Here is the store page for the game:
https://reddere-artifex.itch.io/oxidated-heart
Summary of the game (taken from the store page):
Through a series of unfortunate events, Kamil Amin is now the sole heir to his grandfather’s luxury clothing business. He is under pressure from his grandfather to inherit the business – so that it does not fall into the hands of unscrupulous investors – and to start a family, so that he has a new generation of Amin to pass the business on to. To that end, his grandfather has trapped him on his private yacht on the Sardinian coast, to spend a week with his bodyguard and three of his clothing models, pre-screened for compatibility with him.
There is just one glaring problem: Kamil has PTSD*. In his childhood, he had some traumatic experiences with female authority figures and this led to him developing gynophobia (meaning he is afraid of most women). As the story progresses, you will gradually learn about his past and how the three dates try to help him to overcome his trauma.
Trigger warnings (warning for a spoiler in here):
Although this game is not an “adult game”, insofar as it does not contain any gore, explicit sexual activity or explicit nudity (no genitalia are shown in the game), it does involve exploring the lead character’s mental health problems and how he tries to overcome them. I wanted to use a visual novel to start a conversation about mental health and male victims of domestic abuse (yes, that is a spoiler).
Meaning Behind The Game Name:
People talk about a “heart of gold”. It got me thinking: what if that gold became impure? When your jewellery becomes oxidized you take it to the jewelers for a cleaning. The dates are like goldsmiths therefore, working with Kamil to remove the gunk from his heart of gold.
To prove I am serious about making a Ren’Py game with fully animated character sprites, here is an example:
At the following Deviantart URL you can see a short video showing animation working within Ren’Py (even though the form here says it takes MP4 files of less than 4MB, I appear to be unable to place it inline, so I must provide this URL):
Video showing animation working in Ren’Py
Example screenshot from the game:
Source: itch.io