VN - Ren'Py - Matrix Hearts [v0.3.4] [Blue Otter Games]

If you are looking for a good story well this won't be for you. This game is more a slice of life with a bit of a mystery storyline but more focused on the slice of life. Also depending on you this game might be pretty damn funny at least it was for me. I loved most of the dialogue in banter because of that.

I really enjoyed this one enough that I might consider putting it in my top 10 was pretty damn enjoyable for me. Each chapter felt pretty long to. All the LI are likeable for one reason or another. Even the one I hate I started to like her in chapter 3.

All the girls feel pretty different and unique which is a huge plus. For the most part the girls feels like you get to know them they aren't just their to have lewd scenes , even the ones that are a bit easy to have sex with. Well except the side girls those ones are just there for lewds.

There seems to be decent branching but I am a bit unsure how impactful they are just yet especially some of the major choices. But there is alot of choices.

The only real neagtive I have for this game are the early renders, maybe the animations while the animations never were really good I did like most of them still.

The only negative I have is the MC is a bit pervy with his comments towards the LI a bit too often even when not picking the pervy options. But overall it's a great AVN if all you care about is slice of life and likeable cast of girls.

The models of the girls used are hot, but thats about it for the postives regarding this VN. for starters this game has fake choices, and almost kinetic like. The choices are binary either gain or lose points.

There is no choice on how to behave or act, and the MC personality we are stuck with is such a doormat and loser that it is off putting. Nearly all the woman are wise cracking 3rd wall breaking characters.

You cannot choose to behave in a confident, dominant manner. You have to toe the line with the woman and be as beta an unoffensive as possible to earn points (basically white knighting to the extreme) which makes for a boring dialogue, non erotic situations and boring story.

When I started following this game, there were at least two otters working on it, and it looked good, and was engaging, funny, and well written. Then one otter got something else to do. I dunno. Maybe he moved to a different bay for better fish. But the otter that was left was the funny one, so the quality of the writing remained strong.

The pictures however... they have perhaps taken a step back? But maybe not, because the funny otter also makes funnier pictures sometimes. I have busted more than one gut looking at the newer pictures.

I think I like the funny otter. Enough that I bought his game on steam.

I hope the other otter is okay and really likes his fish from the other bay or whatever. He was good with the pictures.

The story starts out great with a serious feel to it with MC getting hurt and fucks he knee, so hes being sendt to an island by force more or less to stop him from becoming a bum and to have a chance of fixing hes knee.

Getting to the island you start meeting LIs and for me they look good, i like the faces and the body builds of pretty much all of them.

Story starts to lose the serious feeling after hes old babysitter sends him to school to make new "friends" and get more active in every way.
You do get the feeling that the devs expect players to go after all of them, but you do have a choice not to which is really nice.
Main LIs feels very very drawn out, its such a slow progress like the red head took forever to just get a hug, Layla giving small rewards as you looking at her ass and since all girls has to have some screen time it limits how much you see them in each update, so it will proberly take forever to get any real sex with them or lean anything about the secrets most of them keep hiding.

Not sure whos the virgin in the game yet but if its anyone else then the shy redhead it wouldent really make any sense since i dont see how she could have been with anyone being as shy as she is but time will tell.
I wouldent have minded atleast one more virgin in the game since there are enough LIs to make that happen.

Story 4/5
Ive enjoyed it so far, some fun aspects in it and a small serious feel early on which dosent last long, but still a decent story.

Girls 4/5
I like the look and body builds of pretty much all of them which is very rare so dont really have many complaints other then the fact there is only a single virgin in the mix.

Animations 3/5
They are a bit rare and not many of them, they are around averge in quality.

Music 4/5
It has some really decent music in the game, better then most others.

For a first time creator/dev team this is a really great job and cant wait to see this game finished and to see what they will come up with in the future, it will most defently be a creator to follow and keep an eye on.

I'm basing this review on a first and blind playthrough of the Steam version of this game. (Matrix Hearts - Season 1, on 2013/10/07)
This first playthrough took me about 8 hours, though at least an hour of this was spent on taking notes, gathering my thoughts, and facepalming.
Link to the post detailing the errors, bugs and my general thoughts while playing the game.

