Studio Hearts is a Ren'Py visual novel by Atemsiel, using animated 3D rendered art. You play Marcus, optionally renamed, a thirty-year-old capital raising associate in London. His work leaves little personal time, and three years before the story he becomes close to Mila, a twenty-two-year-old camgirl whose name can also be changed. Her solo camming since her early adulthood has shaped her goals, friendships, and personality. She eventually reveals her real location to Marcus: Kharzovya, a fictional Russian-speaking country whose relationship culture differs from his expectations. The story starts when a job opportunity may move him away from London. Themes include corruption, voyeurism, and male domination.
Development is ongoing with v0.5.2 released August 31, 2026. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac, in English, uncensored. The update adds 1,559 renders, 173 animations, and five gallery scenes. It also adds full translation support for players, though it is untested and may have gaps. Fixes include a glossary bug, a black background to hide transparency grid snippets, and other unspecified bugs and typos.
Developer's description
In Studio Hearts, you play as Marcus (Or a custom name),
a 30 year old Capital Raising Associate living and working in London.
He doesn't get too much time for a personal life as a result of work,
and approximately three years before the start of the story,
he finds himself filling the void by talking to a camgirl, Mila, whose name can also be customised.
She's a 22 year old woman who's been solo camming since shortly after her 18th birthday,
with it subtly or not so subtly affecting almost all aspects of her life.
Her goals, friendships, and even her personality have all been influenced by her work.
Spoiler
Over time, she becomes closer to Marcus than any of her other viewers. Close enough to reveal her real location, which she usually keeps secret for her own safety. She lives in the fictional Russian speaking country of Kharzovya, which whilst western in many ways, is also very culturally distinct from what Marcus is used to, especially with respect to how they view relationships.
One day, Marcus is a presented with a work opportunity that would have him moving out of London, and it's from there that the story begins...
v0.5.2
Added 1559 renders, 173 animations, 5 new gallery scenes.
Added "full" translation support, so now people can create translations of the game if they want. (If you decide to do this, let dev know, because this translation support hasn't been tested, and is likely to have some gaps in it)
Fixed a bug that caused the game to progress when opening the glossary.
Added a black background behind everything, so skipping through the game shouldn't show brief snippets of the transparency grid anymore. This doesn't matter at all, but I did it.
A bunch of other random bugs and typos fixed, but I can't remember the specifics.
That one about the translation stuff is important in the sense that I had to overhaul quite a lot of the behind the scenes stuff in this version. It's been tested, but one thing that might happen is that if you load a save that was made mid way through a text conversation, it's possible that at the end of that conversation it'll break the game. You'll know it's happened because the conversation will refuse to leave the screen. There's no fix for that other than loading a save which isn't mid text conversation. Similarly, if you load a save that was made just after a text conversation, it's best if you don't roll back into that conversation, since it won't work properly.Other than that though, we're all good. Here's the release schedule since I don't know how many people will remember that I changed the way that works recently.
Royalty tier:
Today!
Diamond tier:
August 31st
Gold tier:
September 2nd
Silver tier:
September 9th
Bronze tier:
September 14th
Public:
September 16th
v0.4.4
Added Oliver (MC's work friend) to LifeLens. Canonically, his page should've been accessible from the start.
Fixed a bunch of typos.
The LifeLens profile list is now in alphabetical order.
The logo on the main menu now opens the scene gallery.
Added a back button to LifeLens.
v0.3
This update takes you through days 8 and 9, though despite it being two days instead of one, this one is a smaller update than 0.2 was, sitting at something like 500 renders and 45 animations. Next update should be larger to compensate for that. Full changelog can be found within the game itself.
v0.2
Added 2753 renders, 192 animations (Give or take a couple. My method of keeping track of this is a bit shitty)
Added "The lady list" which is basically a character information screen that will include all relevant female characters, as opposed to the stats screen, which will only include the primary love interests. (Just realised in the actual release, I typo'd "interests" in the changelog. I'm not gonna upload a whole new version for that though lmao)
Added an in game mouse cursor, as well as the option to enable or disable it. It's not working completely perfectly though, so this feature may be removed or reworked in a future update.
Converted a bunch of things from ATL animations to videos with alpha. This hopefully won't be noticeable, and should basically just improve performance a little in certain places, and reduce the overall filesize.
Made it so that now when you enter the pause menu, it applies a low pass filter to the audio. I personally find this kinda cosy.
Fixed an issue where a custom named Mila would still just be called Mila in the stat update notification thing.
Changed the first meeting with Mila from the intro, so you now have the option to play through all the texts that occur during the three month timeskip, get a brief summary, or just continue playing. You can still read the texts any time, but now you have this additional option, which will hopefully reduce the number of players fully missing the context for why MC and Mila weren't talking during that time.
Changed the default character name from Marcus to Mark, simply because the default name ultimately doesn't matter, and when I called him "Marcus Ashford", I somehow didn't remember that there's a football player called Marcus Rashford. By changing it early on, I'll hopefully avoid having to answer the question of whether that was intentional too many times. It was not, I'm just dumb.
Replaced a few renders and an animation near the start of the game to properly reflect MC's body as it is in this update. I don't remember exactly why I decided to make him a hairy dude when I was making 0.1, but I decided it would be easier for the narrative if he were a little more toned, and a little less fluffy. Body hair isn't so fashionable in Kharzovya lol.
Made a bunch of minor changes to existing dialogue from 0.1, and a few more significant changes to the therapist scene to get it closer to what it hopefully would've been were the initial version made over a longer period of time.
Numerous other minor changes not worth mentioning. (Stuff like slight text size adjustments, etc)
v0.1.2
fixes a couple more typos and adds stuff like discord links
v0.1.1
Initial Release
At present, only two of the main characters are introduced. I expect with the main characters it'll stay this way for a few updates, as these two are like the MAIN main characters.
There's also only one gallery scene, simply because I was kinda scrambling to throw it all together in a month. The next update should remedy this issue though, since this 0.1 is just to set things up. Once I get the Stormside content released finally, the next SH update should show that just like Stormside, this game is porn first, story second.
850ish renders, 75 animations/videos, no idea how many lines of code or dialogue lines. It probably takes 1-2 hours to play through, but I haven't actually played through it at a normal pace, so I'm not actually sure how long it is. (I played after work yesterday for testing, but I'd stop frequently to rework dialogue lines and stuff like that, so it took far longer than I expect it'd take a normal player.)
Player reviews
Player rating4.5 / 5 · 20 ratings
Written reviews20 · avg 4.0★
Positive (4–5★)70%
Latest review2026-03-30
What players say
Most players enjoy the animations and story, while some criticize the passive main character and thin early writing.
5★10
4★4
3★3
2★2
1★1
Players like
Strong facial and sexual animations
Engaging story with solid writing
Characters feel realistic and emotionally grounded
Common complaints
The main character feels passive and annoying
Thin story or weak early hook
Average visuals or odd character faces
Best for players who enjoy adult visual novels with strong animations and grounded relationship writing.
Summarised from 20 written player reviews.
Seratna2026-03-30★★★★★
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…
Nitesco2026-03-11★★★★★
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.
OG-Outlaw2026-02-17★★★★★
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…