![Heartbreaker: The Visual Novel - Episode 1 [Early-Access]](https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzEwOTc3NzA4LnBuZw==/original/Z33g1P.png)
Heartbreaker: The Visual Novel - Episode 1 [Early-Access]
A downloadable game for Windows
[ S Y N O P S I S ]
In 1996, college student Tanta Aiko seeks to win her new Kouhai's heart... by any means necessary.
In each Episode, Tanta must protect Kouhai from a new rival vying for her affections.
There are many methods of eliminating your rivals - Will you Sabotage their budding relationship? Befriend your rival to win her favour? Stalk your rival and Murder them? Some other method? It's up to you.
And what's with this mysterious woman providing you assistance in exchange for sordid info?
This game is inspired by early visual novels and retro Sega titles, intended to resemble "a Mega Drive game ported to the Saturn".
It features anime-style pixel art combined with illustrated cutscenes, voice acting, and an original soundtrack.
Our current focus is on creating "Episode 1", the first of a planned 13 episodes.
[ S T A T U S ]
LAST UPDATED: FEB. 18th 2023
THIS IS AN EARLY-ACCESS ALPHA BUILD OF A GAME THAT IS STILL IN ACTIVE DEVELOPMENT.
THE FREE VERSION HAS ALL NUDITY & GORE CENSORED.
THE PAID VERSION IS COMPLETELY UNCENSORED (with options to disable nudity & gore).
[ D I S C L A I M E R ]
THIS GAME CONTAINS DARK, ADULT THEMES INCLUDING VIOLENCE, DEATH, AND REFERENCES TO DRUGS, ABUSE, MENTAL HEALTH AND SEXUAL THEMES, WHICH SOME PLAYERS MAY FIND EXTREMELY DISTURBING.
PLAYER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
[ N O T E ]
Please read the free file "BuildNotes.txt" for known issues and current limitations.
Please use the comments or contact AbyzouDev@gmail.com to report bugs or suggest improvements.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of £2 GBP. You will get access to the following files:
Download demo
Development log
- Minor Update - v0.0.230 days ago
Comments
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Been playing this game this morning, got some things to say:
Is this inspired by Yandere Sim? That isn't a bad thing though, I enjoyed the game from what I've played. I can see potential for this game to end up really good! I also love how the game feels quite proactive, i.e. more than just reading (karma points, quick-tome minigames) and dialogue choices affecting how things happen.
Positive:
Criticisms/bugs:
also kinda weird how dark it is at 6pm but that's such a small nitpickKeep up the good work!
Thanks very much for the feedback!
1) Yes, it originally started as a fangame of Yandere Simulator, but I decided to take it in a different direction halfway through development.
2) I'll have to ask around the VNM Discord and see what can be done about the backlog; It seems like it'll require some coding knowledge which is beyond my skill level. I agree that clicking out of it shouldn't advance dialogue, it's really annoying but I didn't know how to fix it.
3) How did the softlock occur? What steps do I have to take to make that happen?
4) Many of us have been asking for a way to make characters "pop out" when talking, but the developers of the engine have so far ignored pretty much most requests for features, even something as simple as text beeping as it types. For now, I've just made sure that the characters' names appear above the messages.
5) In 1996, there was internet, in dial-up form, and cellphones were just blocky. :) There's also a lore reason that tech is slightly further along than it was in real life, which will be explained when I add the library. I realize that's probably a bit "hand-wavy" but it'll make sense later~
I'll make a note of all this, but please be sure to let me know how you got the softlock to happen.
3) I will try to recreate the softlock later (still playing through the game, just had to note down my thoughts quickly), if it helps, I failed the minigame. But please wait for more when I get the chance to play that scene again, sorry that I didn't give much information.
4) Would you ever consider porting the game to another engine like Ren'Py? I doubt that would be worth it, but smaller download size and RAM usage I guess? I don't know, you have much more experience than I do.
Ah, I believe I've found the culprit of the soft-lock with the first button-mash QTE.
My silly ass was looking for sound bugs as there was routinely an engine bug that caused the game to softlock if sound effects were played a certain way. lol
See, VNM has had a long-standing bug with its "Clear Message" function, which causes subsequent commands to skip over themselves. I was using this to erase Tanta's name from the message box, but it looks like that's what was causing the infinite loop that softlocks the QTE.
So I've removed that for now; I think it's better that I just accept Tanta's name will be stuck on-screen if the player fails the QTE - At least then they can continue. :)
It's my fault for not noticing - That's the only button-mash QTE you're able to retry in the game, so I never thought to see if failing it repeatedly would cause an issue.
That's LIKELY the cause and LIKELY the solution, I hope I've fixed it.
Thanks for helping me find that, it should be addressed in the next update. Thanks to you, I also found a couple of errors in the common events that were running those mechanics, so I've been able to make them close more "cleanly".
As for porting to another engine, I don't mean to sound rude, but: That won't happen. It took me two years to make the game as it is; I simply don't have the time or aptitude to learn a programming language like Python. Believe me, I've tried. It's the whole reason I picked VNM.
I realize it's not the most efficient engine, and lord knows I've had my headdesk moments of realizing bugs were caused by the engine, not me, but it's the best I can use unless I win the lottery and can hire a programmer. ^^;
Understandable that you won't change game engine - good that you found the bug though! After actually finishing a playthrough I noted some more minor stuff:
Probably seems like a lot, but it's just things I've noticed. Your game is still really impressive!
1) Only cutscenes, currently. There used to be a Skip function but I couldn't figure out how to balance it, it was either too fast or WAY too fast. If I can ever figure it out, I'll put it back in.
2) Yeah that one was noted in the documentation - I've asked around for help but got no answers so far. From what I was able to see, it seems to happen if the Autosave is loaded when there's no manual save in the other slot, so you've got to make a manual save first, then autosave will work. I don't know why this is the case.
3) Thanks for noting that part about the buttons, I've actually been working on a fix for disabling those when QTEs run (which I only noticed thanks to your first feedback~), so I'll be sure to apply it to Game Over scenarios too!
4) I'll look into that one, I never noticed an issue with it.
5) Oh, good eye! That's a big oversight on my part, I'll definitely make a note of that.
6) I actually forgot to do that ^^; My bad.
Thanks again for the feedback, I hope the first update will address most of your concerns!
Hello! I thought you'd like to know I just released a minor update for the game - I hope it'll address some of your concerns!