Scarred By Heaven
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About The Game

Scarred By Heaven is an upcoming beat-em-up/visual novel aiming to combine fast-paced 2D brawling with a compelling otherworldly murder mystery and a character-focused narrative.

The game is planned to be released for free when finished, and is currently being solo-developed as a passion project by me. :)

An in-game screenshot, showing Sakiko standing in an open city plaza in the evening. In the background, buildings labeled 'Radiance Cinema' and 'ZR-EX Arcade' can be seen. Faceless, semi-transparent NPCs can be seen walking around in the background. An in-game screenshot, showing a cutscene in which Sakiko is standing in a garage, talking to a tall woman. A textbox on screen shows a portrait of Sakiko, as well as her full name 'Sakiko Mizukawa', showing her speaking the dialogue 'No, I'm fine. This is more than I could have asked for...
An in-game screenshot, showing a player controlling Saki in a combat encounter against three human enemies in an empty room. Saki is attacking one of the enemies using her knee. A UI element showing the player's HP and SP bars is shown in the top left corner, next to a decorative butterfly icon that has a glowing scar over it's left wing. An in-game screenshot, showing a combat encounter in which Saki is fighting two faceless humanoid creatures, with lanky proportions and blade replacing one of their arms. They are standing in a city street, covered in a heavy red fog. One of the creatures has their blade arm raised for an attack, with a red exclamation mark above their head.
Story A pixel art portrait of Sakiko, a young woman with long pink hair, a muscular physique, and discolored scar over her right eye. She's wearing a sleeveless black crop top with pink trimming around the edges, with a black and pink brooch of a butterfly on the collar, and has some visible freckles on her arms and shoulders. She has a neutral but stern expression.

For the past year, the coastal city of Jadewater has been plagued by a string of grisly murders, with the bodies of five unrelated victims left lying lifeless in the city streets, completely drained of blood.

Sakiko, a young delinquent recently kicked out of her childhood home following her eighteenth birthday, arrives in town one night by pure happenstance. However, she soon finds herself at the center of the city's paranormal mystery.

After a seemingly ordinary street fight takes a bizarre twist, Saki awakens to a strange supernatural power that's connected to a new, discolored scar over her eye. It isn't long after this that she also discovers an alternate dimension containing a fog-covered, hollow replica of the town, and realizes that the cause of the murders may not be entirely of this world.

However, Saki also soon realizes that she's not the only person to have obtained one of these 'marks', and that many others, both friend and foe, have their own unique powers, as well as their own agendas...

Follow Saki's journey as she fights her way to the truth, all while struggling to come to terms with her identity and the newfound independence granted to her by adulthood.

An in-game screenshot, showing a chat log between three characters named Sakiko, TheOnlyOne, and aafhkg inside of a cracked phone. The conversation mis partially cut off by the borders of the phone screen. Each speaker's name is color coded, with Sakiko's being pink, TheOnlyOne's being green, and aafhkg's being blue. The visible conversation reads: aafhkg: and i think she only goes to the other world to fight the phantoms on purpose? | TheOnlyOne: ????? | aafhkg: i guess it is pretty suspicious | TheOnlyOne: SUPER SUSPICIOUS dude!!! | TheOnlyOne: Who the hell would do that??? | Sakiko: Shouldn't we try to look for her? She has to know something | aafhkg: i've tried ! trust me haha An in-game screenshot, showing a cutscene in which Sakiko and a young man are standing in a city street heavily covered in red and purple fog with their backs facing the camera. A text box on screen shows a portrait of Yuri Anastas, a young man wearing a green jacket and green shirt with a circular band logo on it. He has maroon hair, and a haircut with a closely shaved right side and longer left side. The text box shows him speaking the dialogue 'S-So this is just... how it looks?'. He has a neutral expression.
Combat

A pixel art animation of Sakiko's in-game idle combat stance. Her full body is visible, showing her wearing two overlapping belts around her stomach, a black and pink striped belt around her pants, dark grey bell bottom pants, and black dress shoes.Scarred By Heaven aims to feature a modern and unique 2D beat-em-up combat system, focused on aggressive, fast-paced brawling and racking up brutal and stylish combos--inspired by action games like 'Guilty Gear' and 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice'.

Use an ever-growing moveset of light attacks, heavy attacks, and grabs to unleash powerful combos on your enemies. Beat down on airborne enemies freely by 'juggling' them, and deal extra damage by launching them into objects, or even other enemies. All the while, build up a high combo damage multiplier by combining a wide variety of different attacks and maneuvers into your fighting style--you can even use weapons you find in the environment!

