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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

author=flowerthief
Ichimaru isn't bumping this game like crazy. He posted that a week or two ago. No one person is bumping this game like crazy. Ironically, complaints about the game being bumped are themselves bumping the game.

Is it too much to ask that comments posted in this thread actually be about the game and not about the game's presence on the front page or top of the games section? Please?


Should I start bumping then? Sorry, I haven't been posting lately as I have been testing other games, e.g Magnus Light, that psychopathic one etc.
Ah, by the way, I still don't know how you can actually manage to get Cheimi, no wonder she is a secret character!
Hello, I just wanted to give my opinion, please do not take it as a flame.
WHY DID YOU OVER-EDIT IT!!! I think that version .63 was the best, number one, because there were no bugs that I could find, number two, because the graphics were brilliant, and number three, because after that version everything went over complicated! Please, this is just an opinion, NOT a flame. Thank you, I really think you should put vs .63 back on...
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author=nibbles480
wait what really that dosent sound like a very fun cheat at all its good to know that the game is working fine for me anymore cheat because i might stmble apon

Well, the point of the cheat codes is that they are meant to be used by custom content makers, to, well, test how the custom content works. Of course, that doesn't stop "regular" players from stumbling across them, as your case clearly suggests.

*Edit:
I think that version .63 was the best, number one, because there were no bugs that I could find, number two, because the graphics were brilliant, and number three, because after that version everything went over complicated!

The complications you speak of are merely a development with how custom content is made. Maybe things are getting complicated, as you say. That's a function of growth. The engine, and it's systems, are growing, along with the developer, and the guys/gals/whatever who are making said custom content. As for the "default" game (meaning no custom content whatsoever), that is still a viable alternative.
point taken atleast i now have a way to test the rest of my custom content without wasteing alot of time
Actually, Ichimaru brings up a concern I had myself. I don't want the customization features to become so complicated that they scare people off. I should mention though (as I did in the custom content page) that at the same time new customization features are being added, there will soon be a user interface that makes creating characters easier for everyone. It might be ready this weekend, we'll see.

Ah, by the way, I still don't know how you can actually manage to get Cheimi, no wonder she is a secret character!


Yup, you can't date her, get her phone number, or meet her in generic school events. With Chiemi the key is....
City events in which somebody hands you a note. Those events are not random but occur at specific times and places (the first one occurs at the station). Pay attention to what those notes say. Players who have studied Japanese will have an advantage here :)
In all truth i dont find it that complicated but it would be nice if there was an easier way to do customization simpler
edit: oops, never mind
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author=nibbles480
In all truth i dont find it that complicated but it would be nice if there was an easier way to do customization simpler


Well, there's the support group that is the custom content tab at least!
Im having trouble playing this game on windows 7.

It crashes.

The character creator works just fine, its the game that's giving me the problems.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
^ How far do you get before it crashes? What do you see, and is there any kind of error message?
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I suspect that it crashes from a custom character's story file (Masako? 21? Seil_Dolgany's own content?). However, knowing what the precise error message is before the game crashes (if any is displayed) could be pertinent information!
V0.74 is out with a few new things (an NPC who gives hints about which attribute you should focus on, new board icons) as well as bug fixes, etc.

9/28/11 -- Also fixed faulty custom response assignments in the Character Customizer
i stared playing it today and i have to say, its very interesting. the board game part of the game was i nice touch, much different from all the point and click games. this way, there is a part of luck to the game. the talking portions and the story is well writen. my only problem is one thing, how do i get the custom part to work. i have tons of characters i would like to use.
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And here I thought that it was just my games where the packed-in manual was never read!

The help file that comes with the game gives a lot of information pertaining to the creation of a character's story events, and provides some information about how the character customizer works. Or, you could check out the custom content tab and see what other people have done and work from there. As another alternative, you could ask for help for what you want to do on the custom content tab.
benos
My mind is full of fuck.
624
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Error
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Each character must at minimum have a tachie associated with the NEUTRAL mood. Please assign an image to represent this character's NEUTRAL mood before saving.
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OK
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Help! This is with the character customizer
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A "tachie" is, simply speaking, a graphic associated with a pose, or certain mood. At minimum, a character only needs one graphic associated with him/her: the "neutral" pose. How character graphics are made has been a subject of conversation in the custom content tab.
I played a little so far and had the first three generic endings. These made me feel much more "sweet into sour" than the other way around :P These endings are frustrating... I work hard to get the girl and than it ends by saying "screw you, they broke up, they won't go to university together and be happy"
That's not negative to me though. Getting beaten on the head like that makes me want to play again and try to understand how to get a better ending. So I have to say so far I like the challenge in this game.

Regarding the story and interaction scenes, it looks like you put a lot of thought and work into this game, so congrats ^^
The mini-games (board, janitor job) and all that happens randomly seem well tweaked to me.

I'd like to hear you on how much you want the girls' typical behavior and personality to be consistent with japanese culture? Did you give a lot of thought about this or are there typical occidental values and behavior mixed in?
Thank you for the feedback.

Hmm, although it wasn't a negative for you, I do want a players to start getting non-generic endings on their second playthrough at the least. Are other players having a similar experience? Is it still the attribute checks, or is it simply that the story routes are long? (I know that Akari's route in particular is rather long, but I hoped that would be ameliorated by the fact that you only need to pump up a single attribute if you're going after her. Ditto with Tsubasa)

As for whether the girls' behavior is consistent with Japanese culture, probably not. I'm not Japanese myself so it would be impossible for me to write from their perspective. However, I have spent time in Japan, have had lots of interactions with Japanese people, not to mention have played tons of Japanese games in this genre, so hopefully it's not completely off either. There is at least one character loosely based on a real Japanese person, and at least one character loosely based on a real non-Japanese person I knew from high school. I suppose it's probably an odd mix.

You could say that the project stakes everything on the assumption that high school life in its essentials isn't all that different from culture to culture, and that users who expand onto the game by writing new characters and new story aren't and shouldn't be expected to be able to write consistent with Japanese culture.
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I can't make any comment about the difficulty in getting any kind of ending with the built-in characters, as I was side-tracked into custom content creation before I was able to finish with my first play attempt. Not to mention that the update I acquired at the time made my saved game data incompatible with the newer version. Either that, or I just deleted it on the assumption that is was incompatible.