Heartbound

game's a bit shit innit

This is a collection of catchy tunes and cool assets that are unfortunately dragged down by the fact that this game simply isn't fun to play. I have 70 minutes logged in this game so far and I've enjoyed roughly 15 of them in total. I cannot recommend this game to anyone who values their time, and I urge them to give other indie games their attention.

I had high anticipation for this game given its praise by its community and a strong initial introduction in the tutorial. The story felt super rushed during the intro, but the action was enjoyable, and the best part of playing this game was the starting boss battle. It challenged me with quick, fun, and varied mini games, and it got my hopes up that the rest of the game will be like this. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

The laser puzzles afterward were fine. I cleared them in minutes, I put up with the bland story. I even slogged my way through the low-visibility shadow maze with hopes that this wouldn't overstay its welcome. I was rewarded with a repeat of the same boss battle as before, but it was refreshing to once again do something fun in this game.

And that's the last time I enjoyed my experience playing Heartbound.

Chugging along through the story, I selected The Tower and sped my way through the simple patrolling sentries and began the busywork minigames. The lunch serving minigame was fine until I realized I was expected to repeatedly go back and forth for the same two items to serve far too many lunch orders for entirely too long. This could have been a fun mini game were there more variety to items being ordered, but it quickly made itself clear that this minigame was wasting my time. I stopped interacting with it and failed with seemingly no consequence. The next "game" was walking around the office for ten minutes finding hidden ducks and felt a severe dip in my patience for this game. The third minigame was an actual, literal test in patience where Lore stamps letters endlessly without your input and you're supposed to get bored of waiting and mash keys to stop stamping and continue playing.

Advancing to the next floor, I was met with more hidden object finding and more walking around. It was at this point I stopped playing and checked out a video walk-through of the rest of the game. To no surprise, it was more walking around, non-fun busywork, and bland story. I see now that I won't be enjoying the rest of what this game has to offer.

This game is in early access, yes, but seeing as the game has been in development for 8 years now, I don't believe the experience will be improved, because the core game thus far isn't fun to actually play. You can re-write the story to be more engaging, but I don't have faith that the lengthy time-wasting elements that ruin the experience will be changed on final release. Furthermore, the content updates seem to be coming by less and less frequently as the developer focuses more on streaming and Youtube content creation than meaningful game updates, and I'm now lacking faith that the game will be finished at all. And if it is ever finished? I have no trust it will be worth my time playing it.

There are so many other ambitious indie games that do so much more with GameMaker, RPG Maker, and limited engines and assets that are more deserving of your time. Undertale, Deltarune, even Fear and Hunger take simple concepts and creat incredibly engaging and fun experiences for the player. This game tries to be many things that Toby Fox's games excel at exponentially more than Heartbound. Go play those games instead. I promise Deltarune Part 3 will be far more fun and most likely will release years before this game gets finished.

Thank you for your time reading this lengthy review. I hope it helps you avoid wasting an even lengthier time playing this game.

I bought this game years ago, it was alright but never got finished and now I doubt it's going to be. If you decide to buy this in the future, please make sure it's finished before you do. Don't be like me.

Have been looking forward to completing this game for years since I bought it back in 2019. It's clear the devs aren't prioritizing the game - probably because Thor makes more money off of twitch or whatnot.

But that's not an excuse. Early Access funds are an investment to finish the game. Finishing the game should be a priority. Even if the game is done in 1-2 more years, I don't know if that would change my comment. The devs dug their own grave when they essentially crowdfunded a project and refused to make updates a priority. Hopefully other consumers don't reward this behavior

This game will never be finished. There haven't been updates in years, except really minor bug fixes, that yell: "Look, I did something." Dude is just profiting off of all the people, who really liked the premises and trusted him to finish it. Don't make the mistake of paying for this game.

Here's to six more years of development

I did everything I was interested in and wasn't disappointed in anything. The game is not finished yet but I love what we have right now. Hope the rate of the recent updates kepps up fells very good to see what the devs are on about even if its just a bug fix.

I am seeing what Pirate is doing.... He promises new updates every month, but honestly they are very small and insignificant. Also it looks like he is only working on the game close to when the update is scheduled so like this months update got delayed to the 5th ( we will see ). All in all i see he is doing the bare minimum so that people dont leave significant negative reviews for a now almost 7 year old game. Pirate just finish the game already or be open that you cant or dont want to finish it.
edit1 : april 13th and still no update, on stream he said it would come out in a day or so..... i wonder if this months update will come out before may 1st when the next update is due

And this is exactly why I don't trust early access games anymore. Yet another paid demo for an abandoned project. Will change the review if the game is ever deigned to be released. Maybe.

roach

I played this 2 years ago, came back and not much has been done. I miss the old Pirate Software :(

Great art style, great hook, original story telling. But anyone saying this game is fantastic is a paid actor. Of course this game is early access but unfortunately the old meme of “Paid Demo” wasn’t far off. After two years something should have been done. Solo devs have made games like this in less than two years.

