Others - Heavy Hearts [v0.55 Hotfix 1] [Dammitbird]

[version reviewed: v0.4 Hotfix 1 - going to the end of the current Chapter 1]

In short - I think this game sits in a weird valley where it's not certain if it wants to be more of a hentai game, or a game with some hentai in it. I do think it's high-effort; The fight system is a bit unusual and does take some thought to get through at higher levels, there's a few different forms of gameplay on display throughout the game, and some of the porn scenes are fairly well done, with one scene in particular being extremely high quality. However, that experimentation with different gameplay elements does come with a little bit of jank, some of the mechanics seem entirely extraneous so far, and there's not a huge amount of porn yet, especially if you only count what's canonically in the story. I do think this is worth a try, as it has some big positives, but go in mindful of what I've said.

In long - Essentially, the game is about one of the last remaining humans on earth, in a world filled with other anthro creatures. Extradimensional beholder-like rape creatures invade your reality to kill or take away any humans there. You manage to escape and hide away for a few years, until the situation becomes untenable, and you set out to try and somehow fight back against this invasion. Gameplay mostly consists of some exploration segments and static, stage-based fights against enemies, with the game breaking out into some 2D platforming and flappy bird-style segments later on.

The fight sections are fairly easy at first - you'd have to intentionally lose in the first few missions - but new enemy types and patterns eventually leads to you having to read enemy signals, learn to parry and use magic, and so on. Some of the concepts could probably be explained a bit better, but they're fairly easy to grasp as you play. I had a few instances of weird behaviour in these sections, but nothing game-breaking (if anything, the bugs tended to be in the player's favour). The platforming and flappy bird sections are fairly OK, but I'm not an expert on either and don't have much of an opinion on them - I wouldn't say they were easy, but they weren't particularly hard either, neither took too long to complete.

The sex scenes are... a mix. The ones that are not bonus scenes do tend to come with some good text descriptions alongside them, but I only count 5 of them so far; Two not really being "full" scenes (in my opinion), and another two being a little short/basic. However, the one scene that doesn't fall into any of those caveats is easily one of the better scenes I've seen portrayed in any game, going through a few stages and with plenty of work put into it, and I think it's keeping my attention on the game by itself. The bonus scenes so far are also decent, and mainly seem to be alternate takes or a preview of a future scene, but animation-only so far. There are also a couple of pixel-only scenes which don't appear to be viewable via gallery, but are still kinda nice when they show up, if a little shorter than the proper animations. Also, the MC is just flat-out great. I'm not usually a fan of this style of character (i.e. (fairly) big boobs and skimpy clothes), but she comes off as so cute that it doesn't matter to me.

Story-wise, I don't feel like I have a ton to add because it does feel very early-on so far. I do like the banter between the MC and her companion(s), and there's a few story threads being plucked at, but not a lot has developed yet. The writing is generally good and doesn't waffle on for too long or overstay its welcome. The memey stuff may annoy some people, but does seem to have some story significance. I'd also add that the writing during scenes is something I quite like - usually when animations are involved, writing is totally absent, but adding in some chatter and describing what the MC's feeling and going through is great; Again, it doesn't get too waffle-y but it does add an extra dimension to the scenes, especially for someone like me who's a fan of the subby and dangerous stuff.

There is music. And other sounds. It... is OK. The music generally fits the mood and the sound effects generally aren't offensive, but I don't feel like there's a ton to talk about.

Regarding themes and kinks, I find it... a little odd - not bad, but odd. The story does imply a lot of dark topics, but the game mostly keeps a cheery feel, and so far there's not really anything in the way of an expected game-over scene or anything like that. Also, I'm not sure how much of this is directly story related and how much is just the character, but she does appear to have a bit of a subby streak and like a good hard fuck, especially with some of the non-humans. It's done in a fairly refreshing and reasonable-feeling way; No "fair maiden being raped suddently going ahegao after taking one cock," or being an inexplicable giga-slut, but she definitely has weaknesses that get the better of her sometimes, and I love this approach. I'm going to be very interested to see what happens in future scenes if they take a similar tack.

Regarding the jank - most of it wasn't game-ending, but there were a few odd bits, and just seems to need a bit of a polish or pass over. Refusing some options does sometimes soft-lock the game, either until chosen or just requiring a restart. Sometimes you'll do massive damage during fights, seemingly tied to times when the game slows things down to give you a tutorial message. Levels may still occasionally "pass" if you and the boss kill each other at the same time. Sometimes text will skip completely, if you do the usual "Press [button] to make text appear instantly rather than waiting for it to slowly roll out" thing. Text during some scenes can be hard to read too, usually a combination of the font choice, colour, and some effects that happen in some scenes. Text also occasionally appears outside the main window or have minor spelling errors. There's also some invisible walls/blocks in the world map, and the final exploration section at the moment can be a bit tricky, as some of the world objects blend in maybe a bit too well. I might like a little more control of the bird's height in the flappy bird section (there has to be a better name for that gameplay type) as both the fall rate and rise rate feel a little restrictive, but it's not essential. There also seems to be a bug in that section where the timer keeps counting down while paused, if you're struggling to pass it. Pressing a button on the menu screen to choose an option can also pick out a level on the world map, which is sometimes annoying, especially if you're over a level which doesn't allow you to back out of it once started.

