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***~Reminder:~***

|The only download available is the old IGMC version. By pressing the DOWNLOAD button, you will be downloading Heartland's old, buggy version. The remake still has not any download available. Hang in there! I'm working hard to deliver one soon(tm).|



"(...) As you enter its realm, the whispering wind tells you of unspoken, ghostly tales of the past. Though you don't notice. Welcome."

Synopsis
"You walked unspeakable distances, until you found this peculiar forest. A glade immersed you in peace. As you kept walking, you found a place full of life—Heartland. Everything here gives you the peace you have been craving for. Yet you keep trying opening your eyes. You do not remember anything about yourself. If you do open them, you will get to see the truth. And sometimes, the pitch-black darkness is a better place to stay in."

The Game
Heartland is a narrative-based, story-rich, psychological-esque, linear RPG with a different take on battles. The gameplay is rather straight-forward, being based solely on the completion of the story. Though to make it to the end, you'll first have to face off familiar faces from your past through one-in-one, strategical, meaningful and decisive battles.

All the events of the game and your actions are narrated in a second person point of view by a narrator. Through him, you will get to know the mistery amongst Heartland—and you yourself.

The game heavily focuses on atmosphere to engage the player into the narrative, relying upon a plethora of nature sounds, beautiful scenarios and excellent background music which will take you in a singular journey to the discovering of the very truth.

Battles have a peculiar twist, in which classic commands such as "attack", "guard" and even "items" are completely removed. Instead, you will get to choose between physical (Swordplay) and magic (Sorceries) techniques, as well as the Remnants bequeathed from your enemies, as you defeat them. Each opponent is a boss-like fight, and you will have to find the best skill composition to a strategy in order to defeat your foes.

Heartland features no gameover, but the game won't advance until you win.

Author Notes
What a ride. After eight (8) years using this program, I finally get to finish something. That is, my very first game. I will not make this a long wall of text with gratitudes and ramblings, but I've ought to say I'm quite pleased and happy. In day seventeen (17), due to a power shortage I lost almost all (only the maps survived) of my progress of this game (data corrupted), which by those times, was radically different. As I lost everything and felt despair, this game idea occurred to me, thanks to certain words of a friend. I surpassed many, many obstacles; starting with the language barrier, which is mostly difficult because the game relies heavily on text; and going through other shenanigans, such as, well, having only thirteen days to finish this. Right now, as I write this, energy has just came back from a three-hours blackout, when I was finally uploading the game and had everything set up. Once again, I lost it, and had to rewrite all of this, and re-upload. It seems like destiny doesn't wants me to finish something lol.

Anyways, thanks for reading. As my final words, I've to say that I have to thank to every single person that takes their time to make resources for the community, for people such as me who can't draw for crap, or cannot compose a do-re-mi. Both who sell it and give it away for free. Really, thanks guys.

And, even if narcissistic, I've got to say I'm proud of myself because, jesus, f*ck!ng, christ, really? yet another power shortage just in the last second?




P.S: Fullscreen (press F5!) and Headphones are recommended for a best game experience!

Latest Blog

Heartland: Interact EVERYTHING!




Well, well. Each week it passes, one more day the weekly report is delayed. But it is here nonetheless.

This week's report includes an important aspect of games that ironically we often forget to include in our games. I hope you're guessing it right--Interaction.

Interaction is what makes a game be, well, a game. Otherwise it'd be like watching movie, or like reading a book just that more visually (in case of RPGs). Games of course are interactive. Heck, even walk simulators are. The level of interaction, however, varies from game to game. But we will be talking about RPGs for simplicity.

In JRPGs the 'interactive' part often reduces itself to moving around, go from place to place and battles. And menus. Some JRPGs include 'extra' stuff to appeal more, like the overused (yet never boring) fishing minigame for example. Puzzles are also among the most popular examples. From moving rocks to reach somewhere, to pressing the right buttons in the right order, as well as the classic 'find the way to move an object so the floor switch keeps pressed and you can continue your journey through the dungeon'.

Everything of this, however, relies on the same interactive factor (player movement and pressing action key at much), just re-invented to be fun. But interaction can go much further than that... or closest.

What if instead of pressing the action button (often 'Z' key) to open a chest, you'd have to do something else? What if to pull a lever up or down, instead of just pressing Z to make it go one or the other, you could press UP and DOWN when you're close to it? In fact, why opening doors by just colliding into them, or, once again, pressing the goddamned action key? Have you ever thought the motion one does when grabbing the knob?

That's what I mean by closest. Player interaction can (and must!) be actually re-invented in order to make the most ordinary stuff (again, opening chests, activating switches, etc.) a bit more 'fun'.

