The Bear's Black Heart
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
UPDATE: We've released a new game for iOS and Android. Same bears, same farts but different challenges! Get it now FREE here for Android and here for iOS version.
The Bear's Black Heart:
Race against hunger and increasing cold as you find food and interact with a host of characters.
Everybody you meet has unexpected replies to the choices you make and both their and your actions can be a little nutty sometimes! Can you reason with Eric the Actor? Can you seek directions from David Bowie's ghost?
Made in under two weeks for Wizard Jam 4, this game was a blast to make and maybe we'll revise it after some feedback.
Developed by Abban Dunne in Unity with art by Bob created in Affinity Designer .The music is by Broke for Free.
We built this as part of Wizard Jam 2016. If you're interested in game development you can also check out the development log here.
CHANGELOG
v1.1.0
Added status multipliers
- fast & slow / noble & mingy / optimist & pessimist / satisfied & ravenous / fresh & stale / abundance & famine - Will now add or remove in increments.
- reversed - Will only apply when the multiplier is an uneven number. So now it will toggle if you get it multiple times.
- flatulence - You fart more often when the status stacks up. (never thought I'd be typing that)
Tweaked heart and food from choices
Now the amount of food you get and heart you lose makes more sense when compared to the decisions. It will also list that you got them along with the status effect.
Show buttons for all choices
Now all the choices will be shown, but some of them will be inactive depending on how dark your heart is.
Fixed Spelling
I fixed some of the bad spelling mistakes and rewrote a little to make stuff line up with the decisions.
Food
Eating squirrels makes your heart a little blacker. More squirrels spawn.
Choice rooms
Added a max level counter to force a choice room if one hasn't appeared in a while.
Download
Install instructions
You might have to do the allow apps from anywhere thing on OSX
Comments
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Everyone complaining you can't finish with a pure heart gave up too soon. I'm on my like fourth run, and the trick is that you're not locked into encounters. Back out if there's not a good choice, and learn the good choices!
I noticed that there was a Ziggystardust reference in one of your characters. Clever!
I couldn't stop my heart from being corrupted but I still loved this game!
Ha Ha! Nice! Hey we just released a spin off game yesterday https://woodlandrungame.com/
I did it in spanish, im from south america, i hope u enjoy it, and wtf about the game lol xd
¡Me encanta! Gracias
It's cute, and kind of interesting to see what happens when you do different things with different people, but after your second or third attempt, it feels mundane and pointless, because you quickly realize that no matter what you do, you're either going to suffer, starve, or become evil. In the end, there is no choice, there is no good ending, and that takes away from the enjoyment.
Third playthrough, I was working very hard to keep a pure heart, and had resorted to eating apples and picnic baskets. I'd gotten a tiny smidge of darkness, by another character's fault, and suddenly, I was given no choice but to either punch the snowman in the face, or eat him. Being that I was starving from everyone trying to deny me food, I had to eat him. ONE bad action turned the entire heart black.
At that point I threw up my hands in defeat and quit the game. There is no winning. There is no saving the bear. He either dies or becomes evil, end of story.
You're not locked into encounters. You gotta choose one eventually, but so long as you find food in between, you can back out and wait for the next encounter.
Looks super cute, super fun, but is actually super dark. I tried so hard but the world was just out to get me. I JUST WANTED TO BE A GOOD BEAR
I literally only just made it to the end! I mean, you can die in this game right?
Nice! Thanks for taking the time to play and make the vid. We have a new demo of our next game https://bigbad.itch.io/big-bad-spanish
The characters you meet are so cool, especially the rabbit gave me a fun punishment!
Cool game, I like it a lot! Eventhough I messed it all up in the beginning!
Feels like the kind of game that keeps giving, you can play it several times and encounter different characters? How many characters are there? :)
Hey! We have at least 8 characters in the game but we have a handful of others which would like to add at some stage. Right now we're focussed on https://bigbad.itch.io/big-bad-spanish
Despite it's beautiful and colorful aesthetic this game is deceptively dark and dystopian. A lot of fun to play as you spiral into despair.
First off cute little characters :)
The first time I played, spent about 10 minutes moving through screens and waiting to come across anything outside of the eating mechanic. Failed to find anything so closed the game.
