Shivering Hearts

Shivering Hearts is a light-hearted role-playing game with an emotionally gripping story and illustrated through beautifully detailed, hand-drawn watercolour paintings. The world reacts to your choices.

Become enraptured by a colourful cast of characters and experience beauty, heart-ache, romance, psychedelia, death, hope, nihilism, betrayal, regret, loss, and maybe even help someone on the verge of complete mental collapse.

Explore a unique fantasy setting with your childhood friend, Rin, and uncover what ills are plaguing the village of Shivering Hearts.

For the gameplay, I take a specific aspect from the early classical era of Computer RPGs such as Baldur's Gate, Fallout 1, and Planescape; Torment, which is emulating a pacifist dialogue-only run, and super-charge the experience and hone it into a fine blade. I have given the player hundreds of unique dialogue choices with unique outcomes for each, often hidden to the player. I liken my process to a blacksmith folding and molding molten metal hundreds of time to create an incredibly refined, philosophically beautiful experience.

At your time at Shivering Hearts, you will be asked:

• How does it feel to leave your past and arrive at a town where nobody knows you?

• What if you had the power to reshape reality but had no control over it? 

• Is it worth extending empathy to someone who might not deserve it?

• Are dreams a window to the soul or do we project meaning onto them? 

• Will you ever get to eat that pie?

Check out the free demo below!

Average Playtime - 2-4 hours.

Check out my links.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1351820/Shivering_Hearts/

shiveringhearts.com

instagram.com/shivering.hearts/

twitter.com/slayerawoken

Demo

On 5th June I created a free demo version for people to dip their toes in without committing to a price-tag. However I didn't want to create a demo that ends at a crucial point that feels anti-climactic like with most demos, or even my previous demo with Ili. 

So I spent 1 week to create new content exclusively for the demo as a thanks to anyone who checks it out, and to provide a somewhat conclusive end to the demo. The last screenshot on the right is demo exclusive content.

Demo Playtime - 1-1.5 hours.

About Me.

Hi, I'm Mischa. I'm a guy, and am of half New Zealand and half South Korean descent. I graduated with a Master's of Architecture at the University of Auckland in 2017. I love drawing, painting, writing, learning languages and design. I love playing the flute, but I didn't have enough time to record a song for Shivering Hearts. I love playing video-games, but I love to make them even more, despite it being extremely hard to do. Design is an essential part of the human experience, and mastering design and aesthetics means mastering human cognition.

I wanted to create a game which would have helped my younger self during times of pain and loneliness. If this game connects with at least one person, then that is all I would want. If it doesn't connect with you, then I hope you enjoyed your time with it regardless.

I also wished to pay homage to choice-driven Infinity Engine RPGs like Baldur's Gate 2, Fallout 1 and Planescape; Torment. They are legitimate masterpieces.

Like Rin, I like to think this is just the beginning of a much longer journey.

Sincerely thank you for visiting. I feel nervous putting myself out there, but I want to share these feelings with others.