Painted Heart

[Trass]

A painted RPG in which you explore the world of a painting and restore its colors.​

The game is available for download in the following links:​

RMN Page​

Contest Page​

 ​

Art has blessed many people with freedom, expression, and innovation. When a world that cherishes art through the use of the magical art, Pictomancy, one could say the art where paints come to life is a unique cultural gift for all to enjoy. If only that apex of cultural renaissance could stay that way like a dream.

Near the village of Appleby, a young and aspiring painter, Corbin, is prodded into the cathedral’s painting to cleanse the vibrant world from cultural extinction by the Pestilence. To this day, nobody knows where the Pestilence had come from, and Corbin is even less sure how he can help restore the infected painting.

Painted Heart is an episodic tale of friendship, humor, and overcoming fears and trials.​

Features

Painted Heart is an hour-long sidescrolling RPG which features beautiful painted graphics as well as original music to create a whimsical experience. Its battles use the Trinity Battle System, a never-before-seen system created specifically for this RPG.

Summary​

• Individually painted scenery

• Animated Characters and Battlers

• Never-before-seen Trinity Battle System

• Original music with beautiful vocal tracks

What is the Trinity Battle System?

This system places a new twist on turn-based battles by emphasizing strategy and coordination. The player controls three characters-- two fighters and one supporter. In Attack Mode, the two fighters each have a set of skills they perform at the same time, and each set is assigned to the keys A, S, and D respectively. After performing their dual attack, the fighters switch to Defense Mode where the front line fighter can Defend or where the back line fighter can use a Guard Skill.

Strategy is vital in this battle system as each action has a number of consequences. Heavy skills use up AP (art points), and if too much AP is consumed the fighters will skip a turn. Attacks change the fighters' base elements, affecting their resistance to the enemy onslaught. Players and enemies can switch the front and back row fighters to gain the upper hand. In most cases only the front row fighter takes damage in battle, so placing the fighter with strong elemental resistance in the front can help you plow through the enemy.​

 ​

Characters​

Corbin, otherwise known as Cor, is the protagonist of the game. Slightly pessimistic and very wimpy, Cor manages to bumble through the painting and restore the land with the help of two summoned drawings.​

Zophie is a no-nonsense angel dedicated to the Goddess. She takes pride in strength and loyalty, and tends to solve problems with violence.​

Though he looks scary, the demon Agiel is a friendly and intelligent companion. He enjoys teasing Cor and Zophie and is the coolheaded counterpart to Zophie's rashness.​

 ​

 ​

Screenshots​

Spoiler

 ​

Credits
Programming, Music, Trinity Battle System Eventing: Trass
Art, Dialogues: accha
Proofreading, Story Editing: Chaude
Song Vocals: Usachii​

Script: Yami Engine Ace - Pop Message​

 

[Deleted]

Wow! This one's come outa nowhere. Guess there's another contender for the crown

Also, really love the start screen, REALLY love it. One of the best I've seen. Who did the art? Was it you?

 

[Trass]

Thanks KingDanner!

The title screen, and every single other artworks in the game, are created by accha! We both worked together on this game as a team.

Unless you mean the title screen's programming. In which case, yeah, I did it xD

 

[hyde9318]

I heard about this and couldn't find it, turns out it dropped back to the second page. This belongs back on the front page, it is remarkable! The artwork alone in this is beautiful. I'm going to give this one a try, absolutely.

 

[runic]

Oh man, I gotta admit when I saw this my heart sunk. There go my chances!

But seriously this is a really beautiful game! I didn't have time to play it all the way through, but I got to the village part with the charms and I was really impressed. Beautiful with good characters and just...wow. You have some real characterization in this, everybody is their own person and pretty darn great. The battle system is going to take some getting used to, I was cruising through until some sort of blue creature completely owned me, but as soon as I get a spare minute I'm going to get back into this!

...even though it breaks my heart lol.

Seriously though, you guys did a great job, and you can really tell there was a lot of love and effort going into this. Good luck!

