Studio Hearts

What a downfall compared to Stormside, this is not a bad game overall, it's just a shame that Stormside has been abandonned to do this simp simulator. Good point, Atemsiel is still one of the best to do facial animations during sex.

Some of the best animations I've ever seen, with a story interesting to keep engaged and not skipping to the next scene. Only 0.2 right now, but I have high hopes. I'll definitely be cumming back to this one.

Studio Hearts (v0.2 update) is honestly a really solid visual novel so far. The story pulls you in quickly, especially the dynamic between the main character and Mila. It feels more grounded and emotional than a lot of other games in this genre, and I found myself actually interested in their conversations and where things are going. The premise focuses on a lonely London professional who develops a close relationship with a cam performer, and that connection becomes the core of the narrative. The visuals are very high quality, and the animations are smooth enough to make scenes feel alive. The phone messaging system is also a nice touch and makes the relationship feel more realistic. Version 0.2 adds a ton of new renders and animations, so there’s definitely noticeable progress compared to earlier versions.

An overall enjoyable wee game. The story is a bit thin in places but I feel that's more a necessary evil at times rather than just lack of effort. So you're a dude living in London, wee flat, no pals, crappy job, all the usual tropes and your only highlight is to simp over a cam girl from a pseudo Russian state. You're quite close with the girl to the point you know what country she lives in and what do you know, your employer is looking for someone to go there. You leave and the exchange rate from GBP is stupid so you basically get to live like a king. There's no real issue with the plot, it's convenient in places but nothing overly bad that would make you roll your eyes. Ultimately you go to the place and you get close to the girl.... except you don't... cause she's unsure for.... reasons. It's probably the only issue I have with the game. It lays out the characters very simply but it doesn't seem to want to make that step. Instead, using porn logic, the girl aims another girl at you first. She's actually kinda fun but still, it's a weird path to go down, like the dev is worried if the MC and the main LI hook up too soon the game becomes pointless. There are other mechanics at play in the game. It seems to be angling in such a way that you start your own cam studio which could be interesting but it's really too early to say. All in all, for a relatively short game it's doing well. The graphics are fine, the dialogue reads well and the cast although small is at least given screen time. There's an obvious dev favourite LI but she's not rammed down your throat at the expense of the others, as I said it's arguably the opposite but that's not an issue really. I think it would only be problematic if we get a few more updates and the girl is still dancing around the obvious

Played through this last night, thought it was firmly in the decent to good category. In non-story terms, the UI is good, though the preferences menu lacks a visual indicator that you can scroll down, I initially thought there was no way to turn the music and whatever down. I like the Character Stats and Profiles, really complain. Graphically it's.. fine. It's an average HS game, definitely prettier games, but there are certainly games that look worse. Honey Select animations always hit different though and these animations are brilliant. Not a fan of the animations where the MC lets go of someone's ass or whatever, but that's just personal preference, they look fine. Story wise it's complicated, I think some parts of the story are done really well, others less so. The introduction sets the tone really well, but pacing is all over the place. There is a three month time skip and it's just that, one second you're sat at a desk, the next you wake up in a bed in a completely different country and situation, it feels more jarring than anything. I like Mila, but her character feels a bit.. thin. The hesitation just feels like its being dragged out for the story's stakes, which it is, but it doesn't feel.. genuine for lack of a better word. I think the parts where she is considering it, or teasing are a bit too heavy handed in my opinion. Not a particular fan of the livestream mechanic either but I'm not a fan of that type of stuff in VNs, based on what we've seen so far, it's not going to be a major block for me so far.

Wow, what a downgrade. When you know that an experienced dev just delivered a new game you often tend to expect improvements as a result of the experienced gained from previous works, but this is the opposite. The characters here are ..... well, trash, unlikeable, annoying, very basic personalities and just feel like carbon copies of your average lazy AVN, like you have your camgirl because every AVN needs one of those of course, my god. The writing and the story was mediocre, honestly didnt care about anything in the game to the point I almost felt like skipping dialog, its that bad at delivering any kind of interesting content. Then there are other changes like the lack of choice, it seems things like lesbianism are going to be unavoidable in this game, when it was easily avidable in the previous one. As I said before, we are goign backwards and making everything worse. 2/5 Characters, just very uninspired cast outside of thier looks story/writing/dialog 2/5 failed to hook me, just bored me. Gameplay 1/5 kinetic so not much you can do, just watch it happen renders 3/5 theres no imprevement here either, I mean if you were just going to dumb everything down so its easy to dish out content, at least make the visuals better, since its the only thing the game would have going... well, nah, just ok HS graphs I wont be checking further updates.

