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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

Hmm... Bit of a bug, I pressed a button, I think it was F12 or something, and the whole game went bonkers.l
Its not a bug. F12 is the restart button for all RPG Maker games.
Nope, tried it on other games, and it stayed the same, also, even teh ones that did restart didn't delete all my saves. Because when I cam back to it, my saves wee all empty, and I had to start again.
F12 wiped out your saves? That is quite odd. Can you PM me with as much information as you can about what happened? There might not be anything I can do but still.
New release v.051
Perhaps not critical if you've been playing the last release without errors, but your saves should be compatible so you can transfer your saves and records files to the new directory.

- Added a way to skip to the final day (hint: visit the jewelry shop on saturday)
- Robot janitor can be upgraded to never break down
- Load screen shows the difficulty settings for saves
- Page up and page down on the phone call screen now work properly
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and revisions

edit: Updated again today to fix a bug with the convenience store.
I did finish this game for some days ago and I most say I love this game. :D
Keep up the good work :)
Well, I've got to be honest, I've never enjoyed VN's, nor dating sims (unless you count Thousand Arms which was more of an RPG), but this was really sweet and fun to play.

Now I didn't run into any bugs (at all, actually), and it actually felt nearly complete. The only thing I really noticed was that story content during school days thinned out as my stats grew, but hey, it's incomplete.

The one thing I'd complain about (and this would be difficult to change) is that it's hard to make other characters not like you more when you've already started with one. Granted, that's probably how I played, but yeah.

I'll check out customization in time...As for the actual gameplay, all I could suggest is maybe adding mini games, if possible. I'd also suggest more ways to spend money (though that second cell update was pretty hefty). One minor problem (hey it's a game! Not real life) was that you could build up your relationship with a character by cell phone and talking alone and then be able to kiss them on the first date.


Writing...well, I was impressed. I actually started out not liking the characters very much (not even the player), but they grew on me. For the game I played, I'd say that Riho seemed like the most developed character, and Keika seemed the least. I'll admit I concentrated on Riho the most, since she seemed to dislike the player character the most in the beginning.


Anyways, I'll keep playing! Great work, and extremely impressive on RM XP!
Thanks for the feedback! If you disliked the characters initially but came to like them eventually, I am thrilled as that is just the effect I was hoping for. And I'll take your suggestions into consideration.
edit: oops duplicate post
I've found a couple of secrets while playing and I'm wondering if anyone else has found others.

Salary Raise
Visiting "Station" on Saturday may lead to meeting your Supervisor. Raises salary by 450 bucks.


Calculator
Visiting the Convenience store may lead the Sales Clerk to giving you a defective calculator. It shows the probability of passing Attribute Checks; i.e. "Should I try giving advice? I have an x % chance of getting it right"


...And a tip. Athletics is an important attribute. Miki, Keika, Riho and Shikoko all have athletic checks early on in their story lines.
I've added a few more secrets in v0.6. There is also a new janitor mini-game (takes the place of the usual mini-game every 4th week)
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I'll check this update out. Besides, I'm quite overdue with a non Story Test exploration in how Masako works.
There was an error with the robot janitor in the last release so the new release should fix it.
could you please get off the front page thanks
Decky
I'm a dog pirate
19645
Flowerthief, please take into consideration the myriad of other new releases that would like some exposure on the main page. All you have to do is hit "edit" to the download, swap the link, and it won't bump again (I think).
author=Deckiller
Flowerthief, please take into consideration the myriad of other new releases that would like some exposure on the main page. All you have to do is hit "edit" to the download, swap the link, and it won't bump again (I think).

Incorrect. Editing files hosted on RMN bumps it to the main page. This is why I have so many bugfixes that will never see the light of day.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
This is, partially, my fault. I know I suggested somewhere that altering the download that's already there saves time as far as people who want to get the game, but I also know that doing that bumps the game to the front page.

Still, this game is very much a beta/demo version. Things will, eventually, calm down. And to not get out the latest version to the (five?) beta testers the game has would be a remission would it not? That's just how I see it, though.
Decky
I'm a dog pirate
19645
author=Marrend
This is, partially, my fault. I know I suggested somewhere that altering the download that's already there saves time as far as people who want to get the game, but I also know that doing that bumps the game to the front page.

Still, this game is very much a beta/demo version. Things will, eventually, calm down. And to not get out the latest version to the (five?) beta testers the game has would be a remission would it not? That's just how I see it, though.


You could say all these bug fixes...turn a sour game into a sweet one.
Er, what should I do then? The release I put up yesterday addressed a prominent game-crashing error that one of the testers found and that many people who download the game would encounter if left unaddressed. If it was just spelling errors or such I would have waited.