Matrix Hearts starts with a gripping story. An Olympic hopeful suffers a sports injury, leading him into depression. He pushes away his friends, and finally his girlfriend. His parents decide to intervene and send him to a tropical island to rehabilitate. This rehabilitation is a state-of-the-art device, attached to his knee, that can transform hormones (good feelings) into magic healing power. Layla, our once-babysitter, now super-smart expert of this technology, is our caretaker and landlady on this journey.

While the setup of this game is original and solid, it almost immediately falls through. The writer(s) don't seem to understand what depression and introversion mean. When playing this game, you have to meta-game to find enjoyment. Just pick the "right" option, even if it goes against MC's nature. Any kind of role-playing will leave you confused about the MC's mental state and motivations.

The first two chapters of the game are relatively solid. There's somewhat of a story, and characters do seem to respect MC/player's choices. However, this all falls apart in the third chapter, where suddenly events pop up, even when they were avoided earlier. Out of the blue, my MC decided he had a planned meeting with Chrysta, and that he promised to go kayaking with Gemma. Suddenly, part of his day consisted of training in a lewd version of Magic: The Gathering, even if he told Dutch earlier (in a path-defining choice) that card games didn't interest him.

The choices, and dialog also makes clear that the devs just expect everyone to play for the lewds, and not the story. They pay lip-service to the MC being depressed and introverted, while making him a sardonic, wise-cracking jackass who chases all the women. His constant irony and self-deprecation is a constant throughout the game. While this kind of behavior is a tell-tale sign of depression, it isn't used as such, or to that effect. Everyone is constantly ribbing and bantering in the same way.

Many of the main characters speak alike, even if they grew up in different countries or have vastly different backgrounds. Everyone's a "bro", and even 40y/o's will say MC's knee is "borked". People don't talk this way.

The little animations I've seen were sub-par. There is clipping, janky movement, and loops that abruptly reset. Throughout my playthrough I encountered 4 missing renders.
The renders themselves are decent, even if a bit basic at times. Many of the poses are exaggerated and overused. The premise of the game gets lost in the renders as well, we'll see the MC climbing stairs without using the rails, or support his weight on his bad leg. We'll see him carrying people, squatting, crawling and running. Except when he can't, and he'll need someone's help to get up.

The Love Interests are varied enough to be interesting physically. I appreciate that there's variation, and that the smallest cup isn't an F. Even though they all speak alike, they do have their own character and interests. That said, some characters have very dubious motivations. An example of this is Layla, she asks Stormy to take MC on a date, because he could fix her "cum machine". Apparently she's unable to climax, and Layla thought it was a good idea to whore out the MC for this. This made my interest in Layla disappear. My MC was attracted to her, though it never escalated past flirting, at least there was some progression. Her whoring the MC out, I interpreted as her having zero interest in the MC.
Another example is Gemma, who, while knowing the MC can't swim, rocks the kayak to test his reaction. When he falls in the water, she berates him that "In every sport you have to operate under pressure! Ugh.". This is utterly irresponsible behavior, since she, as a quasi-professional had the job of preparing and training the MC for events like these. When she later asked if I wanted to join her team, the only reply I could bring myself to give was "I'll think about it." (Because the game didn't have the option to say "No, thanks, you're nuts, and I don't trust you with my life.")

The game lacks in other technical aspects as well. Readability in some scenes is very low due to the absence of a textbox. And even the main menu is unintuitive due to the angled gray text on a bright background.
On the top right of the screen is an icon representing the MC's knee device, when making choices a positive or negative score will display on it. However, I haven't found a way to get an overview of all Love Interests and their current scores. The most obvious way to do this, was to allow players to click the Matrix Hearts icon, sadly this doesn't work.

Matrix Hearts features 36 "otter pics" that can be found by finding and clicking an otter icon in certain scenes. It also has 20 lewd scenes.

Seeing as this is a steam release, I worry that most of these negatives won't get fixed. I can understand when one missing scene slips under the radar, when there are 4, I'm wondering if there's any QA done, or if the game was ever beta-tested. The steep drop in quality at the start of chapter 3 makes me even more worried about future chapters. The game seemed to transition to a pure kinetic experience, where choices don't really matter at all.

