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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

Is this finished? I'm still making custom content :P
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
The game is flagged as "complete", so, yes! The game also absolutely welcomes new custom content!
author=Marrend
The game is flagged as "complete", so, yes! The game also absolutely welcomes new custom content!


Awesome! Also...how are you all so great at making tachie? I just gave up after 5*cough*30*cough* minutes...

Anyway, can you help?

I keep getting the error message: "Abnormal Error"

The only things I think I'm doing wrong is putting my custom characters in the built-in file, but I need to, as Tsubasa and Riho are mentioned in the storyline :(.
author=RukasuWYZ
author=Marrend
The game is flagged as "complete", so, yes! The game also absolutely welcomes new custom content!
Awesome! Also...how are you all so great at making tachie? I just gave up after 5*cough*30*cough* minutes...

Anyway, can you help?

I keep getting the error message: "Abnormal Error"

The only things I think I'm doing wrong is putting my custom characters in the built-in file, but I need to, as Tsubasa and Riho are mentioned in the storyline :(.



Also, it didn't say "Abnormal Error" before, and it was in the built-in file then.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
author=RukasuWYZ
Awesome! Also...how are you all so great at making tachie? I just gave up after 5*cough*30*cough* minutes...

It was a learning experience! When I first tried to do it, (this was back during the development of Mitsuya Masako as a Heartache character) I tried using MSPaint, and, it probably took me several feeble attempts to get one workable tachie. After getting GIMP, and a copy of material_m, things became a lot better to make! I think it was dude797 that gave me a copy of material_m with translated layers later, and that helped a lot!


author=RukasuWYZ
Anyway, can you help?

I keep getting the error message: "Abnormal Error"

The only things I think I'm doing wrong is putting my custom characters in the built-in file, but I need to, as Tsubasa and Riho are mentioned in the storyline :(.

Wait, hold on. You're putting your custom characters... in the built-in files? As in, you're taking the built-in stories and adding stuff into them? Am I reading this right? Custom content authors can absolutely write stories file that uses the built-in characters. In fact, custom content that use built-in characters far outweigh the number of content that can "stand alone". However, I cannot, in good conscience, support adding/modifying another author's story-file.

My recommendation to you to separate your story into a different file. You would include "game_profiles.txt" in the first line of your story file, as well as any other profiles the story has. If that error persists after this, I would recommend compressing the relevant files, and putting the resulting file into your RMN locker. At which point, the Heartache support staff I'll take a look at it, and see what can be done.


*Edit: As a sub-note, if you get a different error message, depending on what it actually says, refer to Mr. Help File first!
author=Marrend
author=RukasuWYZ
Awesome! Also...how are you all so great at making tachie? I just gave up after 5*cough*30*cough* minutes...
It was a learning experience! When I first tried to do it, (this was back during the development of Mitsuya Masako as a Heartache character) I tried using MSPaint, and, it probably took me several feeble attempts to get one workable tachie. After getting GIMP, and a copy of material_m, things became a lot better to make! I think it was dude797 that gave me a copy of material_m with translated layers later, and that helped a lot!


author=RukasuWYZ
Anyway, can you help?

I keep getting the error message: "Abnormal Error"

The only things I think I'm doing wrong is putting my custom characters in the built-in file, but I need to, as Tsubasa and Riho are mentioned in the storyline :(.


Wait, hold on. You're putting your custom characters... in the built-in files? As in, you're taking the built-in stories and adding stuff into them? Am I reading this right? Custom content authors can absolutely write stories file that uses the built-in characters. In fact, custom content that use built-in characters far outweigh the number of content that can "stand alone". However, I cannot, in good conscience, support adding/modifying another author's story-file.

My recommendation to you to separate your story into a different file. You would include "game_profiles.txt" in the first line of your story file, as well as any other profiles the story has. If that error persists after this, I would recommend compressing the relevant files, and putting the resulting file into your RMN locker. At which point, the Heartache support staff I'll take a look at it, and see what can be done.


*Edit: As a sub-note, if you get a different error message, depending on what it actually says, refer to Mr. Help File first!


Sorry! Also, I didn't edit the story, just the Built-In Profiles (Sorry!) It was because Ayumi and Miyuki both need Tsubasa and Riho (Respectively) for their storylines...

