Help the Hero is a 2D Puzzle Flash game developed by the folks at Armor Games in 2011.
A humble village desperately needs a hero! Only one man is up for the job, Count Thrashwood, the greatest, most manliest hero the world has ever known. You on the other hand are his... trusty under-rewarded manservant Percival! Only you can handle his inventory and prevent him from being grinded into paste. Your job is to watch from the sidelines and manage what gets equipped, sold, or just thrown out. As they say, behind every hero is a story, and the people who helped him rise up to fame.
This game can be played at here
or at here.
A sequel, Scarlet Stranger, was released by the end of 2011. Instead of a Puzzle Game however, it's a Zelda-like dungeon crawler starring the Scarlet Stranger ( secretly Percival) sieging Count Thrashwood's castle to Save the Princess.
This game provides examples of:
- Battle Discretion Shot: When Thrashwood confronts the enemy (on stage!), the curtains close and you hear loads of attacking, defending, shooting and spellcasting noises. The curtains then unfold to show the battle result.
- Chick Magnet: Count Thrashwood, due to his status as being one of the greatest heroes.
- Cyborg: The last version of every enemy.
- The Dog Bites Back: Percival returns as The Scarlet Stranger to defeat Thrashwood.
- Endless Game: Challenge mode has you fill up the inventory with a never ending stream of items and stars (use it to get rid of items). The game ends once all spaces are filled up or when an item escapes off the screen.
- Expy: Count Thrashwood is clearly based on Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Ironically, in The Scarlet Stranger, Count Thrashwood ends up cursed and trapped within his castle, making him more similar to the Beast (although Count Thrashwood's appearance is unaffected).
- Game-Breaking Bug: In Scarlet Stranger, after you craft the Cursed Ring needed to get the good ending and beat Thrashwood, you talk to the princess to save her, and exit with a 1 minute timer... into a black screen, where the good ending fails to load. You can't do anything until the timer reaches zero, in which you get the bad ending where you run out of time. Then there's also the bug where your character gets stuck in a treasure chest that appears, among many others.
- Grid Inventory: Where you store the incoming items. The size of this grid can upgraded several times with the gold obtained from selling items.
- Heavily Armored Mook: The second version of each enemy.
- Human Pack Mule: Percival essentially embodies this trope as his sole purpose in assisting Thrashwood.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Percival, obviously.
- Informed Equipment: We don't see Thrashwood ride off into battle with his equipped items. Then again, we sorta hear them from behind the curtains.
- Inventory Management Puzzle: The main portion of the game. It's your job to fit the oncoming items into the inventory as well as deciding how much of each type of item is needed for victory. Unlike the normal use of the trope, the inventory needs to be managed in real-time, due to the item conveyor belt.
- Limited Loadout: After the inventory management is finished, the player assigns equipment to one of four equipment slots. Additional slots may be purchased with gold (from selling items)
- Katanas Are Just Better: Downplayed. The katana is the second-strongest weapon behind the halberd.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: In later levels, you'll probably only be able to get enough items to secure a definite victory against three of the opponent's four stats. You should thus forfeit one of your stats (Usually range, as its equipment take up LOADS of space), especially if the opponent is strong at that stat. 3 out of 4 wins still gives a victory.
- Luck-Based Mission: If a battle ends in a tie, the tiebreaker is one of these.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Let's see... There are Snapdragons, Dragonsmiths, and Dragonoids.
- Our Ogres Are Hungrier: The Ogre, Ogrus Maximus, and Robogre.
- Schizo Tech: Seeing that some of the equipment comes from the early 15th Century as well as some of the enemies being partly robotic.
- Shop Fodder: Received items include coins, which take space on the grid inventory and can only be sold. The coins and wallet don't take too much space compared to other items.
- Servile Snarker: Percival can be quite snarky with his end-of-level quotes."He didn't stand a chance, sir. It was like watching a fight between a small child, and a...slightly larger child. Who has weapons.""Next time I don't think I'll even need to equip you with anything. That'll be fun for everyone involved.""Congratulations, sir! You sure showed that beast who the bigger brute is!"
- Tennis Boss: You beat Thrashwood in Scarlet Stranger by blocking the magic shot that his sword fires, then whacking it back at him.
- Took a Level in Badass: Percival as The Scarlet Stranger.
- Underground Monkey: The first three enemies are pretty much an Ogre, a Treant, and a Dragon. The second batch are armored versions of them, and the last three are Cyborg versions.
- Universal Ammunition: Averted. Every ranged weapon has their own type of ammo and ammo container. Which makes them the hardest of the four types of equipment to manage due to taking the most inventory space (usually). Although you only need one ranged weapon- you can give Thrashwood more ammo for it to increase ranged attack after that.
- When Trees Attack: Woodie, Lancewoode, and Hackwood.