 

[psyAlera]

I'm seriously in love with the art of this game, I'm yet to finish it, but I'm enjoying it so far! 

 

[Deleted]

Ok, I'm in the middle of playing your game, and it is absolutely beautiful. Art, Brilliant. Must, Incredible. Story, Intelligent. Characters, lovable. I have given this game one of my votes. Love it. You could defo win this.

 

[Indrah]

Here's my very quick and sketchy take on the game (link for info on why it's so short and all that jazz)





+Beautiful artwork in general.
+Good sound (tho some of the songs parts could be a wee bit random/wobbly)
+I liked the graphical design of the characters. (open that robe more, Agiel, take off that mask and strip for me, you hottie~)
+Interesting concept (art as a medium and objective)
-The combat on the whole feels overly complicated and has some issues:
-“Elements” are hard to understand, and their icons don’t help visualize them.
-Combat has stiff options (three combos with diff elements each?) though this may get better later.
-Overall combat has TOO much, and the problem is that it does not feel NECESSARY. A more traditional approach with a thematic chance could have done just as well.
-The combat tutorial is too full and impossible to digest in one sitting.
-Characterization is weak and a bit shaky. The main character is not very likeable (not really a flaw, but something that hurts immersion for me).
-The rtp “wireframe” tiles are visible behind the beautiful painted maps, breaking the immersion once you see them ;-;
-Sprite animations can feel stiff and odd sometimes. (I don’t put much weight behind this one because resource making is a lot of work and there was a deadline to this, but there were a few moments were it felt a bit odd.
-(Very minor nitpick) the introductory credits were a bit boring and felt like a barrier. Just let me PLAY L

To the developer: While I congratulate you on the music and especially the beautiful artwork, too many other areas had problems. Not in a way that made me throw my keyboard away and curse, but enough that it brought the game down, not reaching the quality of the graphics and overall not being too engaging. There are too many things (especially at the very start, which feels a bit rushed to put it all in) that come too quickly, the combat is cumbersome and hard to understand, but at the same time feels bland and not very challenging or exciting.
Personally I would recommend addressing the gameplay aspects especially, as they were what I feel brought down the game the most. I know I can be nitpicky about writing, but I’d say making the characters a bit more fleshed out or at least more enjoyable would help a lot too, as they all felt pretty “mean”, or in the case of the main, unlikeable (I know he’s just a kid and afraid but it doesn’t make me LIKE him).
Tl;dr: While the graphical presentation is great, the rest is not, and it creates a gap that is very noticeable and breaks immersion and interest a fair bit. This does not mean the game is BAD, at all. It just means it isn’t as great as it could be, which feels like a pity since some elements are so good.

 

[GIRakaCHEEZER]

Here were my thoughts as I played the game:


The cursor is kind of hard to see on the title screen. Might want to make it more visible/obvious what it is.


This first battle is a huge/massive info dump. I'd recommend that you deliver the info over the course of a few battles to let the players ease into the battle system.


This painting the world things gets a little old after a while. I get that it's supposed to be dramatic but the effect is cheapened if we're repainting an area every few minutes. I'd recommend making it less dramatic/over the top if it happens this often.


The numbers with the +'s beside them on the screen that shows up after you finish a battle: what are those? Experience?? Health? Seems kind of odd that the game doesn't tell me what it is.


These elevators in the area with all the switches are kind of slow. Painfully slow, almost.


I used talk in the last castle and I got a conversation about the seed in area 1. What?? That doesn't make any sense at all.


That last boss was an HP sponge. But I had plenty of items to deal with her, at least.


So overall it was alright. The visuals and sound/music were top-notch, but the gameplay was kind of lacking/boring, and the battle system seemed overly complex, especially with how all the information about it was dumped on the player at the beginning. Also the story didn't really do much for me, maybe work on the writing more a bit next time. But overall the game was alright.


Edit: Also, a few bugs I found while playing.

Spoiler

I'm standing on thin air here?

Part of the game's main menu got stuck on the screen and didn't go away until I was able to leave the battle and open the menu again.