Sometimes I think these erotic game developers have never dated a real girl. That's not the case here. The camgirl is very much like a real girl. The developer understands her psychology. All her actions feel absolutely understandable and appropriate. The MC is a bit beta, but with a few alpha characteristics (such as his upfront statements of what he wants, and his lack of clinginess). He is realistic too. The game, therefore, is a refreshing change from the usual fare. Our developer even knows the actual weight of hot girls (112 pounds for five foot seven ... that's the weight of a fashion model). It's a good moving story too. The camgirl scenes are a bit cramped on the screen, but this isn't an issue if you run the game on a desktop with a big screen. Is this game in the top 20% of games? Yes. So . . . five stars.

Interesting premise, good writing. Characters are nicely fleshed out and don't feel like caricatures. The art style wouldn't be my favorite but I wouldn't call it bad. My only real gripe is that I think the MC is kinda beige but I imagine that's to allow for self insert.

Honestly, at the beginning I hated the idea that the dev stopped developing his previous game to start this one, especially after I read about the premise. The camgirl thing got me all sorts of cold feet about getting invested in the story, and the first chapter did a good job at justifying my worries for the most part. I'm very glad I waited until chapter 2 was ready to give it a real shot considering the dev's excellent work in the past. The game gets really good after the prologue, and Atemsiel's signature animating style can be seen throughout both chapters, which is one of the best I've ever seen so far. Not just the dynamic, simple animations, but the loops and everything else are super fluid like in his previous game. The camgirl story is still a bit of a mixed bag to me, but I wouldn't be trying this game if I wasn't willing to look past that somewhat. There's only really 2 things I can complain about this game, and one of them got progressively better with the second chapter already, which were the renders. Mila's renders at the beginning look really rough compared to what I know the dev is capable of, and considering he admitted to putting the first chapter together in around only 1 month, I can understand why it feels like it was rushed, because it kinda was, but it did improve after that. The second thing would be the number of choices, which he said he wanted to tone down considerably for his second game, but I do think he went way overboard with them. I understand he wanted to lessen the degree of branching possible, but it just feels way too kinetic for my tastes, at least so far. Even if the main girls won't be optional, I hope we have more say in how we interact with the story in the future, but since it's only been two chapters so far, I'm willing to look past it as well for now.

I'm giving this a 4 star... Even though its a new game ( at least I just saw it. ) There is some hotness to the animations. and the story is interesting. Downsides: ( or criticisms ) A) I'm no so much into the whole text chatting based games. but while it's a part of this one it's not the main focus.. I did almost abandon it in the beginning. glad I played though to the end of C2. B) main gripe..... The MC is a SIMP all caps... No fucking way he would have these girls feeling this way. Sure they would use him as a meal ticket.. And he dose get a bit dominant once they start drinking... but in general. IN RL>. if you are too nice to a girl or to sweet.. it dumps you deep in the "Friend Zone" and if you have money and spoil her anyway.. you become a resource. IT would be great if the MC was less SIMPY.... He can still be nice and respectful.. But he needs to stand up for himself and be more forth right with what he wants. Too many games, movies and stories teach young men that the way to a girls heart is by spoiling her and kissing her ass. and that in general has the opposite affect... took me freaking years of my life to figure that out. OK>.. so putting the super-simp personality of the MC aside. The game and story are great. I even like the rendering style.. not sure what engine it is.. not-daz.. and I really enjoyed the truth or dare game.. Looking forward to chapter 3... depending on how that goes I may add this to my supported games list.