A fun game with an interesting mystery happening in the background. Great graphics, models and some interesting characters. While a lot of the banter is fun, sometimes it gets a bit much. While I deal with mental health every day, VNs allow me to escape every day life, I found myself skipping Rylee's parts. Her dialogue is just hard work some times when I want to just chill out. MC is a super stud and that gets a bit boring as the story goes on. Its worth reading, there are some very fun moments.

This game has good visuals and that's where the good ends. The story is hardly there. The game is bad unfunny joke after unfunny joke. The converstions you have you get two choices for in most cases and its either be annoyingly nice or lose points with LI. You can't have any negative things to say or even neutral. Its happy go lucky or no points for you. I made it to the coffee shop before it became to much. The caffeine thing was kind of funny but dragged on not to mention as someone who has a bad knee I can tell you carrying someone around like he does would not be happening. The converstion with Gemma in the coffee shop was the last straw she wants you to talk about rock climbing with her ( your sore subject) and if you say you don't want to talk about it you loose points.

After playing the first couple of updates, I quite enjoyed this game. Clearly the dev's are going for a sort of irreverent comedy angle, with that you have to accept that some jokes are not going to land and that's fine. I enjoyed the attempts to make the female characters quirky and unique.
For me puns are pretty much never funny, I mean the cheapest form of dad jokes, but that's cool I can't expect all the comedy to work for me, no problem. At this stage i would give the game a 4/5 with a real possibility of pushing up to a 5.
This brings me to update ch3 part 1, This update saw the game take a steep nosedive into just terrible. it's just nonsense at this point, just about every line is an attempt at a joke, I'm pretty sure I did not even crack a smile during the update. The model posing is really poor, there is constant use of a pose that keep making me think of a cartoon supervillian who just came up with a cunning plan. And the puns, so many puns... Try using three puns in a really short space of time in real life, the first one might get a polite chuckle, the second one will have people rolling their eye's at you, by the third someone will call you out and ask you to just stop.. please stop.. this update turns the puns up to 11, and it hurts to read..
If I was to offer advice to the developers it would be try to balance the jokes with a coherent story, one good well planned joke is so much better than a spray of cheap dad jokes. For example in the early game I found the coffee addiction scene to be quite funny, and you even connected it to the OCD girl in the cafe grabbing her coffee off the table, it was a memorable scene. None of the recent jokes are memorable, I just remember nonsense.
Overall I think the game needs to exercise a bit more subtlety, Less over the top poses and facial expressions, less puns, and not smashing the same joke over and over. I hope the Dev's can find a balnce because I did really like the early game.

While graphically the game is average, specially in regards to character models, which are very inconsistent, the writing is great. Everyone is a bit (or in some cases very) )weird, in this really cool, original way, and the dialogue really encapsulates the setting of the game and age of the characters. The grammar is also on point.


Already played all the great ones in the site? Give Matrix Hearts a go, I don't think you will regret.

Very good game till now. I would still count it as early game, therefore not 5 stars yet.
I personally like to rate games based on their tags and how much they were implented in-game, therefore:

So basically it is above average in every category except the quality of animation and release dates imo. But except of an improvement in quality in animations and some more available sex-positions in animations there is not much to improve in this game imo.

Version this rating was made: Chapter 3: 0.3.2

dunno... felt kinda misleading.

The game is starting on a very serious note. With a interesting idea for the story...

But this gets kinda abandoned immediately after the first encounter with Layla... from here on its just slapstick and some lewd scenes, nothing else. And it gets very tiresome after a while, cause there is nothing else anymore to read, only slapstick over slapstick and not even good one i would say.

Renders are ok, nothing more... with good will you can say they are average, but there are tons of games with better renders at this date.

Animations are okish, nothing that stands out, but not that bad either...

I like the models of the girls, very unique.

But everythign else gets annoying really fast. Especially the dilaogues. Those are completely pointless. Its slapstick only, just really everything. And i use the word slapstick here on purpose. Cause "humor" isnt the right one here. slapstick ist mostly a bit dull, not clever... and thats exactly the case here. Good humor has some cleverness too and good timing. But not so here... it goes on and on and on without pause. I would say it more a little childish slapstick, nothing wrong with that... but the game starts on a whole other note, and i wasnt expecting that its only slapstick after the start...