Not good

Definitely one of the best games I've played in a while and certainly deep enough if you want to go down that rabbit hole! Although I mostly bought it because of the cute dogo!

It's a very simple game by design but when you can relate or understand some of the references from things like Spongebob to Star Trek TNG and if you ahve been following Pirate Software long enough I like to think this is a fictional parallel to Thor's real life. I can't say more without spoilers but I am excited to replay the game and unlock all the achievements this was long overdue and I cannot wait for the some of the incomplete parts to be developed so I may return and explore more of the story. I definitely get some Earthbound, Undertale vibes but HeartBound is it's own thing. The OST is beautifully woven into the story and art styel.

As much as I love a choose your own adventure, there are better games out there, with more clear changes and shift of what happens.

Also, Thor, you are a fool for claiming the wizard school game is pro trans people.
I cannot honestly support you.

Game is being brigaded by r/livestreamfails frogs addicted to hate. If you want actual reviews, sort for anything from before 2025.

Still not finished with the game, but love the graphics, gameplay and for me the main thing in games is the story/lore and this game has an amazing story.

So far, so good. Looking forward to more!

I dont like Thor anymore

So when you charged us money in 2018, you should probably work to provide a finished product.
Can't wait to see you on YouTube again after you finish blaming someone about bad calls on world of warcraft and get their hardcore characters killed.
Maybe we'll even hear you talk about making DRM for your game so people wont pirate your unfinished game.
Hey, remember when you streamed for the express purpose of working on your game? Pepper Ridge Farms remembers.
In all seriousness though, please continue telling us about your experiences at blizzard during the time the higher ups were stealing breast milk and sexually harassing their employees.

This review will stay up even after the game releases, this shit is ridiculous. Should have just stayed working on your game and shut the hell up.

The art style of this game is beautiful, the music is nice to listen to, and the story is so intriguing! I can't wait to find out more! I've enjoyed watching how much this game has grown in the few years since I first bought it, and I'm excited to see what changes the next time I play it! It's been so fun seeing this story as it's being created. I haven't really had an experience like it with any other game.

Beautiful game with a very fun experience. Thanks Thor!

I'm obsessed. you can tell its not finished but i am excited for the new monthly updates that are coming and whats ahead for the game itself. it is heartbreaking and fun its got a good story going, and i cant wait to see where it goes.

I bought this game in 2020, played what content was available at the time and was looking forward to more, I've since checked in on it and very little to almost nothing has actually been added since I last played, essentially you're currently paying £8.50 of your own money for a slightly bigger demo, which while it isn't a lot, is more of a ticket of a promise of more content. I paid for that ticket over 5 years ago and in that time I've seen a lot of promising devs start development and end development with some really impressive titles, Heartbound however seems to be stuck in a content bloat cycle as it currently stands. A lot of promises of cool (in theory) ideas that are clearly taking more time to develop than initially planned (when the game is actually being developed). From what little I know of the dev they are known for streaming and doing a lot of projects on the side which is entirely fine of course but I feel like it, in at least some way, has impacted the games update cycles.

As it currently stands I cannot recommend the game as it is, honestly with the current content I feel as if it should have just been the demo currently available and the actual payment should have happened when the game was complete or nearing completion.

This is coming from someone who likes Thor, liked the game when it came out, and adores the entirety of the ARG as it releases. I really enjoyed the first two chapters and the ongoing ARG but in terms of how development has gone it feels like the team has fallen victim to Scope/Feature creep. I genuinely hope they choose to scale back the level of detail included in locations. Development time jumping from two chapters in three years to not even one in five is crazy. THE ENTIRETY OF GARTEN OF BANBAN OCCURRED BEFORE ANIMUS RELEASED.

That being said the above statement in early access is a little misleading, the game hasn't received a content update BECAUSE all updates before chapter three is fully complete are released through the dev builds located in the game's steam settings. (The codes to access these builds are in the game's community posts.) So all posts about developer inactivity are void.

This being said inability to deliver is a separate problem. I cannot recommend this game in its current state, and will not. Not until Animus (Chapter 3) releases and good headway is made into Chapter 4 because its not worth the price. You can experience all the comedy and emotion this piece has to offer by watching a few YouTube videos. (And probably gleam the deeper lore better than any single player can.) Best wishes to the Pirate Software crew.

I can dig it! One of my most anticipated as far as seeing the end result. I noticed something new each time I launched the game.

