As always you can watch us build the game live on Twitch.

Now that I've fully recovered from Covid19 things will be going much faster.
I may have an inhaler now but that just means I'm part cool robot.

Thanks for all the feedback and support.
You guys rock. ːHBHeartː

New Content
• Rhode and Ferns storylines can now be fully completed.
  
• (PTBR language has some portions missing still. Sorry!)
  
• Something secret has been added to the game files.
  
• The Credits have been updated with tons of new names.
  
• Gizmo now has something to say in Lore's room.
  
• A frog now puts on a magic show... somewhere.
  
• A save point has been added in the deep woods in Animus.
  
• New talky animations have been added for Fern when she's wearing a flower crown.
  
• New talky animations have been added for Rhode.
  
• New talky animations have been added for Avocado.
  
• New talky animations have been added for Lore.
  
• Ants now have a talky animation and voice.
  
• A portion of Avocado's storyline is now accessible in ENUS language only.
  
• Avocado's yard is now accessible.
  
• The Lake is now accessible.
  
• The pocketwatch now goes haywire in the time room and Lores bedroom.
  
• The pocketwatch now has new art for painted variants.
  
• There is now a version number on the bottom left corner of the main menu.
  
• There is now a chapter name plate each time you choose a new world to explore.
  
• There are new wallpapers in the wallpaper folder in the games installation folder.
  
• The text engine now allows for multiple objects to speak at once.
  
• Violently shaking text has been added to the game.
  
• Patreon was smelly and has been permanently deleted. (We are looking into alternatives.)

Performance Upgrades
• Speed holes were added to the text engine so it's faster now.
  
• Speed holes were also added to every talkable object so those are also faster.
  
• Texture pages in Animus are now properly structured to improve performance.

Bug Fixes
• In Animus, Lore will no longer talk about a TODO while discussing his past adventures.
  
• Jotunheim now properly resets if you finish The Tower as your first chapter.
  
• Fixed some tile placement issues in the Animus Mines.
  
• A massive amount of localization issues have been fixed across all languages.
  
• Save files will no longer become corrupted if you do chapters in an impossible order.
  
• There is now a proper delay after The Artifact speaks during Ferns scenes.
  
• Birds no longer crash the game when leaving the Time Room.
  
• The Time Room now has proper dialog and working switches.
  
• Wiggling text can now be skipped at any speed without breaking the wiggles.
  
• Rainbow text can now be skipped at any speed without breaking the rainbow.
  
• Leaving the bedroom with the Pocketwatch while not going to Animus now hides the Pocketwatch.
  
• All of the open world music in Animus has lower volume now.
  
• Ц and Щ now have their tails in the proper positions.
  
• The text engine no longer has overlapping hidden textboxes.
  
• The text box is now center aligned after a cutscene in the deep mines.
  
• Rhode now faces the correct direction during all conversations at home.
  
• Waiting around in Ferns house after telling her you need a minute then talking to Fern again no longer causes a softlock.

OST
• 22 New songs were added to the OST bringing it to 94 total songs.

Bug Reporting
• Please report any issues via DM on Discord to Thor#5264.
  
• Include a screenshot, it makes it much easier to fix!

Upcoming Content
• The rest of Animus (Chapter 3) is being actively developed.
  
• Avocado's Storyline Arc is up next.

Sorry for the huge gap in updates!
You can read the full explanation as to why over on this blog post.
https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/567380/view/3460398821854294074

All that being said...
I'm back to work on Heartbound again and I hope you like this update!

As always you can watch us build the game live on Twitch.

Thanks for all the feedback and support.
You guys rock. ːHBHeartː

New Content
• Fangamer has created a new Heartbound merch line.
  
• The Credits have been updated with tons of new names.
  
• You can now play through some of Fern and Rhodes storyline in ENUS only.
  
• Fern has completely updated talking and overworld sprite animations.
  
• Rhode has completely updated talking and overworld sprite animations.
  
• You can now choose The Tower or Animus as your first chapter.
  
• Animus will end after Fern/Rhode and send you back to world selection for now.
  
• The Tower can now end in a different way based on your choices.
  
• The camera in The Tower now works.
  
• A new secret puzzle has been added.
  
• Heartbound has been translated into Japanese.
  
• Tons of new stuff was added to the Patreon.

Bug Fixes
• Emelio's tools no longer stick around when Emelio has them.
  
• Rhode is no longer a red block when she stands left/right.
  
• The text for Emelio's forge is far more attractive now.
  
• Fern's movements are better during her opening cutscene.
  
