Wanted to give some updates on why things have been taking so long and what's in store for Heartbound very soon.
Reason For Delay
Animus was set to be released by now. For the last several months I've been in and out of hospital with severe viral bronchitis. Lost around 70% lung function at one point and went into hypoxia and almost bit the big one. Thankfully, with treatment I've been doing much better. I ended up losing around 2.5 months of work and the stream was offline for over a month total. This is the most amount of work I've missed in 3 years so it's been pretty rough.
This image shows the days I have worked on heartbound live on stream. Any day without a green square is one I haven't streamed. Most of these are due to showing Heartbound off at conventions. However, in the last three months I've missed more days than the last three years of development. On the days I did stream I only managed 3-5 hours instead of my normal 8-10.
Japanese Localization
Heartbound is currently being fully translated into Japanese. As with our other translations this takes a long time as every joke or pun needs to be changed to fit that culture. If it didn't fit culturally then the translation would be a pretty big failure. I'm really happy with how this is coming along and it's not a small undertaking.
Fern and Rhode
Fern and Rhodes storylines are almost finished and ready to send over to the translators. The mini-game for Fern took a long while to set up due to my illness but I'm now working on Rhode's and it's going much faster. I hope you enjoy what I put together once it's finished.
Contact Us
As always you can contact me or the other developers at any time over Discord, email, steam chat, or live on Twitch. I'm always available and Shaye/Stijn are available most of the time. If you're ever frustrated with the release schedule or want to know more about whats going on just hit us up.
I am unable to fix Heartbound on Mac due to an error with the build process. I have already spoken to other developers and Apple's support team about this. As of today we will be officially dropping Mac support for the foreseeable future. This may be resolved once we update to Game Maker: Studio 2.0
Below you will find the answers to a number of questions you may have. If you can't find an answer to your question please reach out to me directly via this email. GoPirateSoftware+Mac@Gmail.com
Why did this happen?
The Mac we use to make Heartbound forced an update to OS Catalina. This obsoleted XCode 9.3 which is required for GM:S 1.4. We make Heartbound in GM:S 1.4 so it's not something we can get rid of.
Why won't this work in XCode versions past 9.3?
Attempting to get this to work in XCode 11 caused a libstdc++ library issue. After trying for multiple days to resolve this I was unable to do so. Even adding that library back to XCode 11 did not resolve this.
Running older versions of XCode lead to a generic error from the Apple machine. This could not be resolved using online guides over multiple days of testing. It also could not be resolved by talking to Apple support.
I attempted to downgrade to every version between XCode 11 and 9.3 that was compatible with OS Catalina. No version between 9.3 and 11 worked and I was unable to make a working build of Heartbound.
Did this happen because Apple dropped 32-bit application support?
No. It has nothing to do with that.
Why can't I run the game without you doing this?
Apple requires all software to be digitally signed. If XCode doesn't play nice we can't digitally sign the game and you can't run it on Apple hardware.
Why don't you update to GM:S 2.0 now?
Updating Heartbound to GM:S 2.0 would potentially resolve this issue. However, doing so breaks every cutscene in the game and would take multiple months to fix. We will be updating to GM:S 2.0 after fully launching the game. GM:S 2.0 is required for us to make a build for Nintendo Switch.
What if you find a solution?
Even if I do manage to resolve these issues there is no guarantee that the Apple build process won't break like this again. It has happened to us many times before during the development of Heartbound.
Can I still play Heartbound or will I have to buy it again?
You do not have to buy the game again. If you bought Heartbound you have access to it on Windows and Linux currently. You can still play Heartbound on Windows or Linux.
What if I don't want to play on Windows or Linux?
For those on Apple hardware that still want to play you may be able to try Parallels, Bootcamp, or Wine. I cannot guarantee that this will work now or in the future and I don't want to get your hopes up but you can try it. If this isn't something you want to do please refund the game.
If you're unable to make this work on Apple hardware or have no other solutions, please refund the game. I'm sorry I couldn't fix this.
Now that Shaye and I are all moved up to WA and things have settled down we can continue development at a normal pace. A lot has changed in my life this last year and I'm sorry that things have slowed down as a result. Our entire studio is only three people so when any of us go through rough patches it can be tough to get stuff done. Thank you for understanding and I hope you like the new content!
I'm going to be launching Animus in updates over the next few months one character arc at a time to get feedback and test things. This patch has everything for Emelio in all languages and the start of Fern/Rhode in ENUS only.
There are also a huge amount of bug fixes, translation fixes, and new content in random spots. Also new tracks on the OST so enjoy those!
