KnifeHeart

KnifeHeart is a competitive visual novel/fighting game in which two players battle to win the affection of the dreamy “Hot Pot.” Choose your insults during visual novel segments to not only talk some serious smack, but to also draft powerful abilities to use in battle.  When the fight breaks out, use your special abilities to shove the other girl into lockers, gross lunch food, and maybe even the pits of hell. Fight to rule the school, and to win Hot Pot’s heart!

With KnifeHeart, we wanted to create a competitive multiplayer game wherein a player’s success or failure is not only determined by their mechanical mastery of the system, but also by their understanding of the game’s story and characters.  To do this, we created a unique system whereby players draft their combat abilities through dialogue choices during visual novel-style vignettes in between rounds. Each ability is associated with a personality type that is informed by the playstyle it enables (see the "Ability Guide" to the right).  In order for a player to draft a particular ability, they must choose the dialogue option that reflects the personality of their desired ability. After making a choice, not only will the player be granted the ability in battle, but their character will also take on the associated personality traits within the narrative.  In this way, the player is not only working to build an ideal loadout for combat, but is also crafting a unique character within the world of the game.

This system incentivizes the player to interact with the story and characters of the game in a way that a more typical “character select screen” cannot.   In order to make the best use of their draft picks, they must be able to understand and respond to the characters and narrative within the world of the game. In this way, optimizing your draft strategy and seriously contending with the game’s narrative are one in the same.

Made with Unity.

The Team:
Andrew Petersell - Lead Animator, Writer, Designer
Ben Costrell - Lead Programmer, Designer
David Frisch - Lead Sound Designer, Writer, Designer
Kit Kwan - Lead Visual Designer, Designer
Morgan Macri - Writer, Desinger
With original Music Compositions by Graham Southern

Website:
https://knifeheart.weebly.com/
On itch.io:
https://knifeheart.itch.io/knifeheart
On Twitter:
https://twitter.com/KnifeHeartGame