Shame, could have been a really good one, if the injury of the MC and his getting back on the feet story would be made better and most of all if it wouldnt be "dropped" just for the slapstick humor... after a while the whole story doesnt really matter anymore.

The other thing that is ruined by the non-stop slapstick, is the relationship build up. You say "hi" to the girls, and immediatly the slapstick dialogues start and never ends. So its impossible to get immersed or anything like that at all.

This game might be for people who wants to read just funny things the whole time mixed with some lewd scenes.

But i felt mislead, cause the game is starting like a serious one with a deep story or character development. But its not. Its a game with a lot of slapstick and a few lewd scenes.

What can I say, almost all the people in this AVN are strange, peculiar and weird. But nevertheless, a convincing plot emerges. The central conflict (athlete has an accident and gets back on his feet with the help of beautiful women and some weird hormone tech) is not revolutionary, but I still think the story is well told.

The renders are good, the LIs are sexy and if you like their idiosyncrasies, attractive as personalities too. The backstory doesn't take itself overly seriously, but still I feel some serious drama could develop.
What this VN lives on in the first place are the very unique characters, who all have their own story arc. That makes me really curious. The humour is more slapstick comedy. You either like it or you roll your eyes. (the sea chanty one got me, I laughed so hard)

Matrix Hearts has both music and sound effects. But I have to be honest, the developers have a talent for choosing annoying background sounds. For example, on the first day of college, there's a girl talking hysterically in the background, she drives me crazy. There are other moments where I want to rip my ears out, but as I said, I get the impression it's part of this VNs charming craziness... and somehow I dig it.

Easily one of the top games here. With the potential to go further.

This game ticks so many boxes for me. Beautiful girls, great story and a rather low possibility of missing scenes. (Sadly, there still seem to be a few forks, but I'll survive.)

The main draw of the game has to be the LIs. There's many games that establishes themselves as good with LIs with distinct personalities and of course, good looks.

But Matrix Hearts takes it to a different level for me. Girls with realistic personalities may seem more down to earth and well, real. But quirky ones like those in this game really grabs your attention. Almost every girl has a quirk that makes her special as well as amazing to interact with.

Layla has to be one of the best LI I've encountered in lewd games here, and my next 2 favs Kylee and Gemma are absolute stand outs as well!

For the minuses, it's sorta a slow burn, while that itself isn't a bad thing, but to retain attention usually a few side characters are thrown in for a few quick fucks. But when most of them look absolutely gorgeous, it's hard to not get attached. It's also not uncommon to lose that fire as developers to continue the game when attention of the player slowly falls due to speed of updates, or story progress. It's a fine line to walk, but I'm getting quite a good vibe from the game and the development team(?) behind it though.

It's disappointing that most games like this have multiple endings and you can only choose 1 LI, but then again, it's the most popular genre.

But hey! Great and long story, with lots of lore, optional free roam with no lasting impacts. Sign me up! Though it's common for players to want more choices and split routes. I honestly enjoy being swept up in the narrative the writer and developers cooks up.

Definitely looking forward to more updates in the future!

This is off to a great start and I'm definitely curious to see how the devs grow and expand the game.

The variety of the LIs in this game is the biggest selling point. Different personalities without being too caricature-y, plus there's some good diversity.

Renders are well done, the settings & lighting are very visually appealing.

Definitely worth the download!

Matrix Hearts is pretty lighthearted and somewhat zany VN about a 19-year-old Canadian rock climber who suffers a terrible accident during a competition and becomes more or less invalid. One of his knees is busted, his career as an Olympic athlete is over, so he slips into a mild depression and behaves like a real douchebag, eventually losing his girlfriend and getting on everyone's nerves. His parents are so fed up with his behavior that they send him to some zany tropical Island where the MC's former babysitter is working at a lab.
One of her projects is a high tech leg / knee brace that will gradually rebuild the knee, but for best results the MC should feel lots of happy feelings, because of ... ehm... tech and nanites, or whatever, it doesn't matter. It's the McGuffin plot device that motivates the MC to engage with as many women as possible, so he can have positive, happy and potentially stimulating experiences which all help with reconstructing his knee.