My stories are in my own file, but I couldn't for the life of me (+ laziness) manage to get Tsubasa in a new file with my CC, without making it impossible!
Wait, hold on. You're putting your custom characters... in the built-in files? As in, you're taking the built-in stories and adding stuff into them? Am I reading this right? Custom content authors can absolutely write stories file that uses the built-in characters. In fact, custom content that use built-in characters far outweigh the number of content that can "stand alone". However, I cannot, in good conscience, support adding/modifying another author's story-file.

No, I am not modifying built-in stories.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Sorry! Also, I didn't edit the story, just the Built-In Profiles (Sorry!) It was because Ayumi and Miyuki both need Tsubasa and Riho (Respectively) for their storylines...

My stories are in my own file, but I couldn't for the life of me (+ laziness) manage to get Tsubasa in a new file with my CC, without making it impossible!

Sorry, my misunderstanding! Though, I'm not sure if I understand why there was a need to edit the built-in profiles. You should be able to have access to Tsubasa through the inclusion of "game_profiles.txt" in your story. Perhaps you should try to explain what you're trying to do?

What happened to the website :0

The official site? I've personally not been able to access it for a while now. Even trying to access the administrator back-end returns an error message. I can't remember if flowerthief gave me any contact information in regards to the official site before he left. I also find it strongly coincidental that this error message started showing up sometime after making the blog on the official page about the all-in-one download for custom content.

*Edit: To be fair, I've gotten error messages before in regards to trying to reach the official site. However, the one I'm getting now is completely different than the usual one.
author=Marrend
Sorry! Also, I didn't edit the story, just the Built-In Profiles (Sorry!) It was because Ayumi and Miyuki both need Tsubasa and Riho (Respectively) for their storylines...

My stories are in my own file, but I couldn't for the life of me (+ laziness) manage to get Tsubasa in a new file with my CC, without making it impossible!
Sorry, my misunderstanding! Though, I'm not sure if I understand why there was a need to edit the built-in profiles. You should be able to have access to Tsubasa through the inclusion of "game_profiles.txt" in your story. Perhaps you should try to explain what you're trying to do?

What happened to the website :0


The official site? I've personally not been able to access it for a while now. Even trying to access the administrator back-end returns an error message. I can't remember if flowerthief gave me any contact information in regards to the official site before he left. I also find it strongly coincidental that this error message started showing up sometime after making the blog on the official page about the all-in-one download for custom content.

*Edit: To be fair, I've gotten error messages before in regards to trying to reach the official site. However, the one I'm getting now is completely different than the usual one.


The site just says overloaded :S

What I was trying to do was get Tsubasa and Ayumi in the same story, while only using one document, as that is what it implies you do with custom content from Mr.HelpHTML (Or maybe I misunderstood?)
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I'm beginning to think this conversation should be in the technical thread. Response to your latest post will be there eventually!
Uploaded to my locker - anyone want to try?
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Custom content, eh? If it's incomplete, or you wish for feedback, please post in the artistic thread. If you feel it's complete, make a post in the finished content thread. It also wouldn't hurt to provide a link to said content either (even if it's the only file in your locker).

However, to the point of the question, I'll be giving it a whirl eventually.
I'm a little confused by the character editor. are you kindve stuck with the stock images unless you can make your own? not sure how to generate new appearances without being good at art.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Generally speaking, if a content creator wants to use material_m, and sucks at art, one's more or less stuck with what comes with material_m, and the add-ons in this post. However, content creators are not limited to using material_m as their base graphic. For instance, Kuwabara Emiko uses Pink Elephant's graphics as a base.

Then there's this image uploaded by flowerthief back in the day. Which suggests to me that either doing fan-fics done in the style of Heartache content is okay, ripped graphics are okay, or both!


Side thought: Should we link Pink Elephant's site on our tech thread?
the problem with this is that it's all in japanese. same with the tool that's linked as the official tool for character creation over in the tech thread. I don't read japanese so it's a bit confusing. trying to figure it out seems rather daunting.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
What about the link provided in the technical thread that has material_m with layer names in English?
where is that? I went to the content creation(technical) thread, and the only 2 links I see for character creators go to pages that are entirely in japanese. sorry I've been awake for 20ish hours so maybe I'm just not seeing it.