Messy Hearts
Release Date: April 27, 2026
Systems: Windows, mac OS, Linux, SteamOS
Publisher: Black Heart Games LLC
Developer: Black Heart Games LLC
Time Spent: 48 Minutes
Messy Hearts is a short comic-styled visual novel about navigating developing and complicated relationships, inspired by real events in the lives of some of the members of the development team. If you read the About Page on Black Heart Games' page, it's pretty easy to figure out who's who, to some extent, in the game. While Messy Hearts is played in a traditional visual novel style (press/click button to continue), several moments allow the player to choose how the main character, Florence, reacts to her inner voice and people in her life. The game is short, playable in only 48 minutes (for me, but I'm sometimes a slow reader), although it could be longer if you take advantage of the Rewind feature that lets you replay chapters to make different decisions.
Despite how much I really enjoyed this game, there was a lot I was not able to connect with about the main character. I am not a game developer. I am not a woman. I am not a woman in a male-dominated field; although I am a male in an often woman-dominated field, social work. I am not non-binary. My pronouns can be correctly assumed by boomers by looking at my face. I am not in a polyamorous or open relationship. I don't think that I have complex relationship issues with either my friends or family. I don't believe I have CPTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), or a sensitivity to rejection. I am heterosexual. As a cisgender white male-presenting 6' 2" white guy, you'd almost think that I'm not the target audience for this kind of story and that I couldn't find anything relatable the whole time. Florence is in her 40s, experiences intrusive thoughts of varying degrees, has imposter syndrome, has a black cat, and is also the loving parent of a five-year-old wild child. Hey, I know that person! I also recognize that if literary transference is a thing, this was happening here.
I fully admit that by the end of the first chapter, my eyes were watering and I was thinking, "Yeah, me too." Something about the simplicity of the pixel art, and the in-game question of whether or not you want Florence to explain the concepts of complex human emotion to her five-year-old son, Felix, along with the conclusion that Felix "is a good boy", just really hit me harder than I was expecting from a visual novel video game that I didn't know existed 15 minutes prior. The Squire is also an inquisitive five-year-old who is a good boy, who just last year was also fixated with eating ice out of ice chests and loudly declaring 15 minutes into almost any car ride that he had to pee immediately. I can totally empathize with wanting to explain concepts of human emotion to my child, who still has a mouthful of baby teeth while also trying to not to make a mess of his life.
I don't want to get too into the weeds as far as the story goes because the game itself is so short, but I found it really enjoyable. Enjoyable in the way that one finds enjoyment reading and interacting with a story that's not their own, not specifically reading and experiencing someone recount, and inadvertently putting themselves in a potentially traumatic situation that they've found themselves in before. As a free game with writing that I would consider 'very well written' with charming pixel art and animation that takes place in a region similar to my own (I mean, Hopworks Brewing!?), I honestly can't recommend this game enough.
The only kind of caveat I have to add about this game is that the story is intentionally incomplete. Messy Hearts contains nine chapters, but after the ninth chapter, the story doesn't actually end, and it doesn't end in the way that book or LOST would end on a cliffhanger. The story of Florence and her complicated and messy relationship with her coworker is unresolved, and the game fully acknowledges this fact after you reach the end of this game. In the Character Profile section of the menu, when you've reached the end of Chapter Nine, there are only 11 of 17 characters unlocked. There is more to the story that has yet to be developed, and when the time comes, I will happily be a person to throw some digital real-world currency at Black Heart Games to read and experience more from Florence's life. And because I know she won't mess up Felix any more than I could mess up The Squire, even though we're fairly different people.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
And I Go Where The Ocean is Deep
No comments:
Post a Comment