The stength of Matrix Hearts is certainly the writing. This is a slice of life VN with a focus on the actual story / dialogue and banter between characters. If you like lighthearted and somewhat wacky comedy, look no further, Matrix Hearts is one of the best comedic VNs you will ever find.
For example the morning coffee scene with Layla is golden. She's just plain adorable in her own dorky way.
It's not easy to write comedy, in my opinion Blue Otter Games did a great job here.

The renders are usually pretty great, but don't expect any miracles, it is your standard DAZ game. While all the female characters are exceptionally attractive, without any outlandish proportions (which I very much appreciate), you will probably recognize quite a few models from other games. This does not bother me at all though.
What did bother me though were a few extremely low res textures for things like sand on a beach etc, it doesn't happen too often, but when it happens it's very noticeable.

One word of warning: you need to be a bit patient early in the game because the MC turns into an insufferable whiny prick after his accident. Don't let that bother you too much, everything changes as soon as the MC is sent to the island!

Another word of warning: early in the game you may get the impression that Matrix Hearts will be one of those games where things progress very rapidly. The MC will have (casual) sex out of nowhere with a very pretty stewardess. But in fact most of the actual love interests in the game are slow burn characters so that early scene may be somewhat misleading.

So if you expect lots of action... you may be somewhat disappointed. As of now (end of chapter 2.2) the MC only has sex with one actual main love interest, Stormy. Things get pretty heated with Xia (close, but no cigar yet though) and there are some steamy scenes with secondary characters like Kim or Frianca.
But Layla, Gemma, Rylee or the over the top tsundere character Chrysta only have some mild teasing, if at all. Layla has a few somewhat more steamy teasing scenes, the MC will even play with her a bit wearing some high tech glove that transmits emotions (great concept, very much underused), but Layla has huge reservations about the age gap (she's in her twenties, so not really old) and she also points out that she used to babysit the MC, which makes things weird for her. So Layla, Gemma, Rylee and Chrysta will be very slow burn characters.

Actually, there is so little actual lewd content with main characters that the game resorts to something I don't like... instead of giving you actual progress with main characters (somewhat more rapid progress) the game - out of the blue - throws a random female at you close to the end of chapter 2 who has sex with the MC just like that. That felt weird. The female NPC literally asks the MC to boop one of her boobs, if it's the right one... sex. Just like that. That was... odd!

If you are concerned people might lose patience, because your game is evidentently story driven with most of the really interesting female main characters on the slow burn path... maybe just give people more progress with the main characters instead. Random sex with literal strangers feels weird, is not rewarding, in my opinion, and has no place really in a game like this. I feel at least things with Xia could have progressed further instead, since she's the kinky one to begin with and she and the MC get very close anyway (the usual rubbing/grinding between the thighs you find in any other VN). If you do that you don't need to throw random females at the player.
It wasn't all terrible, the random scene with the woman kind of fits in with the wacky and zany tone... but it's still something I wish would not happen, since actual progress with the main characters makes so much more sense.

All that being said... if you don't mind the slow burn with most characters Matrix Hearts is lots of fun. Some of the banter is really well written. The over the top verbal exchanges with Chrysta are hilarious, but so is the banter with virtually everyone else.
Standout characters, for me at least, are Layla (who looks like Mila Kunis' sexy sister), Gemma, Xia and Rylee. That doesn't mean the others are bad, they are not, all of the actual main love interests are pretty interesting, they all have their quirks and unique personalities, but those four are the highlights for me. And they also get the most screentime.

The game also has music... some of it very upbeat, with vocals... I appreciate that the game has music, that being said, your personal taste will decide if you tolerate the music chosen here or not. I found some of the tracks to be somewhat distracting, I don't think upbeat music with vocals is the best choice for games where you have to read lots of dialogue. But of course you can always mute the music if you want.

The animations in the game are pretty good. But not extraordinary. There is also no interaction really. But so far everything is vanilla and wholesome, thus there is no need for any options really. But since there is not too much sexual content yet there aren't that many animations either.

The first two chapters also offer a decent amount of content, you will be busy for a few hours.