The latest update should put the entire VN fandom on notice; it's that good. While the original storyline may have not appealed to some, the current trajectory appears to have triumphantly roared ahead. The unique animations in this make it a must play.

decently nice looking girls, especially the new Addition in 0.2 it has a lot of great, unique animations, specially the sexual ones. i've never seen a game with such a long continious story driven sexual tease. it has 10 rounds of a truth or dare game in succession, each of their own would be longer than most sex scenes, each round getting naughtier, and you even got the finale with the new girl at the end. For everyone interested in a sexual storytelling with visuals, this game is for you. if you have some kind of erictile disfuntionality orare not interested in anything sexual... avoid it. Because, you can't skip the sexual stuff happening in 0.2 (it would reduce the whole chapter to less than 10%)

(it's pretty damn good for the initial release so the lower rating doesn't make sense imo.) - Story/plot: 3.9/5 -it's short because it's the first release but even then the story is pretty fluid in concept so far with good pacing. This is my score for it for now. The cliffhanger dropping an antagonist with an unhealthy parasocial obsession (enter the yandere stalker) while MC is the less common positive parasocial relationship opens the door for pretty heavy plot in the next update and I'm here for it. - gameplay: 3.9/5 -so far it runs like any other AVN but with a pretty interesting interactive gimmick. There aren't any definitive actions as for now as it feels kinetic but i assume that will change in the next update from what I've read from the dev. - Characters: 4/5 we've only been introduce to a few characters with the MC and the main Li driving the story. The supporting characters feel very plausibe and well written as of v 0.1.1 with the antagonist being realistic as far as negative parasocial relationships go. - Art/visuals: 4/5 -setting art is pretty nice and doesn't take away or standout from the story/characters but accentuate them.The characters are simple but seem very visually likable. The lewd scenes are as captivating as they are realistic (tho they are few for now the dev promised a hefty amount for the next update.) - Writing: 4/5 -dialogue and character interactions are what i feel i like most if not 2nd in the game so far. The character dialogue is tangible and believable giving depth and character building momentum. If dev builds on this momentum i feel like this one will come out as gold in the end, but we'll have to wait and see for now.

It's just starting out so it is fairly short, but it's pretty good. No idea why it's rated this low. Good graphics, good animations, good characters. Not tall tastes for a variety of reasons, but no game is.

Initially, this is a story about a Londoner (the MC) in a very well-paying job, and a camgirl in an obscure Russian-speaking country. The guy has no time for a real private life, so he spends a lot of time on the cam site, and especially with that camgirl. Two years before the story, when she was still working for a camgirl studio, she was in a difficult place and he gave her comfort. As a result, the two have a bit of an online friendship, and he is the only one who knows where she lives. For some reason, the MC gets a chance to move to the camgirl's country to work there, still in his old job for his old company, and with the same pay -- which makes him super-rich in her country. Despite all the wish-fulfillment expected and required for this kind of AVN, it is so far all treated quite realistically. So far we are getting the same excellent writing and visual style as in Stormside, the same author's abandoned first game, only this time linear and with a totally different setting. There is a lot of whining here by guys who loved the earlier game's setting and are disappointed with this one, or have other issues with the author's decision to move on from a project with an unrealistic amount of branching to a linear one. But taken on its own, this isn't just the start of five-star game: This first release with no sex is already a five-star game itself.

See ( Pemoj , FutaFred ) reviews on the game for more detailed reasons for lower stars. Or see ( DeanNoriko ) for pros and cons, and if you dont care about kinetic games with unavoidable fetishes or a female dom/simp MC. I enjoyed his other game more because it has choices and the story was interesting, but he made too many branches and girls to keep track and he got bored. This game, wow, MC just a Simp to a camgirl he has a crush on, and is told not to talk or interact with her until she allows it. MC moves to her city while still holding a good job, but he's single, has no friends, and is a loner. She contacts him asking for help because her so-called cam friends can't help her. So our simple MC invites her to his place. He pays for her things and lets her stay with him. She doesn't want a relationship but sees MC as a money man, and she will most likely invite her other Cam girl friends to be with her and MC. In the future updates, she and her friends will start like MC and start a cam show with him just because he has a dick, and push over. Plus, with Dev adding unavoidable lesbian content in future updates. MC will be a good simp and accept it, and will love watching girls go at it while sitting on the sidelines until he's invited. The first game of Dev was a promising start, with MC in the military, smart, friends, and wasnt a beta. Now this game dev did complete one 180 with MC being a loser, controlled by a cam girl, female dom. renders a decent impression; girls are fine, except for their personality and background. Unless the future updates or rework, I dont see MC being the dominant type in this harem kinetic game.

