an overall positive sentiment towards the cooperative gameplay of "The LOOP," noting that the expansion's new characters enhance the experience by offering stronger options and improving upon some less interesting base game characters.

ThinkerThemer found 'The LOOP' to be a well-designed and challenging cooperative board game, especially recommended for players who enjoy difficult cooperative puzzles and a degree of randomness, despite it not perfectly aligning with their personal preferences for games with less luck.

“The Loop offers a nice combination of strategy with luck, pairing in-depth planning with breathless pause as the rift cubes roll out of Dr Faux’s machine, moving an era precipitously closer to a Vortex.”

“The Loop has been enjoyed here thus far, and we have had close games trying to defeat Dr Faux. We still have two game modes to explore, but heck, even if we didn’t have those, the game has been quite enjoyable and we’d have been happy to just have those two modes.”

The reviewer found "The LOOP" to be an average game, appreciating its production quality and clever card system. However, they were disappointed by the extreme luck involved, which they felt made the game frustratingly difficult to win, especially with more players.