As things are now Matrix Hearts is absolutely one of the true gems and a wholesome feelgood game. And despite the early bits in the game the MC is also not an idiot or creep (he is pretty funny eventually) and all the women are VERY attractive and interesting.
You do get the usual archetypes of course... the nerdy type (Layla), the very forward type (Stormy), the very shy and weird type (Rylee, who is weird in a fun way though), the somewhat more kinky type (Xia). But it's all well executed, you don't always have to reinvent the wheel, execution matters a lot.
But of course Matrix Hearts suffers from the same issue as all harem games... there are never enough scenes with your personal favorite. But the game tries very hard to give the most interesting characters, Layla, Gemma, Rylee and Xia a fair amount of screentime, but if Layla is your #1 for example you will have to wait some time between scenes with her, the same with everyone else. But fortunately all the other love interests are adorable or interesting in their own ways.

Matrix Hearts could become one of the very best games. The first two chapters are very promising.
But maybe stop introducing random females (it happens twice in the first two chapters)... instead focus on the actual main characters and progress things a bit more with them instead. Slow burn should not be an excuse to artificially delay things or to pad the game with unnecessary random side characters very few will care about.
Again, it's not a major issue, it only happens twice, but future updates should maybe not have these random encounters at all. If you render animations... why waste the resources on those random encounters?

Don't let that keep you from playing Matrix Hearts though, for the most part it is truly excellent!

So if you like funny, wholesome (harem) games.... what are you waiting for? You will love this (IF you can accept that you'll have to wait for many of the main love interests to get closer to the MC).

If you are somewhat more impatient maybe wait for the next one or two major updates until several paths may be a bit further along the way and then give it a try.

So you are telling me that this guy is in complete disarray. He lost al his friends and looks like a comple hobo after what happened to him. He then is forced to go to some sort of rehap, and has to take a flight. There he looks already recoverd and gets laid with a stewardess. That made absolutely no sense.

Okay the introduction is in my opinion a bit unrealistic, but once the story is set, the game is actually quite okay. The graphics are pretty good and the girls sometimes have thoughts making them a little complex. Some nice build up is happening which is nice. So al lot of positives actually, 4 stars well deserved. Maybe add a scene where we see that the MC decides or is forced to get his sh*t together before getting on the plan or make him look like a hobo during the first day and that add that kind of scene. That would give a more natural flow to the progression of the MC and would definitely grant 5 stars.

Very impressed with this little gem. The VN is building up real nice with a range of diverse characters whose characters and personalities seem to be well fleshed out. Great quality images and it feels like you can make real connections with the characters. Looking forward to seeing this progress further.

This is a very simple review with not much to say, basically, i love it, the story is great, the writing is excellent, the renders are great quality.
All the girls are gorgeous and the redhead is ssoooo cute

i will be watching this VN with great interest

The adjective I'd use to describe this VN is wonderful. And it's main strength is it's unique and varied characters. Everything in this VN fits together - the MC, the premise, the women and the setting - all come together to form a wonderfully great VN.

The dev makes full use of the interesting premise. There's so many unique and wonderful girls that I can't pick a favorite. The MC feels the right amount of sarcastic that he doesn't become unlikeable. The plot also has just enough self awareness without becoming obnoxious.

There's also a lot of content with several meaningful choices. Definitely give this one a try.

Somehow more than the sum of its parts. (Reviewed ch: 2)

You are a young man, injured on the cusp of sporting success and sent to an island paradise to recover at the hands of a sexy scientist while finishing school surrounded by beautiful and available women.

The story is engaging but paper-thin. The humor is abundant but very "ecks dee I am so random". The characters are pleasant and distinct, but far enough divorced from reality that you can't really feel any connection to them. The 3d models are hot, but at the same time generic enough that when a new gallery render is unlocked it takes a while staring at the image to work out who it is. The game mechanics are "pick the right dialogue option or you'll miss scenes, possibly later and with someone completely different". The sex scenes are...posed serviceably? The writing during the sex scenes is like someone who read about sex in a book once got a job writing porn subtitles.

And yet somehow I find the game charming? Fun? I'm looking forward to the next chapter and I'm sure I'll enjoy it when it arrives?

Some things are just best left unquestioned. Four stars.