Yeah, this ain't it.... While the overall story is of course still in a pretty early stage, and the overall setting is at least somewhat less common in this genre, the characters (especially the MC) do not stand out in any positive way. In addition to that: At such an early stage, a good story needs a hook, that motivates you to follow the story, to see what happens next. And while I can see what the hook is supposed to be here, it simply does not catch me at all. This might be a very subjective thing, but so far, I simply do not really care about neither the plot nor the characters that much. The developer is REALLY talented when it comes to animations (as was already shown in their previous game) and they are quite well done here as well. However, beyond that, the game simply does not look good. While there is a lack of polish and a severe problem with the general quality on the models and some textures, this does also extend to other parts of the visuals as well: A lot of the overall playtime is spend in webcam and chat windows, and while they are functional, and look like they could actually appear on a low-budget website, they are not visually attractive for a game like this. I also felt almost flashbanged at least once, going from a darker screen to the very white "web interface".... I try to evaluate every game for itself, and not let comparisons to other games of the same developer or in the same genre bias my judgement too much, but that is really, really hard in this case: Stormside might have been much too wide in scope and scale and I do not wish anyone to engage with a project that leaves them burned out and exhausted. But beyond scaling down, this game feels an overall thinned down experience in every aspect, so much so that it is hard for me to justify the time to play it in any capacity. Stormside was set in a quite often used, almost tropey, setting, but was made unique by so many things (characters, details on how the plot was implemented, choices, scenes). This game has a more unique setting, but almost all aspects in how the game was realized feel more bland, uninteresting and in certain cases even rushed. If I did not see the developer name in the thread, I doubt I would be able to pick this game out of a lineup, and I fear it might just drown in the enormous ocean of forgettable games in this site. It feels that in an effort to work on a more realistic, approachable project, the developer lost sight of their unique strengths, and settled for unremarkable mediocrity at best....