Heartland's today actualization includes this... in several ways.

---




Maintain the action key pressed close to a lever and proceed to choose wether to pull it down or up, by pressing the corresponding up/down arrow key :)




Chests are often heavier than pulling levers. Maintain the action key pressed while close to a chest and proceed to press the up arrow twice. It can contain makerscore.




Open the door by maintaining the action key pressed close to it while you perform a semi-circle sequence, just like if you were turning the door knob. The above signal can be translated to (1.→ 2.↑ 3.←). Folks that like fighting games will get the hang of it quickly :p




Other actions can be more complicated. Precision action is an example of this. Activate what's in front of you by pressing the action key right when it's time. Otherwise nothing will happen!


There will be more actions to objects! Not only variations of the same (double-tap down key, right semi-circle, full circle, etc.) but also other type of more complex actions (short QTE, other mini-mini games like the focus one, etc).


---


Player interaction doesn't end there, however. We said those are the closest forms of interaction--what's in the most ordinary stuff. Other ones are more original themselves, and situational--therefore needing a special action.

As an example of this, here's the Memory Focus mini-game. It happens in a matter of seconds. If player succeeds, not only Rose will recover memory from the person she's trying to remember, but also will get a special bonus. If player fails, she won't recover info from them, and will not get any bonuses whatsoever.

There isn't any GIF for this one, but I'll try to explain.



You have to help Rose focus on remembering that someone. For this, press the action key as hardest and fastest as you can. The fastest you tap the key, the smaller it'll be the circle and the closest you'll be to achieve success. If you aren't quick enough, the circle will get bigger. If it gets out of the boundaries, you'll lose.

Once you success, info will be shown, as it can be seen in the third frame of the image shown above.

How's that? Leave your comments here! I'll appreciate it alot.

More's coming for Heartland!
  • Completed
  • Faye
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • RPG
  • 11/30/2018 09:34 AM
  • 11/18/2019 09:44 AM
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Pages: 1
12/9/2018

Heartland 1.02 version added!
RMN Direct Download available! (you can still download old version from itch.io)

This version fixes the annoying wyvern bug (where you could face wyvern before time), a minor passability issue and other little tweaks. Savegames from older versions *will work* on this one.

For new players, players that get lost easily, don't like exploration, the guidelines/tutorial .TXT is heavily recommended! Download below, or directly from the downloads tab. Enjoy~


Given the feedback of various people getting easily lost:

ATTENTION: For ANYONE that is getting LOST/Got LOST, do not have much time to spare, prefer to play the game directly, do not like exploration, etc.:

I've uploaded a Step-by-Step GUIDELINE/TUTORIAL in form of a short, resumed .TXT for you all. It's pretty raw, but the game isn't long at all. So you will see it's pretty much easy to get to the end, specially in casual mode.

Download directly from MEGA.NZ

Grab it right here, or directly from the download tab in this page :)

Those who didn't play the thing anymore because of getting lost, I encourage you to give it a second try :) For new players, this tutorial may come handy.
any game with 10 k levles here blanaced
im disapointed liek time has stopped at 1018 and 9 and we dont offer games i gotoa kill myslef and tell it s my fauiltt nto the ocrupted guys fauilt uuu
Sorry, I might not be following you
This looks wonderful.

Will you be doing a download that doesn't require an itch.io signup? I'm willing to jump the hurdle of making an itch.io account, I just don't particularly want to.
author=kumada
This looks wonderful.

Will you be doing a download that doesn't require an itch.io signup? I'm willing to jump the hurdle of making an itch.io account, I just don't particularly want to.


Hi! Actually didn't know it was required an account in order to download games from itch.io. Totally missed that. Will be uploading the game here later tonight in that case. Please wait for it ;)

Thanks for noticing.
I will wait!

(seriously, this looks super good.)
author=kumada
I will wait!

(seriously, this looks super good.)


Heartland 1.02 version uploaded to the RMN host server :) Direct download available
The link sometimes still goes to itch.io, and I don't know why, but I've got it.

I'll post feedback as soon as I can play a bit.
Alright. Super long delay, but I finally fired up the exe, ready to play it, and Norton instantly removed it from my system. Usually I get a "this file has not been verified" warning and I can choose to continue, but this time it was flagged as a medium network threat.

Is it possible the 1.02 copy might be infected?
DISCLAIMER:


By pressing the DOWNLOAD button you will be downloading the old IGMC 2018 version. The remake of this game still has no download. If you still are interested in playing the old one, go ahead, but keep in mind that Heartland: Awakening will be quite a different thing.

Thanks for your attention :)
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