A pixel art animation of Sakiko performing her in-game parries, showing her moving her hands in a deflective motion while leaving a glowing pink trail behind.Perfect Blocks are your primary form of defense. Performed by guarding right before an enemy attack hits, Saki's power allows her to rob enemy attacks of all their momentum and repel blades and blows with only her hands! By timing your blocks correctly, you can get through any attack unscathed and stay on the offense at all times!

By attacking your foes and perfect blocking their attacks, you also build up Spirit (SP) which you can spend to unleash powerful attacks and perform special abilities, such as an evasive dodge that can preemptively cancel your attacks. Not spending it is also an option, as a full bar of SP will allow your attacks to 'leech' HP from your opponents to restore your own!

Scarred By Heaven aims to provide a wide variety of enemies. Go to hand-to-hand with gangs of local thugs in the real city, and monstrous 'phantoms' in the otherworld. Between it all, have 1-on-1 battles with others who've been granted powers in unique boss fights that pitch your abilities against their's. Memorize their attacks and get a feel for how they fight to come out on top!

An in-game screenshot of showing a combat encounter in which Saki is fighting six human enemies in a street. She's kicking two of them towards the right edge of the screen. An in-game screenshot of showing an overworld cutscene in which Saki is standing on the same street, speaking to a group of three men. A text box on screen shows her speaking the dialogue 'Did you drag this guy here just to make him clean up after you?'
An in-game screenshot showing a boss fight against an opponent named Leon King, with his name, health and posture bar shown at the bottom of the screen. Saki is shown hitting him with a metal bat, with a UI element on the left of the screen indicating the weapon's name and durability. A purple bar and spinning stars above Leon's head indicate that he's currently stunned.' An in-game screenshot showing a boss fight against an opponent named Livio Rosanna in a city street. He is shown directing a blue chain from his hand into the ground, causing it to emerge from the ground underneath Saki, which she has narrowly avoided by dodging backwards.

The game will also feature a robust set of difficulty modifiers, allowing you to pick from a selection of setting presets, as well as customize and fine tune details about the game like enemy damage, enemy health, the leniency of parry timing, and more.

The City A pixel art animation of Sakiko standing above and staring at a horseshoe crab.

The strongest warriors know what they're fighting to protect.

Outside of combat, Saki can explore the city of Jadewater--a small but content rich sandbox inspired by games like the 'Like A Dragon' series. Go shopping, help the locals out in unique side-stories, go fishing at the beach, practice fighting games at the arcade, or catch a movie with a friend--there's no shortage of distractions!

You'll earn small amounts of XP from exploring (as you also do from combat) that you can use to upgrade your combat abilities. There's also various other small rewards to discover that can help you become a better fighter, and further enrich Saki's life outside of combat.

An in-game screenshot showing a cutscene in which Saki is talking to a blonde woman in a city alley. Her hair is tied back in a bun, and she wears a white shirt adorned with three gold badges that depict a hand making a 'peace' symbol, a smiling face, and a music note. A text box with her portrait indicates the woman's name is Friday Parodia, and shows her speaking the dialogue 'It's nothin' personal. I'm just not cut out for that detective shit, y'know?'. She has a relaxed smirk. An in-game screenshot showing Saki standing in front of the building labeled ZR-EX Arcade, looking at a capsule toy machine. A text box on the screen without a portrait indicates that she's thinking to herself, showing the text '(It's one of those capsule toy machines...)
An in-game screenshot showing a menu for a restaurant named 'Black Slate Grill' in which a player can order food. Several items are listed, with a name, price, HP bonus, and XP bonus. The item currently highlighted is a 'Chicken Skewer', with the box on the right side of the list showing the text 'The 'iconic Black Slate teriyaki chicken skewer'. It's the only thing I can afford here...'. Below in green text the box says 'Restores 80 HP', and further below in purple text, says 'BONUS XP: 30'. An in-game screenshot showing Saki standing in a small garage next to a sofa, washing machine, and bag. She's wearing an outfit different to her usual attire, with a black sleeveless shirt, grey sweat pants, and white socks. Above the sofa is a pink arrow and text indicating the player can interact with it. The text reads 'Try to relax...?'.
Content Warnings

While I would not consider Scarred By Heaven to be a particularly 'dark' story overall, it does explore many heavy and potentially upsetting subjects as an integral part of the plot, characters, and themes. You can view a full list of current content warnings for the game here.

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