Where Is My Heart?

By: ithamore

On: February 15th, 2009

Where Is My Heart? is a platformer by Bernhard Schulenburg that presents its own unique style and challenges with charm and brevity. It was one of the winners of this year’s IGF Student Showcase, and it was part of Indiecade 2008. This quote from the WIMH’s description on its IGF Info page sums it nicely:

“Where is My Heart? is an engaging and touching exploration of familial relationships through the metaphors of exploration and collection.”

You can download the Demo Verion 0.3 from Schulenburg’s blog for either Mac or Windows platforms. It was the final version he submitted for the Student Showcase, and there are also two earlier versions available under his download label (both of which I must now begin playing).

Posted in Games and Art?, IGF / GDC, Macintosh, Platformers, Windows | Tags: BernhardSchulenburg

http://attractmo.de adamrobo

It doesn’t seem to be working on my MacBook. The game says to press “B”, but when I do, nothing happens.

Has anyone else run into this problem?
http://attractmo.de adamrobo

I figured it out.

It says to press X, Y and B, but for some reason I actually have to press 1, 2 and 3.

I really enjoyed the game. Can’t wait until Bernie is finished with it.
Sninnyer

The art looks lovely!
Deacon Blues

Fun game, but I think I managed to force it into an unwinnable situation, and I don’t feel like redoing the first part of the stage. Oh well.
Cobalt

Seems to work natively with GNU/Linux as long as you have OpenGL working. Not really a good idea to have a simple platformer dependent on OpenGL, though.

Wait, this isn’t the same Bernie who made A Game with a Kitty, is it?
Switch0025

@Cobalt: “Not really a good idea to have a simple platformer dependent on OpenGL, though”

Why not?
http://lumberingdream.com/ !CE-9

this is a fun game, engaging yes, touching no.

Cobalt: I think that’s another Bernhard (also from a germanophone area), and he is on MMF/AGS. (origamihero.com, his website has no info about WIMH.)

also: why not openGL for simple platformers?
Imp

I can’t believe I forgot this game!

Gonna play right now…
Craig Stern

Oh good! An indie platformer. I’ve been waiting for one those to finally come out.
Mark

This was really frustrating, and the music is too shrill to be enjoyable.
Bowser

I managed to bug it a couple of times by accident, which was frustrating.
It’s a nice idea for a platformer but the engine isn’t really working well.
ssid

Man I really want this song!

@adamrobo:

Thanks for the tip, I had the same prob. Now I can’t get past the part where all-3 combine into the stag-rabbit.
Cobalt

@Switch0025 and !CE-9: For a platformer with no apparent special effects (blurred particles, waves, etc.) it just doesn’t make any sense. Also, for a lower end system, it would require… well, it would just require a higher end system to accomplish the same thing. Something like SDL would make more sense in this case as it can use fall-back libraries. This is just from what I’ve experienced in my game development journey.
Switch0025

@Cobalt: ah, that’s a very good point, fall-backs do make sense.
sinoth

@Cobalt: There is nothing wrong at all with using OpenGL in this day and age. Even very low-end hardware has OpenGL support, and Linux has excellent support for it.
UltimateWalrus

That multiple viewports thing is ingenious! I wish I had thought of it first!
http://bushghost.blogspot.com Bernie

Currently it’s in Java + GTGE + Phys2D + OpenGL.
So you can imagine there is a lot of overhead.

Yes! There are bugs which can get you stuck. :/
Why do you guys always have to find them! D;
Blast! I’m Working on it.

@Cobalt: I am actually thinking of porting it to SDL and making it much lighter.

The music is by a chiptune artist called ‘Shirobon!’
cm

What do you do with the rabbit, I’m stuck :(

I’ve noticed you can walk on the spikes as long as you keep jumping, but I can’t seem to do it right.
Deacon Blues

The rabbit can jump on the faint white specks that appear. Look closely.
Super anon

Played it for ten minutes or so. I love the viewport idea and the graphics, but the engine is buggy and I seriously have no idea what I’m supposed to do in this game. I can control all three guys, they can climb on top of each other and I’m apparently supposed to stomp those heart boxes. That’s as far as I get. I’ve tried reaching the top of the first three screens but it seems impossible even when standing on the other two guys’ heads. I’ll try again once I get some free time though, I’ve probably overlooked something really obvious.
http://bushghost.blogspot.com Bernie

Sorry again about those bugs.
What did they look like, exactly? Can you reproduce them? I had one bug, where the rabbit is caught with the orange and the gray character. That’s a dead-end bug. But I don’t know how to reproduce it. Any help is appreciated. ^_^
ngajoe

Oh, crap, I thought the bunny had no purpose. I jumped into the big tree without him, moving veeery slowly over the spikes with Mr. Gray on the bottom.
MikeK

Pallete is really original and cool. I would describe that background color as “yogurt” :)
http://www.roachpuppy.com IceNine

Super anon… it’s not a bug, you have to bonk that block in the top left viewport with the gray guy and then you’ll know what to do.
C-

It’s annoying to switch between characters and do most things three times. I’m guessing this has already been mentioned, but was I alt-tab’ed out of the game to check something, it wouldn’t go back to the game correctly and I had to restart.
Peevish

It’s demo version 0.3, so we can grant a little leeway, yes? I’m very fascinated to see where this goes.
cm

I just finished. It was a really sweet concept. I found a bug though, if the bunny dies just as the orange dot touches it it’ll get spat back out of the tree as a bunny but with the orange and grey guy, your game is now stuck. Also, this isn’t actually a bug, but if you get any of your guys into the goal at the end and let any of the remaining ones die then you’re stuck, since you can’t make the bunny anymore
Cobalt

@cm: I’d say that’s a bug. I’d hate to get near the end of the game and find out that I can’t finish it.
Cobalt

@Bernie: Perhaps you should have a bug post on your weblog or just an e-mail address to throw bugs at and how to recreate them… unless you already have something like that. It might be easier than going through comments.
Bowser

I got stuck in a wall the first time I played. Add a DIE button :)

And yeah, can you make a Windowed Mode option? The game crashes on Alt+Tab just like Worms World Party :/
http://bushghost.blogspot.com Bernie

@Bowser: Wow, stuck in a wall really sucks..
(*really* *really* sorry for that) :P
Yeah, this demo is really not too great for a release, I now realize. I guess I’ll be spending some time on stabilizing the whole thing.
Hopefully the next version runs more robust and hopefully then I won’t need to add this ‘DIE’ button you’re requesting.
Hahah :D

@Cobalt: Good idea. I’ll set something up for posting bugs on my site soon.. meanwhile: here’s my email:
bernhard.schulenburg at yahoo com
cm

I forgot to mention that I have a widescreen monitor and this game ignores my scaling settings (only scale proportionally), could you maybe fix this.
http://bushghost.blogspot.com Bernie

@cm: Once a character is in the tree you can make it come out again by selecting it (via ‘ONE’ ‘TWO’ or ‘THREE’) and then press ‘DOWN’.

This was a quickly programmed solution to the problem of getting stuck. (deadline was pending.)