#malloart

In Heart Heist your stats are also dating preferences, arranged in three pairs of opposing aesthetics. While your score in a stat is fixed, your Appearance in a stat can shift. Work with your fellow thieves on a heist, while competing to suit the tastes of your beloved monster patron!

Goth vs Prep

Goth

Thieves use their Goth stat to fade into the shadows, hiding yourself or making yourself seem more menacing. Goth can also be used to conceal something about yourself, to overwhelm someone with your angst, or to radicalize someone against The Man™.

Prep

Thieves use their Prep stat to fit in or convince someone you belong, allowing you to hide in plain sight. Prep can also be used to make yourself seem more approachable, more likeable, or more important.

In which I gush about what excited me about making Heart Heist and why I think you'll enjoy it.

Part 2: Your Stats are also Dating Preferences

In Heart Heist, your stats are more about a vibe, reputation, or aesthetic than your thief's physical or mental characteristics. This led to two interesting developments:

One of the most common pieces of feedback from playtesters has been praise for how open character creation is. If you want to be an elf, a cyborg, a furry, a half-demon-half-vampire... go for it! As long as you maintain a fair and level playing field with the other thieves, you can be whatever and whoever you want.

Your stats are not prescriptions to your character's body. There are many different ways to be a jock, to be goth, etc. A thief who is a sumo wrestler might have the same Thicc score as a gaunt zombie thief, because both have a reputation for being able to withstand a great deal of adversity and get back up again.

During the heist, you're also trying to puzzle out your monstrous patron's dating preferences. While your scores in each stat stay the same, your Apperance in each stat can change over the course of the heist - bringing you closer or further away from suiting your beloved patron's tastes. Your stats are arranged in pairs of opposing aesthetics: Jock vs Nerd, Goth vs Prep, and Thicc vs Lithe. When your Appearance in one stat goes up, its opposite goes down.

Obviously in real life these traits aren't opposed axes - we each contain multitudes - but I'd argue that any game that tries to represent the human experience as a handful of stats is inherently reductive. So I just decided to lean into it for some tropey, genre fun. And the genre is part science-fantasy heist, and part dating competition!

Another aspect of this stat system I really enjoy is how it impacts stealth. Obviously stealth is important in a game revolving around heists, and in Heart Heist, every thief is good at it in one way or another. A heist-focused game cares about the way your thief tries to sneak around:

One aspect of Goth allows you to blend into the shadows, helping you move about unseen. An aspect of Prep helps you fit in with your surroundings, allowing you to hide in plain sight. And because they are an opposed pair, you'll either be particularly good at one, or decently average at both.

Heart Heist soft-launches via zine this Halloween!

“If you have the energy to be toxic, then motivate me to make something!”