Also, some of the mechanics just don't seem to do anything yet. There is item/coin collection, and some ability to trade for things, but I don't think anything to actually spend money on yet. Some levels have a rating system that awards you stars for better completion, but there doesn't seem to be anything tied to that yet, beyond just a "yay, you did that level well" thing. This isn't really bad in itself, but I do worry that lack of a purpose for these things yet may point to a waste of work if they don't integrate at some point.

Overall, I'm rather keen to see where this goes, especially if the gameplay gets a bit more polish and if we get a few more good-quality H scenes. The only thing holding it back for me is just that there's not a ton of properly-in-the-game H content so far, and a little too much jank at times, but fixing either of those would push the game up to 5 stars for me (though ideally, changing both would be great)

(edit for some spelling errors)

For being advertised as something players can actually "play", the game-play is not even remotely challenging. Even when I'm trying to lose to see if there's any CG (there's not), it takes ages of sitting still for the enemies to even pose a threat. It's uninteresting. The music is overbearing, and the story is clearly just a sexual fantasy.

This is the first time I'm leaving a review. The style and art of this game is amazing and full of potential. Scene Spoiler The scene where MC sucks an orc dick for the first time and thoughts racing through her head is incredibly hot. Only to get absolutely railed after ^,,^. I hope a completed version will appear someday and dev's get their money worth for making but right now im gonna wait.

Heavy Hearts is a really, really good hentai game overall. The animations are obviously of very high quality, but what enhances them even more is the dialogue during the scenes which brings the eroticism to the next level. The creator has obviously taken to heart the saying that the brain is the most erogenous organ in the human body, hehe. Even the dialogue and lore outside of the actual sex scenes helps to improve future, yet-unseen scenes as it fleshes out the characters and gives them some actual "character".

The combat system is relatively simple, but very dynamic and thankfully doesn't boil down to just mindless button mashing. The combination of regular/charged/elemental melee attacks, magic attacks and blocking works surprisingly well and brings the combat to a level rarely seen in hentai games.

The top-down exploration of new areas is very RPG Maker-like but that is perfectly fine. Most hentai game players would know exactly what to expect thanks to the countless RPG Maker adult games out there.

And now, we come to my least favourite part - the platforming. Some of the jumps you are expected to make with a certain wolf are straight out of the NES era - unforgiving and almost pixel-perfect, especially when the jump needs you to go to the edge of a staircase and you can't tell where the edge is due to the wolf's sprite being so wide. The other 2D side-scrolling segments are actually pretty fun though. There is a flappy bird segment that gave me a good chuckle even.

Overall, I can tell Heavy Hearts is going to be a really successful game when it releases in full! I wish the creator the best of luck with this project!

love the art and character dont see why i would give any less than 5
the gameplay is easy to learn and gradually becomes challenging and im really hopefully for its future! also big tiddies are a win

Unique gameplay, solid story telling and great animated art. Looking forward to seeing how all aspects develop from here. Best of luck to you Bird. I'm sure many other people share this sentiment, even if they do not type it out.

This game is an enjoyable change from the standard adult game out there and actually has some gameplay to it.

The main character is seriously hot and well drawn and the world has a nice theme to it that is credible and well built, combat isn't really too grind or difficult from what I've experienced so far, it is definitely designed as more of a game than just a VN, so don't go in expecting a VN.

I got the Spicy Edition through Itch, and I immediately noticed it has sexual content, so the game definitely contains it.

Keep up the good work DammitBird!

Hello my name is Siderophilia and I have played Heavy Hearts v0.2.5 by Dammitbird.

I understand that this is a game in its early development, but what I've seen so far I feel is enough to dissuade my interest in waiting for further updates, so I might as well leave a review.

First things first the controls for this version are broken. What worked for me was pressing F1, entering operations settings, rebinding the arrow keys to WASD and then restarting the game. While I won't keep this in mind for my review score as it is likely to be fixed in future releases I thought it'd be nice to leave a note for others about how I resolved the issue. I also keep pausing the game by pressing enter trying to advance the dialogue but I can't even rebind that in a sensible way since the same key is used in combat. Finally you can hold SHIFT to run, as walking is very slow and doesn't seem to have any purpose. I don't know why the game neglects to tell you these things.