Another year has come and gone and the Steam Awards are back in town. Heartbound is up for the "Outstanding Story-Rich Game" award this year. If you feel we've hit the mark please take a moment to vote for us!
This is the final patch before Animus is ready to launch. We just couldn't wait on some of the more significant engine changes such as full controller support and physics fixes. With those we rolled in a bunch of new secret areas and some fixes for story-line inconsistencies.
Thanks for all the feedback and support. You guys rock. ːHBHeartː
Hometown - Chapter 1
New Content
A new cutscene has been added when you first Continue.
Bug Fixes
Lore can no longer slide through tentacles and become permanently stuck.
Crunchy dog noise is now louder.
Baron now has emotions in your dreams.
Insider Baseball can now be obtained right after combat ends.
The Tower - Chapter 2
New Content
A new secret environment was added to The Tower.
A new secret character was added to The Tower.
Choices in The Tower now carry on with you.
The Artifact is now more aggressive here.
Sounds have been implemented for the Terminated sequence.
Floor 0 can now be accessed under different circumstances.
Curiosity and Fear now accumulate in The Tower.
Bug Fixes
The artifact text in the void can no longer be skipped.
You can now skip text on the Floor 0 records computer.
The first memory sequence is no longer a black screen.
Lore now turns to face OScar during the Terminated sequence ending.
Boss transitions are now faster.
Animus - Chapter 3
New Content
A pocket watch has been implemented to better tell the time.
A new secret environment was added to Animus.
Ramul's storyline starter has been implemented.
You can now strike fear into the hearts of trees.
Time is now frozen in Animus when you first enter it.
Trees now have a ton of randomizations.
Lighting now fades based on the time of day and other lightsources in various locations.
Bug Fixes
Curiousity in Animus no longer counts for The Tower.
Jotunheim - Chapter 4
Bug Fixes
Muspelheim can now be accessed under different circumstances.
Global
New Content
A phone in your bedroom can now be used.
A new achievement was added.
Full Controller support has now been implemented.
You can plug/unplug controllers at will even during combat.
Let me know if anything goes wrong here. It's super new tech for us.
Localization
A lot of new content was added here and there so some things may be missing.
ESMX translation has been released.
Please let us know if you find any missing translation sections or issues of any kind.
OST
A new song was added to the OST.
Bug Fixes
Collision calculations have been reduced significantly to improve performance.
This was a massive change and should help improve performance for a lot of people.
Missing dialog will now revert to English when possible.
Rotating text now takes longer before it starts spinning.
Rotating text from a space no longer causes letters to hang when they should be floating.
Upcoming
Language
JP is now planned.
New Content
Animus (Chapter 3) is being actively developed.
All of the environment art is finished.
All of the character sprites and animations are finished.
We just got back from PAX West and we're back onto working on Heartbound. We have a bit of stuff to get out for the Kill The Moon Demo before we continue but that will be done by Friday. Hope to see you all on stream!
It's been a number of months since we've updated and I wanted to let you guys in on what's been going on, who is working on the game, and what we have planned for the future!
There were a number of reasons for this both financial and personal but things should be settling down now as the move is mostly complete and we just have a few more things to do. The new digs will be focused entirely on developing games and running the streams. Right now we're in a temporary shared space but by next week -hopefully- we should be in a permanent new space that isn't shared.
If you didn't know we stream development of Heartbound live on Twitch every day from 12pm-10pm PST. The first 5 hours is art and the second five hours is programming. Heartbound is the main priority right now and we're working through Animus live so come check it out.
We also work on our back-burner game Kill The Moon from time to time or play games and give feedback on them. Recently we ran a game jam and helped a ton of new designers on their path to making cool stuff.
3. Animus is in -unstable testing- phase right now and we update this build every Sunday.
You can access the unstable version of the game using the code "CheeseAndWhiskers" without the quotes and following the image below for instructions. This build has tons of changes, new stuff, testing stuff, all kinds of things. Animus is a massive undertaking and we are spending time on testing things for feel on top of just making it work.
There is no unstable build for Mac or Linux currently. The unstable builds are also only in English. This speeds up development time and reduces issues while we're testing all of this stuff. Once these builds pass and feel good we translate them and move them to the other platforms.
This is a ton of work for three people but we won't be expanding the team. I'm happy with how development has gone so far and I'm proud of what we've accomplished together and what we have planned for the future. Good games take time and I do not intend to rush this. If you're ever wondering who responded to your YouTube video, Tweet, or email all of that was Thor. Small teams do a lot of stuff outside of making games so be kind to your devs!