I love Loop Hero. The loop mechanic and tile placement and how the game slowly unfolds was one of the coolest hooks I've seen in a game for years. But I always felt like the gear system was tedious and lacked any strategy.
So I started testing my own take on this (placeholder name: Loop Explorers) that is more of roguelike deck builder with an emphasis on spacial placement of cards on the loop. The prototype is live if you want to give it a look: https://fridayyy.itch.io/loop-explorers
Because procedural generation is hard to get right I started by building handcrafted levels to figure out what loop shapes and environmental hazards actually make the game fun. It's starting to feel fun and strategic (art/UI still needs polish) but the game is starting to feel more like a level-based strategy game than a roguelite.
So here is my question: do I stick with the original vision of roguelite or follow the flow towards level-based?
I'm kinda stuck between two competing and interesting directions and could use feedback from people who are also into the roguelike genre.