Beginning with what pulled me into the game, the art i pretty great. The main character is cute (though she seems to be drawn a bit off model in the sixth picture) and sex scenes are fully animated. Other than that I feel the first sex scene, which we are supposed to understand from the story is a recollection of a past trauma for the main character, looks rather devoid of emotion, but in all everything looks great. I can't say much about the sound design as I muted the game upon starting it up the second time as it blasts you with that obnoxious metal theme.

Actually getting to the core gameplay, I found it pretty lackluster. I believe the game claims to be an ATB RPG but it feels pretty devoid of RPG elements. You have three actions, Attack, Magic (which is just a charged attack) and Block. There isn't any movement or really any tactics to it and the only way I see this system being built upon in the future is making it more difficult to time your blocks and attacks, which to me feels rather unsatisfying. For the most part the player is just tasked from one series of such one on one battles to another by navigating a Super Mario Bros Style overworld. Other than that the game sometimes opens up for free navigation in rather uninteresting 2d environments, but I really can't tell if there's any thought behind that. The way battles are (at least this far) entirely separate from the freely navigated parts of the game means the only things to do are finding items (which I assume are consumed automatically, though it's kind of hard to tell since there's no inventory) and finding the clumsily delivered story. This of course leads me to my next point.

The story and writing as usual is the component which makes or breaks the game for me, and in this case I just don't feel it is there. The story is thin to begin with but the main problem isn't even so much in the writing itself as in how it is delivered. They way the letters appear so slowly on the screen means I often unintentionally skip through it, and the whole exposition device of the blue crystals just feels extremely clumsy. Not once did I actually discover these in the intended order, and I never really felt like going back to read them again. The game simply manages to make getting the story together feel like a chore. Luccia as a character doesn't really feel consistent, from the memory fragments I feel the player is supposed to take away that Luccia is traumatized, but scenes like the lake masturbation or the orc encounter rather make her seem like a carefree girl who enjoys casual sex. Not saying characters can't enjoy sex despite past traumas, but if there's one thing the blue crystals actually do it is convey the impression that Luccia is still processing said trauma. I suppose from the overview I had expected the story to focus more on how the protagonist fits into this world the developer portrays, more interacting with the other races of the world instead of them just being obstacles with some single lines of dialogue.

What strikes me is how you could really cross out all the freely navigated portions and just deliver Luccia's past as just a memoir or something between the actual combat levels as the player navigates the overworld, and it would streamline the whole experience a lot and nothing of value would be lost. None of the individual parts here are terrible, but the way they come together really lessens the overall impression. It's a harsh rating for a game early in development, and from what I can read the developer didn't really set out to make a story driven game, but in the end I find what little there is to be flawed and I just didn't get a lot of enjoyment out of this one. 3/5

So far, there are 2 (3?) animated H scenes and one image AFAIK. The animations are great, the character is hot, the scenario is intriguing. The gameplay itself is pretty bland and easy, but is serviceable and will probably be improved. There seems to be a bug wherein revisiting the orc camp does not allow you to access the red crystal cave... I'm not certain about it as it is hard to replicate bugs since there is no manual save.

The lack of a manual save AFAIK is the main negative point for this game. Not being able to play around with choices or revisit H scenes sucks. That said, the game is still deserving as a 5 / 5 for me because of how great the potential is. I think this game could really blow up and the moment a manual save is available I will probably become a patron.

first things first: unless i understood it wrong this has NO SEXUAL CONTENT!
the game itself says the "SPICY STUFF is only available to patreons"

so thats already a no go for me.


now to the issues i have: z x and c all seem to fully skip text. (tutorials, cutscenes, regular dialogue everything gets skipped) which sucks. one of these buttons should either fast forward text or just insta display an entire box while ctrl should skip it. i skipped a majority of the tutorial by accident (not that it matters, its easy).


enemies have no attack animation, blocking them boils down to counting in your head how many seconds pass between each of their attacks.

no pause button.

no options/settings.

boring missions on levels (literally use a regular attack. use a magic attack. block an attack)

no balance: you can just spam z (regular attacks) without ever using magic or blocking and get past everything (at least from level 1 and 2)
level 3, enemies drain your poise, if its below 0 you cant do anything... problem is they drain it faster than it auto generates. basically if you use magic once in this level (which also drains poise) you will lose. boss will take 2 minutes to kill you and in those 2min you literally cant do anything but watch


all these issues together resulted in me stopping after the 2nd level.

the art is very nice, animations on the player character look decent but the rest (right now on version 0.2) is a mess.

might be worth keeping an eye on this game if they iron these flaws out id say the game has potencial.


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