A Crooked Heart cover
A Crooked Heart screenshot
PC Steam
Genre: Adventure, Indie

A Crooked Heart

A Crooked Heart progress update, finally.
ACH is still on track to be completed by late 2023.

About a year and a half ago, updates started to trickle to a halt, but the work has never stopped.
Keep in mind, with the exception of programming and music, I’m responsible for everything else. And I can sometimes get tunnel vision and take the production off track while I hunt down a solution or idea that’ll ultimately bring me back.
What I’m doing now isn’t really something that I can update that often because none of it would make a lot of sense out of context. During the last year, I’ve finally started laying out the entire game with temporary rooms, puzzle ideas, and overall direction for the player and story. Without the completion of act three, there are close to two-hundred rooms/levels, twenty-plus bosses, excluding the ones that may be considered mini-bosses, a crap load of enemies, and puzzles/obstacles to overcome. I want the final playtime to be at least four to five hours. The current run-through without any bosses or enemies puts it close to 3 hours.
Also, I finally found and hired an exceptional programmer that has been vital in speeding up the game’s production.
All that being said, A Crooked Heart is still alive and kicking and has not ended up in the unknown pile of unfinished projects.

Small Update
Small Update
You should really check out the update labeled Major Update with the image attached.

Minor Fixes
Minor Fixes

See previous Major Update notes
See previous Major Update notes

A Crooked Heart Super Major Update
About a year ago I hired a programmer, Chris Wilson, to start making all that I want a reality. While I started with, and still use the Corgi Engine, my lack of skill in that department forced me to work with what the template provided. And all of that brings me to these major updates. We're still using chapter one to build all the new upgrades, abilities, fixes and additions. Chris has been able to take all of my art and ideas and help push it to the next level in the game.

Additions and Changes

Lulu

  • Bomb Capability
  • Push/Pull Crates
  • Down Bash
  • Improved Dash
  • Ledge Climb
  • Swimming
  • Destructibles

Enemies

  • Added new enemies
  • Improved the current set's functionality

Intro Cinematic


Puzzles

  • Mainly minor ones that help the player overcome an obstacle. Nothing major at the moment like Zelda Dungeons.

Bosses

  • I tried to flesh out the pacing of each and strike a balance between difficulty and fun.
  • Improvements to the last one.

Levels

  • Added 10 new levels

Bug Fixes

  • I'm sorry but I didn't take notes as there were so many to address while dealing with new ones that popped up. I'd probably need 400 more lines of text to wrap them up. And that would just bore you.
  • There are a few things that have not been addressed yet.

    1. The controller issue on the main menu may still require you to unplug and plug it back in. That's a quick fix if it's not working.

    2. Playstation Controller is not supported yet. You can use one, but there's an issue where the dash only goes in one direction, reverse.

    3. No Mac version yet. The only excuse I have is that I want to make sure it works perfectly on the PC first.

Major Update to A Crooked Heart coming within the month.
The programmer, Chris Wilson and I have been hard at work moving the game forward and implementing lots of new stuff.

What to expect in the update
1. Lulu will have the ability to

  • Shoot Bombs, both Sticky and Regular
  • Push and Pull objects
  • Dive Bash
  • Ledge Climb


2. A new intro cinematic that will explain the story a little better.

3. Music

4. New structure to the current build to showcase these additions.

5. Upgrades

6. Some new enemies

The release for A Crooked Heart is still set for August 2022. Even with these updates, you're still playing an Early Access build of the game.
Purchasing the current release will give you the game at no extra cost. Plus you'll be able to follow the progress and have access to new, playable updates along the way.

Level fixes
The last level had the wrong parts turned on before they should. It's because I turned them on while testing and forgot to turn it back off.
I also had the wrong Lulu in the Arothian House Basement level.

Update to LB/RB descriptors.
Fixed a couple of things from last build. Changed the Push/Pull descriptors to LB/RB instead of Rt bumper and Lt bumper. Also add a small sign to the first crate to show the player it can be moved. This knowledge should carry over into other scenes with crates.