• Lore will now use Glowbringer runes during his breakdown if he's positive.
  
• All language text can now change colors regardless of localization.
  
• Text positioning on all dialog boxes has been fixed to remove border spacing issues.
  
• Text positioning on all dialog boxes now works when switching between languages.
  
• Tower Boss memory of the pool tileset has been fixed to match reality.
  
• Nekane no longer talks slowly on her side of the table.
  
• The door to Floor 0 now has a sound when you go through it.
  
• You can no longer repeat the intro to Misery/Mania in The Mines.
  
• Text in many localizations will no longer escape text boxes.
  
• Lore can no longer move during the intro to Fern/Rhode.

Design Changes
• Preamble cutscene has been removed.
  
• You now get a key for drinking the water in The Tower.
  
• The door in the Mailshroom now uses a key to unlock.
  
• Terry's music now only plays when you get near him.
  
• Unplugging OScar now has future consequences.

Bug Reporting
• Please report any issues via DM on Discord to Thor#5264.
  
• Include a screenshot, it makes it much easier to fix!

OST
• New songs were added to the OST.

Upcoming Content
• The rest of Animus (Chapter 3) is being actively developed.
  
• Fern/Rhode's resolution will be released next.

Wanted to give some updates on why things have been taking so long and what's in store for Heartbound very soon.


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.




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 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.




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.

Live Stream
Discord
Twitter

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


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.


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.


No. It has nothing to do with that.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.

-Thor

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!

As always you can watch us build the game live.
We stream 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Thanks for all the feedback and support.
You guys rock. ːHBHeartː

New Content
• You can now play through Emelio's storyline.
  
• You can now start Fern/Rhode's storyline in english.
  
• A new build was made for the Wiki Warriors to better help them archive the games different areas.

Bug Fixes
• Nekanes potions no longer crash the game.
  
• Lore no longer pops forward one pixel after getting out of bed.
  
• Lore can no longer get stuck behind some... let's call them nightmares in a dark place
  
• Music no longer cuts out in Emelio's house
  
• Music no longer cuts out after the mines cutscenes.
  
• Lore can no longer slide through objects under specific conditions.
  
• Grayscale shader no longer allows color through alpha channel.
  
• Particle effects should now take reduced CPU on specific hardware setups.
  
• You can no longer talk to an object while transitioning to another environment.
  
• All sounds in the game and OST now have proper metadata.
  
• Muspelheim and Niflheim selection portal music now loops properly.

Design Changes
• The memory mini-game during the Barghest fight now maxes at 5 steps.
  
• The memory mini-game during the Barghest fight now scales max steps more slowly.
  
• You now need to be less curious to reach Floor 0.
  
• You must drink the water to reach Floor 0.
  
• OScar is now company property.

Localization
• A ton of PTBR translation fixes
  
• A ton of RU translation fixes
  
• A ton of FR translation fixes
  
• A ton of ESMX translation fixes
  
• Support for JP translation has begun.
  
• Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji are all supported.
  
• We can now support many more glyph based languages in the future.
  
• Ñ has been added to the font list.

OST
• A bunch of new songs were added to the OST bringing the track list to 70.
  
• Metadata was added to all 70 songs so they should have information and cover art in things like Spotify.
  
• The OST was converted to the new Soundtrack category from the old DLC category on steam.

Upcoming Content
• Animus (Chapter 3) is being actively developed.
  
• Fern and Rhode's storyline is up next!

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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Bug Fixes
  • Muspelheim can now be accessed under different circumstances.

• 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.

• 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.
      
    • All of the environments are built and functional.
      
    • Watch us stream it live here!
      
    • https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/twitch/
      

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!

https://gopiratesoftware.com/twitch

PAX recently selected Heartbound for the 2019 PAX 10!
If you're going to PAX West this year please come by our booth and say hello!

Check out the other indies that were selected alongside us here:
https://west.paxsite.com/indie#heartbound

Hey everyone!

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!

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1. We moved the studio to Washington.

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.

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2. We have daily dev streams!

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.

You can watch the streams here:
https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/twitch/

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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.



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4. Heartbound is being created by only three people.

Shaye - Art/Animation
Stijn - Music/Sound Effects
Thor - Programming/Writing/Game Design

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!

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I know a lot of you just want updates now.
I would rather update the game when it's fun and ready.

Let me know if you ever want to chat or have any feedback.

Thanks,

-Thor

Discord - https://discord.gg/PirateSoftware
Twitter - https://twitter.com/PirateSoftware
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/PirateSoftware
Stream - https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/twitch/