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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

i thoroughly enjoyed the game, had no problems throughout and just had a great time piecing together which girl i wanted to go for, trying to be nice to all the ones i had met, just generally felt captivated, for me, i have no proper feedback, constructive criticism and i'm sorry for my lack of such, but what i can say is that i LOVED this game. 9/10
author=3chothadon
i thoroughly enjoyed the game, had no problems throughout and just had a great time piecing together which girl i wanted to go for, trying to be nice to all the ones i had met, just generally felt captivated, for me, i have no proper feedback, constructive criticism and i'm sorry for my lack of such, but what i can say is that i LOVED this game. 9/10

Well, how about yours story/scanerio?
Two things:

1. Holy crap, this game was amazing. I played through the ng endings with as many characters as I could find, then downloaded all of the custom content, continued playing, then started over with my favorite characters.

2. I now have the problem that this was the first dating sim I had ever played and now every other one I find is underwhelming. Are there any others that you guys can recommend that are similar. Preferably free and not on Steam, as this has become my guilty pleasure I would prefer to keep to myself.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
On PC, Seasons of the Sakura and True Love were among the first VNs I ever played. I dunno where you can find them (they are super-old games), but, keep in mind that they contain hentai content.

Going into the realm of consoles, I would tend to recommend Persona 4 or Persona 5 as a general rule. They may be JRPGs, but, the date-sim elements makes them slightly more relevant to players of VNs. I don't know anything about 1 or 2, but, the date-sim elements also exist in 3. I never really played that one too much, though.

Of the VNs on this site (aside from Heartache), April Was a Fool comes to the forefront of my mind. I guess I would have to count Memeories Neverlasting as well, as it's a neat mix of RPG and VN mechanics. Though, a download never technically existed for it, so...
Google finds some (in-offical) download links for "Seasons of Sakura" ... whether one should trust something like that and whether a 20 year old game is still runable on a modern PC are things I'm not inclined to find out at the moment ...
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I can run Seasons through D-Fend/DOSBox. The compatibility is a bit wonky (it seems to randomly crash on me), but, that's... probably better than trying to run it through the command prompt? *nervous laugh*

True Love, I think that was Win95 compatible? I don't recall if I tried running it through D-Fend/DOSBox, and I have no idea how much setting the compatibility of the program to XP (or whatever) would help. ;_;
Zakariya
Every misdeed has its own punishment, and every good deed has its reward.
1174
author=ThePyromancer23
then started over with my favorite characters.


There's still more characters on the way. ;)
author=Marrend
I can run Seasons through D-Fend/DOSBox. The compatibility is a bit wonky (it seems to randomly crash on me), but, that's... probably better than trying to run it through the command prompt? *nervous laugh*

And some said it was dificult foun at win ver... and save at it will... ?
And it just go own road?

author=Zakariya
author=ThePyromancer23
then started over with my favorite characters.
There's still more characters on the way. ;)

Secret one?
The graphics ain't top notch, but what's for sure is the storyline is undeniably amazing. I had played this for about a week straight now and it never is boring. Please if you have any suggestions of another games like this, let me know
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
  • Other games by this author
I hear A Hint of Tint has a surprisingly good storyline for a rouge-like. I played it back in the day, when it was still a demo, and never got back to it (I'm terrible like that). However, if you're in it for the story, that game might just be up your alley.

I suppose this game's precursor Idolcraft might interest you. I gave it a go some number of years ago, and wasn't personally a fan of how the in-game clock was implemented. Might still be up your alley, though?


  • Other Visual Novels of interest
April Was a Fool, also a featured game on this site. It's a Visual Novel with date-sim elements. Though, you can't date the dragon!


  • The part where Marrend shamelessly recommends his own games
Matsumori Days, if you ever played Joruri's custom content. Masako would technically work with this game too (and Konae's Investigations, but, she has cameos (in a sense) elsewhere on-site.

Okiku, Star Apprentice, because the title character was a blast to write. The Wand of Blasting mechanic was, at the time, the hardest coding/eventing I've ever done. At least until...

...Baclyae Revolution, a humble tribute to the Suikoden series. Currently in production, and has been for over a year.
Hoo.. Glad the community is still kicking even to these months..

Well then, if I may ask for some help regarding game's content.. does someone has the link to the game's background source? I'm pretty sure I've seen it somewhere 4 years ago, but I can't find it anymore when scanning through both contents creation's massive threads.

If someone know the site/ link. Please share it with me..
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
The site for the game's backgrounds is called Studio 74. I will not link it here, as it's absolutely not safe for work. However, I believe Mr. Help File might have the URL?

*Edit: Yep. Totally does!
A few side-notes:

  • There's one background which is not from the same source as the others, "Hot Springs".
    To my knowledge the source to this background is lost.
    (Mr. Helpfile's link there doesn't seem to work anymore.)
  • Some of the backgrounds have been mirrored before using them. Namely at least "Children's Park" and "Fishing".
  • Some juicy details have been edited out before using the backgrounds. For example a picture on the wall of "Sick Room".
Well okay then, time to spend some hours searching Mr.Help file in the massive forums then.. (because I forget where it is)

Anyway, thank you for the help :D
The fastest way to find Mr. Helpfile would be to just download the game btw.

He goes by the name help.html in the game directory.
Really..

oh fudge.. and here I've just reach the 29th page of content artistic's thread on my searching
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
author=HarryFantasia
Really..

oh fudge.. and here I've just reach the 29th page of content artistic's thread on my searching

Trust me, if the help file was ever posted anywhere on this game-page, I would have linked to that post.

*Edit: As far as I'm aware, it didn't even exist on the official site, when it was still alive.

*one can hear taps play softly in the background*

Anyway, yeah, you'll either have to download the game and get it from Mr. Help File, or... I guess a still-active user could PM it to you? Literally just thought of that solution, and I don't know how relevant it is now.
Hey quick question..
Is there any way we can do to make character's theme music doesn't pop out replacing the currently playing music when they appear?

Example Situation:

STORY 101
PLACE = Classroom A
MUSIC = peaceful.mp3
ID = 0
Ah.. what a beautiful day it is.
ID = 101
OTHER14
SHOW CENTER
Hey!
ID = 0
Dammit.. don't just show up bringing your rocking theme music. You jinx my peaceful music.


EDIT :
I want the music I set up in the beginning to keep playing uninterruptible by whoever comes and go.

EDIT2 :
Okay, never mind x'D I just found the way in helper file.. damm now I'm embarrassed~
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I think there is a MUSIC FREEZE command that prevents music changes if they would be triggered otherwise?

*Edit:

author=Mr. Help File
  • MUSIC FREEZE
The music will not change when a character's tachie is show on or erased from the screen until the story concludes (including JUMPs) or until MUSIC UNFREEZE is called.