Second time I played I spent about half of that before spotting my first character, which then resets you and places you at the start of the next week. The delay between finding characters is honestly far too long, as the only mechanic that has to get the player through 5- 15 screens in between interactions is space to eat. It makes each screen a chore, and for such a small game that's not something you want. I'd bring it down to 5 maximum, tighten the experience overall.
Got to wake 13 without fanfare, week 14 I left the bear starve to get some sort of end state. I was annoyed because I had been doing a pacifist run and not eating squirrels only to have my heart turn black randomly during an interaction. As having a fully black heart does very little except lower potential interactions, shouldn't there be a way to reduce the darkness of the heart? Once it was perma black I just left it go all the way.
Is the point that bears need to eat little cute creatures to survive? Because that isn't really something anyone was unclear about heh.
Hey! Yes, all valid points and we are looking at reworking parts in an update. We created the entire game in about 10 days so yeah, some parts need tweaking.
Thanks for playing and for the feedback!
This was really cool! Rogue like games that are replayable are hard to come by. At least ones that are enjoyable. This is well done and executed! THANK YOU!
Really loved this game!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-sgOemQS4I
And the second part of my playthrough in which we become one with the Dot Gobbler:
This guy is bear-ly coping with surviving the Winter.
Tried out your game if you want to check it out, really liked it. But boy am I one unlucky bear
the music is amazing
Hey there,
Incredible game! The outcome of interactions with the characters in the woods pissed me to no end and I do not believe there is an option to win with clear heart but ... I loved the style of the game , humor was insane and that music i could listen whole day.
I really enjoyed playing your game and I am sure to give it another try. Thank you for this little project and if you didn't yet do that, you should expand this project and reconsider releasing it as a full game ! XD
For anyone interested I am leaving small reaction video of my experience.
Enjoy !
Awesome game, damn PacMan though...I mean Dot Gobbler.
The Black Schmurf was a HILARIOUS addition to the game :P I had a pretty crazy run through, so make sure to check it out here :)
This game was a lot of fun, even though I had no idea how to not become corrupt lol. I look forward to playing it some more in my spare time!
Lost an arm, became packman, and had dinner on the moon. 10/10 Would divorce rabbit wife again.
This game is pretty fun, and nice! The sound effects were a bit annoying after awhile, but I feel that was the effect of being evil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2i0RjqOXRo
I had a ton of fun with this game! The choices seem to matter a ton, and I loved that! Even if they didn't always work out in my favor :P
The game is quirky, and the characters you meet are hilarious. Though I didn't find the "lose" condition. I thought maybe getting your heart to maximum darkness did it, but you still end up "winning". Even though I didn't feel like a winner it was still fun to play and I'll play it again to find different ending if there are any.
It was fun for a bit, however, there seems to be no way to win with ANY kind of goodness in the bear's heart. Most creatures don't even have a good way of doing things but you can't progress unless you talk to them. Fun game, but there's nothing more I can do to improve my game play it would seem without spending hours waiting for that one character that happens to have a good choice.
I don't know why but when I try to play the game, everything is black except the bear, stomach and heart. Is it just me? or is it possible I downloaded an incorrect one? I downloaded the Windows one.
Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/sNAB5wa.png
Is there anyway to turn the eating sound off? I mean, I get that eating is the whole point of the game, but after a certain point the sound becomes so grating it's nearly unbearable (see what did there?). I know that I could simply turn the volume off, but I really like the music.
Sorta sad cause I keep trying to download it and the button isn't working :(
Can you please make a version that runs on chrome OS? I really want to play the game but all I have is a chrome book.
I had fun! even if I was a dreadful bear and starved in the winter. The different status effects you could pick up from characters was brilliant, which made me more bold with decisions hoping to make more funny changes happen.
Thanks for playing!
The presentation on this is just superb. Lovely art, music, characterisation, seasons passing, title screen, lots of little touches. All the conversation choices are great, too!
I also checked out your site https://bigbadspanish.com and also loved that!
I'm not sure why my heart turned black but I had fun playing. It's cute and didn't see any bugs. How many characters can you encounter?
We had originally planned for around 30 but we didn't have time before the end of the jam. I'm going to do an update to correct some balancing this week which should make it clearer about how your heart gets dark and why.
Thanks for playing!