When the Steam New Product Festival kicked off on October 13, countless players quietly added a familiar name to their wish lists: the latest game from the "OPUS" series, "Heart to My Life".This independent game series, known for "healing people's hearts with stories", has received "crying through" reviews from players around the world for its works such as "Dragon Pulse" and "Bridge of Souls". The Steam page still has a "special praise" label, and this new game jointly created with Shueisha quickly sparked discussions after the trial version was launched. The comment area was full of cries of "can't wait for the full version".
From Space to the Mountains: A Photographic Adventure with Evolved Gameplay
Players who have played the previous games in the series know that SIGONO is good at using a unique system to carry the emotional core - the space telescope and rocket launch gameplay of the previous games are moving."My Heart" takes this design to a new level: photography is no longer an auxiliary function, but the only key to solving the puzzle.
In the demo, you need to adjust the aperture, shutter and focus of the ancient camera by yourself to capture the picture that the "god" desires.For example, take a moonlight silhouette of the fox god hiding in the fog, or record the moment of morning dew dripping for the deer god guarding the forest.These shooting needs have hidden metaphors, as mpi said when creating the insert song "Mountain": "The moment when the shutter is pressed, it is also the moment when the protagonist talks to himself."Compared with the relatively simple interactive mode of the previous game, this photography mechanism that requires "careful observation" makes every shot an emotional precipitation.
Real nostalgia under the magical shell
SIGONO’s narrative never disappoints.The protagonist, Chen Yoo Ren, is a middle-aged man who escaped from the city and accidentally broke into the fantasy world of "Dead Land", where humans have long been extinct and animals have turned into "gods" who rely on photography to survive.This magical setting is wrapped in the most real emotions: when the protagonist walks with the amnesiac girl, piecing together the memory fragments on the way home, those regrets and obsessions about hometown and family can easily resonate with core players aged 20-35.In the demo version, the yellowed old photos in the protagonist's backpack and the flashbacks of childhood moments when talking to the girl have become key clues for players to guess the plot.
Some players are already discussing: "The girl always said, 'I seem to have seen you somewhere.' Maybe she is the person the protagonist did not say goodbye to when he left his hometown?" "Does the 'moonlight silhouette' that the Fox God wants correspond to the bamboo forest where the protagonist's father often went when he was alive?" Some people have speculated based on the previous game: ""Heart to My Life" may share the world view with "Dragon Vein Long Song", and maybe the 'Dead Land' is the secret place where ancient people avoided disasters."These reasonable guesses made the game popular before it was launched, and also confirmed SIGONO’s exquisite control of plot details.
Although the trial version has not revealed the whole story, it has laid the foundation for multiple endings: the choice of interaction with the gods will affect the favorability, and the girl's dialogue branches also hide the plot direction.This kind of "weighted choice" design is exactly the narrative mode most favored by players - no one wants to be a bystander in the story, but wants to be a participant in fate.
An immersive experience full of details
The immersion of the game is hidden in every detail: the gentle hand-painted images render the light and shadow of the mountains and forests picturesque, and the dubbing of well-known voice actors such as Zhao Yang and Meijia make the characters instantly vivid; when "Mountain" performed by the lead singer of OAU sounds, combined with the distant bells and the sound of wind in the forest, it feels like you are really in that mysterious mountain range.This high degree of integration of audio, video and plot continues the series' quality of "every frame can be used as wallpaper, and every melody can be remembered for a long time".
Conclusion: The most healing product worth trying during the New Product Festival
As of October 14, the Steam demo of the game has received a lot of positive reviews.For fans of the series, it's a long-awaited reunion; for new players, it's a chance to learn about the narrative magic of SIGONO.
The Steam New Product Festival will last until the 20th, so you might as well take this opportunity to try it out - you will understand when you take the first photo of the gods: this photography adventure takes pictures of illusory scenery, but it takes pictures of the hometown in each of our hearts.
