Heroes for Hire: Why pillage dungeons when you can get someone else to do it for you?

Guilds are a staple of the fantasy role-playing genre. For every commoner in these worlds, there is also an adventurer ready to venture forth and do some questing. In the Elder Scrolls series, there's a critical mass of guild-based trade: you have fighters, mages, thieves, bards, and assassins all clamouring to get a piece of the action. But who tells them what to do? Behind the scenes, who's managing all these calls for help and delegating the need to investigate rats in the basement?

Heroes for Hire answers this question in the form of a detailed management simulation game. It's an interface-based title where you micromanage a Guild very much in the business of dispatching heroes into crusty dungeons far yonder. While they hack and slash their way through dungeons, the player, safe and comfortable in the Guild, coordinates the economy and upkeep of these operations.

Heroes are managed by 'raids': selecting a bunch of heroes and equipping them with items that assist in the journey. Off I sent the poor knight John to delve into the dark crevices of the Gooey Abyss. In he went, beset upon all sides by slimes that he defeated bravely and resolutely. His reward from the Gooey Abyss was a wad of slime, which turned out to be quite useful—a crafting system allows players to produce items, such as potions, which can assist the heroes in their future raids.

Back at the Guild Hall, the rent is due, extracted every week. To keep the income rolling in, players need to keep completing raids, acquiring cash and crafting items, or accepting and completing orders from people who are also looking for a bit of that delicious dungeon goo. The performance of heroes contributes to their rating and the reputation of the Guild in competition with others.

There's plenty of mechanics here working in concert. Heroes have their own stats and experience, needs, and moods, so micromanagement is needed to keep them contented. Some of the gameplay orients around the game's time and day/night cycle: expenses and rent become due, shops open and close, and heroes go to sleep. For instance, if you wake up a hero when they're trying to sleep, their mood will worsen. Upset a hero too much, and they might decide to walk out the door!

For a menu-based game, the visuals and interface work very well. It's simple, accessible, and a little nostalgic, but not strongly indebted to the Windows design that has saturated indie games recently. The menus are also responsive, with hero portraits changing as armour is equipped. There's also a really fun Daggerfall-style isometric map of the Guild Hall to encourage players to expand and populate it with rooms and furniture crafted along the way.

Heroes for Hire is a big commitment: there's a lot of mechanics to learn. Most are eased in with the help of Clippy-like vulture perched at the bottom of the screen, always present to offer advice or notify on an 'advisor' menu. I found some aspects, like crafting from a large list of craftable items, were a little tricky to figure out at first. In no time, though, the various mechanics of the game open up, with the demo also promising avenues to recruit and train new heroes.

Heroes for Hire is being developed by Untouch. It's the second game of the developer after a long hiatus, releasing Cash_Out, a procedurally generated top-down stealth shooter in 2015.

You can play the demo of Heroes for Hire on itch.io or Steam. The game does not have an estimated date of release for now. The developer hopes to introduce new features, including fail states, sound and a tournament system.

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