Tl:dr : Realistic characters try to deal with an awkward scenario in a mature way, in an entertaining story, feat. ( Borat voice ) bobs and vagene, very nice. I will be honest, before deciding to give this game a try, I was skeptical . First of all, the average rating was slightly below my usual threshold for games on this site. I'm also not a huge fan of Honey Select models, especially if they are to portray Non-Asian races. There were complaints about the dev's integrity and reliability in the reviews and in the thread too. Finally, this is the very first release, which I usually avoid anyway, due to the lack of substantial content and lack of proper reviews. But that is when I realised that I played the dev's previous game, Stormside, which I enjoyed very much, not having noticed until now that it was abandoned. Obviously, it's not a good sign when a dev abandons a promising project this far into its development for a new project. The initial complaints and skepticism seemed valid. Until I read the dev's explanation and project plan for Studio Hearts from his Patron, that was luckily shared on f95 in the Stormside thread (which is also pasted in the Developer Notes, I just noticed. Oh well). This and the excellent and very fair and nuanced reviews from some of the smarter people on here , have finally convinced me to give it a go anyway. Let me just tell you that I did not regret that decision. Other users have already summed up the game pretty well, and as I mentioned, the Developer Notes include some insides from the dev on what to expect from the game, so I don't intend to dwell too much on those general aspects. I just wish to address a few things that have been discussed in the reviews and in the thread. "The MC is a simp. Yuck!" Is he though? To be fair, I understand where commenters are coming from. His behaviour is a little cringe and he definitely gives off an introverted loner vibe. However, I find his character to be refreshingly authentic . He is in no ways a hardcore simp that mindlessly and submissively allows for a stranger to use him, i.e. financially abuse his naivety. Does the relationship between MC and the cam girl seem natural? No. Is it supposed to? Also no. The dev makes a very good attempt at letting the player feel the awkwardness of the whole situation, as other reviewers already said. Both characters are aware that their connection is very much based on a conflict of interest, on an unbalanced scale between, essentially, a customer and a service provider . He is supposed to simply jerk it because she is hot, and she is supposed to like him for the financial support. But is this really all? Could there ever be more to it? The game offers a very ambitious and unique scenario by providing an opportunity for this fantasy to play out: The viewer gets to romance the cam girl. Now I understand that at this point a lot of people will roll their eyes at this. "'To romance', he says, ha!" . While many will feel this approach is the epitome of simp behaviour , of a typical cuck or whatever, since she is a "cam whore", the dev manages to portray her believably in two different sets of light : Her "work self", the ever horny and flirty cam girl that likes to show of and entertain her viewers. And her "every day self", that is much more reserved, grounded and insecure. It becomes very clear to the player, that behind this "act", there lies a "normal" woman that is simply performing, working, doing her job. Many people seem to be unaware of the irony when they look down on such a character, when in reality, most of us are not much more than "whores", working for a "master", performing our daily dance simply to be rewarded with the opportunity to live a life of our own choice. "Shut up, simp, it's pathetic to defend a whore" , some people might think now. Fair enough. All I'm saying is that the scenario provided by the dev makes sense , the girl is making a lot more money than most of her peers by, admittedly, following a somewhat questionable profession, allowing her to step up in the world. Because if you lot were truly honest to yourselves, deep down, you know that most of you would suck your own dicks on camera every day for 6 hours if that potentially paid you 5-20 times your current salary. Anyways, enough of that. My point is that the characters are authentic . They act maturely and logically , they feel like actual humans . The writing is very competent , the dialogue feels natural and effortlessly funny at times, something that is rare within porn games that usually drift between unintelligible drivel with questionable grammar and robotic ChatGPT verbiage that sounds like aliens pretending to be humans. Visually, as mentioned in the beginning, everything is based on Honey Select models and assets. Personally, it's not my favorite style, however, the dev is brining pretty much the best out of the engine, if you ask me, similarly to his previous work Stormside. Girls look like humans and only slightly like dolls, there are some fairly natural facial expressions and the animations are smooth and nice to look at , especially the cam loops. Even the MC looks fairly normal, which I rarely see in games using HS. Ethnically, characters look relatively authentic, the dev managed to make the models look less "Asian", which is fairly difficult using the HS character creator, in my opinion. All in all, I don't see this aspect of the game as a problem at all. It might lack a little bit of the refined details from Stormside, I suppose. But it seems like the dev is keen to improve on it, it's still very much serviceable already. Gameplay wise, opinions seem to differ from player to player. Personally, I very much enjoy the dev's effort to give the player the opportunity to engage in the cam sections of the game . I'm all for immersion and it's a nice touch that you get to actively interact with chat. The phone feature works well too, the game is generally programmed competently . I always applaud devs trying to include additional code to enhance the player experience. The moderator part of the game, as engaging as it may be, does not seem to have an effect though so far. I personally would not mind if it did, as I am a fan of meaningful player interactions in such games. However, I understand that some players might be too lazy or anxious or whatever to bother with such things. Also, the dev is clear in trying to reduce any unnecessary branching and bloating of the game, which I am generally in favor of for one-man projects like this. Which brings me to my next point. "Fuck it though, I can't trust a dev who failed to deliver a finished project before!" . Fair. However, I'm opting to give the benefit of the doubt in this case. I believe the dev that he simply overburdened himself with his previous project . After all, it is not unheard of for ambitious first-time developers to get crushed underneath their own expectations and heaps of ideas and characters that snow ball into an unmanageable tangle of routes, paths and endless threads. Making mistakes is human and while I partially agree with some of the criticism in how this was handled , I am still willing to give someone a second chance if I believe they learned from the mistakes, such as in this case. However, as the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". The dev must be well aware that he is expected to deliver with this one. What is there left to say now? I wish the dev good luck in reaching his artistic goal with this project. It really is promising . I actually like this one more than Stormside , simply because it is more grounded in reality , both with the characters and the scenario. While it will most likely offer much fewer characters and story deviations , I am optimistic that the quality and consistency of this tile will benefit from the focus on what the dev really wants to portray. That being said, I implore Atemsiel to not listen to too much feedback and trust in his vision. Usually, the end product will be better by staying true to itself, rather than trying to appeal to too many different tastes and voices. Hate me for it if you will, but I give this a 5/5 as of right now, simply because I believe in the potential of this story .