Sound- great, catchy, moving. Visuals- comfy, nostalgic, very detailed, like finding an old game or toy you didn't remember you had but are stoked you rediscovered it! Replayability- keep your eyes peeled and you'll be surprised and delighted. I do hope choices and consequences are expanded in the coming patches and updates (minor gripe!). Fun Factor- exactly as advertised if you can read, think for yourself, and process information like a normal (non-phallic-headed) gamer. Overall, I feel like the vision for this game is meant to also be an experience on a personal level, each person taking something different away from it. Can't wait to see more.

Give this one a go if you're even slightly intrigued!

I thought this dev supported *killing* games, not letting them starve from neglect.
Pathetic behaviour of the lead dev aside...
Seven years of """development""" and this game is still not even half-done. You start running into barred-off unfinished content within the first ten minutes of gameplay. It's been in early access hell for the better part of a decade, was supposed to release about that long ago, and the only updates that'll be pushed from now on will likely be specifically to get rid of Steam's new notice that an Early Access title has gone too long without an update.

You'd get a better RPG experience from YiiK. Don't buy this borderline abandonware.

It's not a game. It's a scam scheme. I'm a professional software developer with almost 20 years of experience and this trash looks like a bad student project which still isn't finished after 7 years of "development"!
I hope Steam will forcefully refund all those "early access" "games" i.e. scam schemes where developers are doing literally nothing other than posting meaningless update and no new real content once or twice a year.

You should really know the reputation of this dev before you consider buying this game. This game has been in early access for over 6 years, and that's because this dev treats this game as a side-project that he works on whenever he feels like it. The dev himself said on stream that he treats the game as just an outlet to vent rather than a passion project. Steam even warns you in the early access disclaimer that he hasn't updated the game in over 14 months.

The dev has been spending far more of his free time streaming himself playing World of Warcraft, Minecraft, and other games which resulted in a crawling development speed. In 2023 he abandoned the game and stopped updating it to go start a business, take trips to Vegas, and spend more time streaming other games. At one point someone made a (now deleted) forum post asking if the dev was dead, but the dev replied saying "Nah, I've been super busy at Def Con and gaming conventions". Its been over 14 months and we haven't received a major content update, which has caused people to start complaining and change their reviews to negative.

It's 2025, and now the developer is back. He responds to his community's disappointment by mass deleting multiple forum posts, banning anyone that disagrees with him, and locking any remaining forum posts to prevent any criticism. He called his community a bunch of raging babies on stream and seemed genuinely confused on why players were mad at him abandoning an early access game and leaving players with a seriously unfinished product for over 6 years.

The game hasn't received any major changes since 2023, and its still unfinished, so if you do buy this, you should seriously lower your expectations on this game ever being finished.

Love the game, can't wait for the full release. Great gameplay, brilliant narration, awesome music. Fack the haters. Thor, the creator is the most solid guy in the gaming community. Glad to follow him.

It's an Undertale knockoff with less to do, characters that aren't half as interesting or charming, worse writing, and less visually appealing maps.

I genuinely don't care about whatever drama the dev is apart of, this game itself is just a bootleg of a more popular game, but done without any understanding of what made the original so great. If this somehow changes when the game is done, I'll update but I imagine when it releases in 2035 this will still be a thumbs down.

Art is very well done, but seems to have been abandoned by the developers. The parts of the game that are there are enjoyable otherwise. I hope that the game will be completed someday but at this rate of development it's not worth buying.

this is the wishing well of games, where you throw $10 at it wishing they gave a shit enough to complete it

beautiful audio, interesting gameplay. very excited for monthly updayes

Ngl, I honestly forgot this game existed until the recent stuff with the dev came up.

I don't care about that stuff that's happening, but I will say, it's not really a great sign for a game, that it hasn't released after years upon years upon years of being in Early Access.

It's a neat game, but I have to say, it feels like it's been ages. I get devs taking their time with development, it's a big project. But this has been in production for absolutely ages; especially considering when it was posited on kickstarter in 2017

Going to have to give it a thumbs down, but I will change it to a thumbs up when the full release comes out. I want to play the full game, but it's just not worth it right now, nor is it worth the money, when buying the game right now, is basically just funding the game's development. That's now how single player games should be funded.

Please finish the game Pirate, that's all I ask.

Fun game with amazing little messages about life. Love the mail room infinite loop and the message it conveys

Man, where to begin. Pure emotion from the start. The emotion drives the exploration which I haven't felt in a game in quite some time. It felt like being back on an old-school system, getting lost in the game purely for the intrigue. It's been a while since I've picked up an indie game and put in this much time from the start. Looking forward to what becomes of this project.

This is a good game. Its not finished, its in early access. The dev does not deserve the ongoing reviewbombing.

Review bombs are stupid.

