GameSkinny (Angelina Bonilla): What motivated you to create this independent game by crowd funding rather than proposing this idea to a publisher?
GS: The main characters of the story are Lore, Baron, and Binder; what sort of character dynamic do these three have, and are we going to see some banter between them?
Binder is a bit of an oddball when it comes to relationships. He has his own motives and objectives to get through and keeps himself very guarded in most social situations. In terms of banter, there is quite a lot of that throughout the beta and you can expect more of that later on as well. That being said, they are by no means the only characters in Heartbound everything up until now is setting the stage.
GS: Environment-wise, the game is beautiful, from the unsettling space-like area Lore gets transported to through the clock, to the outside of Lore’s house. Within these environments, you mentioned that small things that you do or don’t do can change things in major and minor ways. Does this mean the players should pick up every sock they find or to just be aware of their surroundings, taking special note of oddities in them?
GS: Were there any games that inspired Heartbound, whether in combat system, story, art style, or anything like that? What about inspirational books, TV shows, or films?
GS: The battle system is a little unique, as you’ve made it have all sorts of mini games like dodging, popping pods, or memorization puzzles. Does each enemy have their own multi-staged way of defeating them or do some have similar methods?
GS: When you say you get to “rebuild the town of Animus,” did something happen to Lore and Baron’s hometown? Was it decimated by a disaster or was it completely abandoned by lack of jobs?
GS: Lore’s relationship with his father appears to be distant and not very positive when we first see him in the demo; do you have anything big planned for those two? Or does Lore’s dad continue to be a shadowy figure, ominously looming in the background?
GS: Regarding those optional cryptograph puzzles that could be solved by the community, will those give hints or clues about the game’s lore, or will they just give fun messages from the developers? Or are you planning on doing a lot of things with the secret codes?
GS: Will there be customizable outfits for the characters or will they remain in the same clothes throughout the game?
GS: With mentions to sanity and relationships affecting things, were there any particular issues or hard questions you set out to tackle and explore in designing this game?
GS: Do you believe that this game has an emotional core, and if so, what do you believe that core is?
GS: What platforms can we expect Heartbound to be on?
I would like to thank Pirate Softwares’s Jason Thor Hall for taking the time to answer my questions. It appears that Heartbound will be a game that’ll tug at the heartstrings and more by the time of its release, which, judging by the title, seems just right.Check out Heartbound’s official website or Twitter for more information. If you want to show your support, there’s still time to back this project on Kickstarter as well.