0.1.1 — in short: good start, visuals could be improved, a few UI and consistency issues to iron out, solid writing as expected from Atemsiel with the occasional bits of humor that land well. He did say he recycled a lot of code from Stormside, but I’m surprised he could pack so much writing into this in a month, presumably with a good plan for where he’s going with the story. Looking at the negative reviews so far, most people are either butthurt about Atemsiel cancelling/pausing Stormside (even though they loved warning everyone that it was too ambitious and he could never finish it) or losing their shit because the game is about a camgirl and a simp (too bad they didn’t bother to read the description, they could have just played something else). If you don’t care about either and don’t mind this being mostly a kinetic novel without meaningful decisions to make (you do get a couple minor choices in this release), give it a shot. It’s an uncomfortable setting by nature—parasocial relationships have an uneven power balance, and the two main characters have vastly different incomes and one becoming dependent on the other exacerbates that—but I think it’s interesting that Atemsiel decided to explore that and I like that he’s doing it in a mature way instead of making everything the characters do hinge on delivering porn to the player. The setting is sexual by nature, but the characters aren’t driven by the need to meet a sex scene quota. Each protagonist has conflicts of interest in their interactions with the other, so there’s always this odd imbalance of trying to be respectful of each other while pursuing their own selfish wants and needs. The guy treats the camgirl like a person and is careful not to be a creep in spite of their context, but doesn’t pretend he wouldn’t love to get in her pants if the stars align. The girl develops actual feelings for the guy beyond being a client, but acknowledges that he could single-handedly lift her out of poverty and struggles with the sugar daddy vs. friend barrier. It makes you cringe in many ways, but it also feels very human, because they’re basically aware of what makes this weird. Quite the oddball of a game, and at this stage I’m more curious to see where Atemsiel goes with this than interested in the porn. The third character is going to make things even more awkward, and it kind of feels like she’s going to cockblock both of the main characters in a sense. This really isn’t going to be a straightforward, happy fap-along story, is it? P.S. As for the chat moderation mechanic, I’ve been a Twitch mod and the last thing I want in a game is to have to moderate fake comments made by fictional people. I’d rather that happen automatically rather than have to click back and forth between the main chat and PMs, if it has to be part of the story. For now, it doesn’t look you have to engage with that mechanic at all if you don’t want to, so I won’t dock a point for it.

There are already a lot of comments describing the game, so I'll talk about what stood out to me most, whether positive or negative. Graphically, I can't say there's an improvement over the developer's previous game. I think Mila's friend's face is very strange ; the characters' hair looks like some kind of cutout. The animations during the cam broadcasts are very good. I like the loop of Mila shaking her hips on camera. The problem with limiting the player's choices and making the game practically kinetic is that the MC acts in a way that many players wouldn't if they were given options... In this case, making the MC a simp. The MC travels the world to be closer to the girl. He's the only one who answers her call when she needs it most, and none of her "friends" answer. He gives her money without any conditions. She goes to the MC's luxurious apartment... (and they sleep together without the MC doing anything indecent to her). pays for a week's worth of expenses when the girl loses her purse, only to have her say in the end that she doesn't completely trust him to the point of not being able to invite him over to her house? She seems like a very insecure girl to me... And one of the reasons is that her best friend keeps saying that you can't trust people on the internet, only to ironically become interested in the MC as well once she finds out about his money. what if players can refuse something? no... just watch.. It's a bit of an extreme measure to make the game so kinetic... could have made it simpler... but not so kinetic as to make the MC a simp... And just for the record... I like the idea of Li being a camgirl... as long as the MC isn't used... or a simp. I like having a popular Li... who wouldn't want a famous girlfriend? But they could let the player develop the relationship. The game starts with the MC and Li knowing each other for 3 years... while the player isn't even attached to Li yet. After some of Li's insecurity crises, where I, as the MC, would have preferred to keep quiet and let Li chase after me... the MC rushed to give her tons of money, and now there are two Gold Diggers. In terms of story... it's practically non-existent... the MC moves "for work" to another country, but no kind of climax happens... in the long run, I can't see a story without such a goal keeping me going. edit: If Mila follows the psychiatrist's advice, she will become the monster she was afraid of all along, which would be very hypocritical of her... and would make me lose interest in the main LI completely.