Erik Svedang Unveils ‘else { Heart.break }’

Game developer at large, Erik Svedang, has taken to his personal blog to detail his upcoming adventure game else { Heart.break }. Intrigued? You should be.

A lot of information can be contained within a name, though else { Heart.break } may just confuse you, then leave you pondering your own existence (at the very worse, that’s all we’re saying). Svedang is the type of developer whose games catch your eye, make you think and win awards; we’re thinking else { Heart.break } is following that trend.

else { Heart.break } is said to be an adventure game of sorts, one that will toy with a range of your emotions while it makes your brain do backflips. Unlike most futuristic sci-fi, computers are held in the same position as a deity – worshipped and relied upon. Perhaps predictably then, the game focuses on the idea of hacking. In true post-millennial form, this hacking goes further than simply being able to alter the state of a computer program, but further into the reality of the game.

This is not nearly enough for Svedang and the rest of the five man team though – what if the player can learn to hack beyond the limitations set inside the game by its designer? It’s a brain numbing thought and one that is obviously taking a long time to explore and develop – else { Heart.break } has been in development for over two years now and at least another year is predicted before the game will be finished.

Here’s a more cohesive summary of the game from Svedang:

“else { Heart.break } is a game about being able to change reality. It is set in a mysterious world made up of computers and their code; a place where bits have replaced atoms. The player – who is assumed to have no previous knowledge about programming – gets access to the code and is taught by other characters how to modify it. As the story unfolds the possibilities of what can be reprogrammed, hacked and controlled increases greatly. Eventually the inner parts of the gameplay code are revealed and the barrier between our own world and the game starts to dissolve.”

Svedang hopes that the development team will be able to share more information, ideas and demos in the future. For now, you’ll have to make do with what Svedang has laid out in his post.