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Date, create, and share!

Assuming the role of a male high school student in Japan, the player will meet, interact with, and date a number of female characters with the goal of winding up with one of them at the end of a 101-day calendar. Yeah, you've seen this all before...or have you?

In other romance sims, there's little reason to replay the game again once you've pursued all the characters you're interested in. But Heartache 101 allows for a variable female cast. The number of characters in the game is completely open-ended!

You can create new characters and add them to the game, share them with other users, and add characters created by other users. You can create the images for custom characters from a template, or use images you created yourself, or images from any source. (only "standing" images of characters can be imported; there is no event CG in the game) A simple scripting language is provided for writing story events. You can also customize some of the music.

The game system itself is in part a visual novel interface with gameplay that include conversational decision-making, board game-like mechanics, stat management, financial management, and more.

Latest Blog

New game forthcoming, some might like to know



Since I've been asked many times if I would ever make a sequel to Heartache....

Well this is not a sequel. In very many ways it's radically different. But some might find that it partially retains a bit of the same feel?

So I'm posting the first public screenshot here, and whoever is interested, look for a game page up in the next week or two with the title "Where One Citizen". Game is not complete yet, but after 10 years of development it's about time to start showing it!

Posts

yah im trying tsubasa, just a tip, you wana be smart-n-sexy if you want a good responce from her
also there is apparently three girls i never met in any of my playthroughs...i think on of them has silver hair. you see keika come out of the teachers lounge with her neer the begining, any idea how to get her even unlocked?
You've to tell Miki you have no idea (about helping each other) and when you meet Keika you've to beg her (soul) to help you out. She should introduce you to Akari (Black haired girl) later.

EDIT: For Tsubasa, you need to have brains (in reality) and later on you need Loo for an event
Thanks living...although i got tsubasa already... now the only girl i need to find is the blonde girl, and iv met them all
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I was taking a break from forging custom content long enough to figure that Tsubasa needed INT (the Library has been my friend). Not sure how to consistently improve LOOKS though. Probably haven't unlocked the locale (Fashion Mall/Outlet?) yet.

Side note: My game notes file is already 30 KB. And I'm only on Day 10 or 11. As my notes are mostly stream-of-consciousness thoughts, I expect this file to get much bigger before I finally copy-paste-PM the monstrosity.

*Edit: I love the Chocolate Lady and her fourth-wall-breaking banter!
Wow, I look forward to your dissertation, Marrend!
Currently playing this. I'm really liking it so far!
A download for the new release v0.4 is available (or waiting to be approved). Quite a few embarrassing bugs have been found recently so I encourage you to upgrade to this version, although your old save files won't be compatible.

Some changes:
- There is now a 3rd way to meet Akari (Say "Not really" when Tsubasa asks if you're serious about helping with her investigation)
- You can choose the girl with which to see a non-generic (character-specific) ending if you qualify for more than one
- New "box" icon on school maps
- Added new commands for writing custom stories: ENCOUNTERS ON, ENCOUNTERS OFF, PHONE UNKNOWN
- Numerous balance changes

Note: One of the embarrassing bugs that has now been fixed would be that the game would fail to unlock a special mode it told you it had unlocked. If anyone who has unlocked special modes or records that the game failed to keep would like them back quickly, PM me and I'll show you how to manipulate the records.
yo flowertheif, im not sure if you have ever played games like sakura wars: so long my love (would be one of my favorite rpgs of all time if there was a little more fighting...just a little more) but during scenes where you curently dont have sprites but it says somthing is happenening, do you plan to have a picture of whats going on? (being both a fan of rihos ending, and the only scene like that i can think of at the moment, an example would be: during the scene where you and riho are under the tree, will there be a picture of the two?)
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
- Added new commands for writing custom stories: ENCOUNTERS ON, ENCOUNTERS OFF, PHONE UNKNOWN


*gracious smile*
Though, it occurs to me that you could have edited the old download by uploading the newer version into it as to avoid downtime? Just a thought. In the meantime, I'm on Day 27 with my Tsubasa playthrough.

As for a full-screen graphic of the MC and his girl as part of the finale, or whatever (I think that's what spaz is talking about), that's something players of this genre would expect. However, those kinds of sequences are highly custom-tuned. It would take a true artist to pull it off. Personally, I wouldn't attempt that kind of tech, as I'm not an artist.
Hmm, looks like the download hasn't been approved :( I'd better put up my own link on the front page.
Ah, you can edit old downloads that way? Good idea.

Yeah, I don't plan to add event CG.
I'm a big fan of the Sakura Wars series btw.

edit: ok, the download has been approved
hmmm, the event CG was somthing i was looking forward to, but i spose thats a lot of work you gota do
p.s. Thank you for agreeing with me that sakura wars rocks!
p.s.s. ima try to get some footage here soon...right after i get a timer...which seems to be non existant in my town. ill find an egg timer or somthing then start recording
Fun simulation game. I almost got Shihoko, but had to settle for her sister, Riho. Now I think I'll do some of the custom stuff
@spazhero
It would be a lot of work, but not only that, I don't want to set the precedent of users thinking they need to create event CG before they share their custom characters.

Will you mention in your footage that the game is in Beta? First thing viewers might say is, "that's the title screen?"

@Desmo
I'd be very interested to hear how the customization goes for you.
@flowertheif
if i remember ,which i most likley will, ill mention this is a betta as i put in my name and then clip my finger nails or somthing while i wait for the prolouge to finish
p.s. keika makes me want to punch things (i just got the scene where she wants me to beg her for help)
Calling someone doesn't work due to a script error... hm... and we even told the protagonist NOT to switch to Verizon... oh well.
author=JudgmentTH
Calling someone doesn't work due to a script error... hm... and we even told the protagonist NOT to switch to Verizon... oh well.

thats weird....calling works for me
If anyone gets a script error can you please report it to me via PM? I wanna get these bugs sorted. (Though if it says "script is hanging" specifically, sometimes it's because you have a lot of processes running on your computer)
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Oh, I got an error all right! It's not a problem with the game, per say, but with me trying something... interesting.
Lovely and addictive game...
And it seems to be working just fine for me...