It's finally here! After 8 months of work, the music, UI, art, and writing is finished, and the demo for Black Heaven: A Necromantic Dating Sim is ready to download! 

The genesis of this project began a while ago, in a job interview I had with the mobile game publisher GameLoft. During the interview, the narrative team asked what I was playing right now, and I said Doki Doki Literature Club. That started an incredibly joyous and excited conversation, which is weird considering DDLC is about madness, suicide, and existential horror. For a solid couple minutes, though, all we did was gush about that game.

And that stuck with me.

I didn't get that job, but I walked away from that experience with the knowledge that  it's possible for a lot of people to not only tolerate delving into the heart of darkness, but walk away excited and energized by it. If you create something subtle, artful, and heartfelt, there can be something cathartic about looking inside ourselves and staring at the abyss for a while.

Black Heaven was inspired by a couple different sources, including Katawa Shoujo, Song of Saya, Bloodborne, and DDLC, but at its heart is this quote:

“The truth is always an abyss. One must — as in a swimming pool — dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again — laughing and fighting for breath — to the now doubly illuminated surface of things.”

A huge thanks to everyone who worked on this:

Character Artist Artist: Linnea Kataja (@KeikoKup)
Background Artist/CG Artist: Lim Chin Yang
GUI:Re.Alice
Programmer: BaiYu
Music Composition: Eric Gerdlund, The Embalmer, Marek Domagala, Sarcastic Sounds
Game Logo Designer: Joel Clapp
Trailer: Alex Sherman

And an equally huge thanks to all my friends who encouraged me to work on this, playtested the early versions, and gave me feedback. You're all truly wonderful. 

I hope you all enjoy the demo. Stay tuned for more to come!

- Chris Mahon, Creative Lead