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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

v0.77 is out.
There was a game-crashing bug in the last version when the player visits the Beach, so it should be fixed now.

While I was at it, I added a header command to designate custom story evente as repeatable. So it's now possible to make your own sort of generic events. (though you still can't simulate some things, like mental notes, etc)

Other than that, nothing new in this version.
Well, I still can't get a "good" ending. I tried Keika 4 times now and keep getting her Generic Ending.
I don't understand what I should do. Like, should I date them at every location? Should I make them Lovesick or just in the Love state? What are the stats really used for?
I thought I only had to keep the Liking Gauge rising but it seems insufficient.
Please gimme some hints ^^
Looks like a few people have had trouble with Keika so here's spoilers for the important events.

1. After a certain conversation in front of the school, encounter her at the Gym.
2. After a conversation where she talks about learning how to swim, encounter her at the Pool and pass an Athletics check of 40.
3. After a conversation where she talks about going to the Beach, encounter her there.
4. Eventually you'll meet in the classroom and be asked to perform a certain task. You'll need to pass a Personality check of 50 here.
5. Finally, go to the Club. Her route will be complete after a couple more automatic events.


Lovesick state isn't necessary to get a good ending. You have to complete the story route. Each story route has stat checks that need to be passed. For Keika, work on Personality and Athletics.


I see. I guess I didn't notice the full importance of these "chance meetings" in the city. Now I'll know. Thanks!
How about making a walkthrough for the people who might need it.
@Avee
Yep, city events are usually important. Please let me know if you need more help.

@Hollow_Tears
Hmm, maybe. There's a few reasons I'm reluctant to do that tho.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I wouldn't want to write one for the built-in characters either. I mean, how many files would one have to look through to get all of Miki's events? Four, maybe five? There's also the fact that if one really wanted to, one could look at the various story files and see what the next event is. That's practically cheating (No, let's face it, that's cheating.), but that doesn't stop me some people.

Even so, I wouldn't mind writing a little something for custom content that I made. This assumes people actually bother to download custom content.
I wouldn't want people to cheat either, or simply follow a walkthrough the first time around instead of playing the game for real. Flowerthief's hint about city events was enough for me to start unlocking endings; so far I unlocked 3 in a single game, and there are still 20 days or so left.

Interesting fact: It's funny how I unlock a girl's ending and then start avoiding her all the time when we meet at school so I can avoid the nuisance of her becoming lovesick, because the phone upgrade is expensive and 3 or 4 girls are close to being lovesick at the same time. I dunno how serious it is to let a girl go over her Heartache gauge, but I don't want to hear that horrible "you screwed up" sound again :P

I found a glitch on the board, I don't know if it's been reported already: If I use Free Move right after lending on an Item panel, the Item Message shows up again. But that's not all. If I then use the Free Move to go to a "higher" or "lower" row of panels and stay there, my character will keep moving forward through the background (where there are no panels) until I lend on a purple arrow to put me back on the main middle row.

Thinking back at my first post, I think that Shihoko's story and behavior is more typical of Japanese Anime characters, while Keika seems more occidental, clinging onto her "boyfriend" like that. In any case I think it's interesting to have that mix of both cultures, like you said.
@Marrend
Well if you look at the current poll, "I like to play stories & characters made by others" is in the lead, so it could be that people do download custom content more than we think. I can't track the number of downloads for content hosted on the website, so no way to know for sure.

@Avee
Ah, glad to hear you're unlocking endings :)

Thanks for the glitch report. I was able to find and correct the second glitch you mentioned, but couldn't duplicate the first one.

Thinking back at my first post, I think that Shihoko's story and behavior is more typical of Japanese Anime characters, while Keika seems more occidental, clinging onto her "boyfriend" like that. In any case I think it's interesting to have that mix of both cultures, like you said.