This is a lovely game that is in development and the available play through has plenty of virtues. It has accessibility considerations built in and is centered around a narratively compelling story and nostalgic gameplay. I look forward to further updates and the eventual completion.

The demo is cool sure. Gets you hyped for the game. The Early Access is garbage. There's not even another battle which is what sold me on the game. The multiple playthroughs were Damm near identical. To top it all off the game hasn't been touched in over a year. I just checked in on a video saying he would update the game monthly starting February 1st. Well February is about to be over and nothing has been done.

Dead EA game. No updates in 12 months then developer puts out a do nothing patch to attempt to reset steams timer, which is a pretty scummy thing to do.

Game itself is a walking sim with some ok dialogue and mini-games. I think I completed all content in just over 3 hours. The product as is right now I can't recommend.

Bought six years ago to support an indie dev who was making something cool. Checking back on the game six years later, development seems to have stalled, and this new monthly update thing seems to be an extremely small amount of content with Chapter 3 still "in development" with no apparent timeline as to when this game will be finished. I'll change my review to positive in a heartbeat if they actually get some content of substance out the door, but after waiting 6 years, patch notes with things like "a Quit button has been added to the menu" as main selling points aren't enough for me, sorry. My lesson in never buying Early Access.

Great game, played a few hours of it and loved it. Has some "action" (mini-games) but the game itself is more like old rpg games (pre-2000s). Soundtrack is very nice and can get stuck in your head, but that's not a bad thing.

The Developer has abandoned this game even if he doesn't want to admit it to himself yet. This game launched in 2018 on Steam with the first 2 chapters out of 5 done and the game was supposed to be complete within a year or so. Ever since the Kickstarter that was launched in 2017 the game has had nothing but set back after set back. It's been over 6 years almost 7 since this game launched on Steam and PirateSoftware has yet to finish even one chapter and the whole of 2024 did not update the game once. To his credit he did finally do an update February 1st of this year, but it was barely an update and not one that was worth waiting 13 months for. Even Steam doesn't recognize it as an actual update.

Now I'm not here to attack anyone even though he permanently banned me from the forums for stating the complaints are warranted, but to warn of the current state of things. It's fine if PirateSoftware got burnt out on the game or just doesn't know how to finish it, but he needs to be honest with himself and with all of us who bought the game. He either needs to move on from it and delist it or finally get to work on it because it should not take 6 years to complete one chapter of a 5 chapter game. Especially a game like this. Because remember he wanted this game done within a year or so after the Kickstarter was finished in 2017 and it is now 2025 with no end in sight.

Do not buy this game even if you are a fan of his streams because this doesn't seem like it is ever going to be finished.

This is Abandonware and a Kickstarter scam. Steam needs to take action on early access abuse like this.

Developer not only failed to "develop" their game, it is unfinished and the developer decides to become a streamer to stream the development of their game only to: 1. Not develop their game at all 2. Stream themselves doing literally anything BUT develop the game 3. Get into major controversy acting like an egolord 4. Waste everyone's time with a half-baked game that hasnt received an update in going on a year and two months and it isn't fully completed.

To be honest, I couldnt care about this guys controversy, but why are you getting into drama that youre on the LOSING SIDE OF just to ignore your one main project you started streaming for this whole time. What a joke, such wasted potential.

"Ah yes, great game guys ! It looks good and has a cool story, overall I look forward to see the full release !"
That was 5 years ago.
Well that's not a problem if the devs follows with updates on twitter etc, right ?

I'm going to be polite enough so my comment doesn't get striked by steam.

You became a streamer. From all of your free time where you should have worked on your game you decided to put on the clown make up and not care a bit about your creation.
I'm not mad because you abandonned your game.
I'm mad because you abandonned a great game in creation.
You're not toby fox creating the next best piece of art in the video game industry. You're not team cherry working on one of the most waited game of the century.
You have no real reasons to have quit the development. You're plain lazy and while people wait for the release, you're out there clowning on them on stream.
And you are very self aware of this because apparently some threads have been blocked and comments deleted.

This review will stay up as a warning for the newcomers and if you try to remove it, I will put it back again until you quit being a coward.
But I might remove bits of this review if I believe the full release is good. No man sky did good in the long run right ? Time to redeem yourself.

Note: The last update made by the developers was over 13 months ago. The information and timeline described by the developers here may no longer be up to date.

Dev stream jokes and Easter eggs but not really much meat on the bone for years in EA.
Don't forget that the game is the point and if the basic experience doesn't get done then what you're really doing is ripping off your community.

bought this game about 5-6 years ago, still unfinished
last update was over 13 months ago
the story and characters in this game are incredibly boring
since early access release on steam this game isnt even halfway finished to this day, has ~~3 hours worth of content and barely added anything with updates