Wow, really? That's interesting, because Shihoko as a character was (loosely) based off of an occidental person while Keika as a character was loosely based off of a Japanese person. Those are in fact the two characters in the game who most owe their personality traits to actual people. (I'm more ready to admit that Akari and Hinami are manufactured in part from popular tropes :P)
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I can't look at the poll numbers (At least, I don't think I can!), so I assumed nothing. I was hoping that the other site kept track of the downloads, but I guess not.
author=flowerthief
Wow, really? That's interesting, because Shihoko as a character was (loosely) based off of an occidental person while Keika as a character was loosely based off of a Japanese person. Those are in fact the two characters in the game who most owe their personality traits to actual people. (I'm more ready to admit that Akari and Hinami are manufactured in part from popular tropes :P)

Well, that's funny. Maybe there isn't that much cultural difference in relationship behavior then. Here are my thoughts about the two girls' paths that led me to believe in their cultural influence (story spoilers alert):

Shihoko values "quantity over quality" and feeds her ego with the attention she gets from many boys, thus fueling shallow relationships. But she doesn't know what a committed, intimate relationship really implies, and therefore wants to meet her needs about popularity and social success rather than those about love and mutual care. These issues come off as more oriental-like to me, with the Japanese people's typical concern about social status and image.
As for Keika, I thought her behavior were more typical of westerners: She feeds her ego with the fact of being in a relationship only, probably believing that breaking up or being single would be more hurtful than being disregarded by her boyfriend. Or maybe she nurtures the immature hope that everything will get better eventually and therefore clings to the relationship. She has to open her eyes about her boyfriend and listen to her own feelings more.

Of course, these thoughts are bound to my own experiences and knowledge of occidental and oriental culture and people too, so differences are to be expected. In any case, its pretty interesting, yeah ^^
@Marrend
Actually, upon looking into the matter a bit more, I find out that I CAN track number of downloads. Here's stats for your content if you're curious:
Masako - 39 downloads
Uchioniko - 32 downloads
Emiko - 20 downloads
That's for the website only, of course.

There's actually quite a lot of data I can track, such as where hits come from. It turns out that the website gets the most hits from links here at RMN, but it gets almost as many hits from the link at vndb.org. The average visitor to vndb.org is unlikely to have an account here at RMN, which means they may be unlikely to register and post feedback.

I thought about putting up a forum or bbs of some kind on the website, but for now it's too much of a hassle.


@Avee
One thing I've noticed about Asian cultures including Japanese is that they don't do a lot of dating around over there. Not the way Westerners do, or the way games like Tokimeki Memorial (or this game) depict. When an Asian dates another even casually, it pretty much means they are bf and gf and won't date anybody else. For that reason I had doubts about whether Shihoko would be believable as a Japanese character, but maybe I shouldn't have worried.
@Marrend
Actually, I think those stats were only for November, but the site didn't get much traffic until this month so the total stats wouldn't be much higher.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I thought about putting up a forum or bbs of some kind on the website, but for now it's too much of a hassle.


The "Comments" section doesn't count? I mean, it might not be a bbs/forum, but it's something!

^ Yeah, there's the comments section. I'm thinking ahead though. Right now RMN is where we've discussed custom content creation, but eventually the majority of people who discover the game will be coming from outside of RMN. If they want to discuss creating content--or give feedback to authors like you--the comments section might not be sufficient for that purpose. But I guess we'll see how things go.
Wow this is the 1st galge game I see in rpg maker
I've come across what might be a glitch. I had gotten Miki's status up to lovesick and completed her events (Event 38 or whichever one was completed). I got the 'Miki Ending unlocked' message on Day 84, so I used to Ring of Sleep to skip to the 101st day. Nothing happened that day. I even encountered Miki and nothing happened. This kept going until the 111st day. Is this a glitch? Or am I missing something?
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I've never come across this glitch myself, but it might be possible that you somehow came across a cheat code that advances the game clock. Supposing this is the case, there is no way I know of that turns back the clock. Supposing that is not the case, I fear I have no answers.
Sounds like a glitch. Unfortunately I am away from my computer until after the New Year and won't be able to look into the matter until then. If you kept a save from before you used the Ring of Sleep, you could go back to that save, then use the cheat Marrend alluded to and skip to the 101st day that way. (check the comments on the game's website for how to input the cheat)

In any case, thanks for reporting this! I'll fix it as soon as I'm able.
Thinking about it, it could have been because I landed on a bug on the 101st day (I can't remember if that was the case). I think there shouldn't be a way to end the 101st day in a non-standard way. Either that or change the ending condition to be the 101st day or higher (did that make sense? I hope it did).