By 2099, global warming has transformed Earth into a Single-Biome Planet where it is always raining, and the environment has been destroyed. People are forced to eat flavored foam because animals cannot be raised and crops cannot be cultivated.
Luke Black is a successful programmer and bioengineer for Nanotech in London. Apart from his stellar programming skills and relative wealth, Luke is an average guy experiencing relationship problems with Helen, his fiancé, while trying to maintain his friendship with Tom, his best friend.
One night, an android named Tanya arrives at Luke’s apartment and demands to be let in. Tanya is on the run from her creators and the police, and needs Luke’s help in discovering why she possesses memories from the early 21st century. Around the same time, Luke is offered a top secret position at his company to work in the laboratory developing parts for androids.
Bionic Heart is a Science Fiction Visual Novel created in Ren'Py by Tycoon Games/Winter Wolves, fully voiced with 24 endings. Download the demo or purchase it here
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A sequel has been released as of April 14, 2013.
This Visual Novel contains examples of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: At the very start of the game, Tanya has rebelled against her creators and escaped from the lab where she was created. As you continue playing, there are plenty of endings where Tanya will do objectionable things, such as kidnap Luke, kill him, or murder Helen out of jealousy.
- Amnesiac Dissonance: Tanya learns that she was a serial killer in her past life, leading to a Heroic BSoD.
- Artificial Human: Tanya has a metal skeleton, but she has artificial organs identical to a human’s. They don’t function, however. But Tanya does have a working human brain that are the cause of her memories.
- Big Bad: Richard, CEO of Nanotech, who’s out to capture Tanya.
- Cerebus Syndrome: While the first installment was pretty serious, it was ultimately also pretty personal. The second installment is loaded with deadly high-stakes action from the start, and could potentially decide the fate of all life on Earth.
- Corporate Conspiracy: The MegaCorp Nanotech, under the orders of their CEO Richard, uses nanotechnology to illegally manufacture androids, placing the brains of people in the android bodies to do Richard's bidding.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Richard, the CEO of Nanotech, bribes the police into pursuing Tanya as a fugitive, illegally manufactures androids, and preserves people’s bodies so that he may place their brains into android bodies to do his bidding.
- Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain: It is always dark and raining everywhere.
- Do Androids Dream?: Luke struggles with the fact that Tanya seems to feel and express emotions just as any human would.
- The Dragon: Julia acts as one to Richard, rivaling Tanya in combat. True to form, she has a Heel–Face Turn in one ending where she realizes his actions will create a Crapsack World.
- Flying Car: Luke has a hovercar.
- Future Food Is Artificial: Almost everyone is a vegetarian in the future because the constant rain and lack of sunlight makes it impossible to raise livestock and difficult to grow fresh crops. People typically eat a sort of flavored foam instead of real food.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Tom gives Luke up to Nanotech if you choose to tell him the truth about Tanya.
- Green-Eyed Monster: In one ending, Tanya kills Helen because she is jealous of all the time Luke spends with her.
- Heel–Face Turn: Julia turns on Richard in endings where her vision reveals that Richard’s actions will devastate the world.
- Heroic BSoD: Tanya snaps when she discovers that she was a serial killer.
- Heroic Sacrifice: After expressing regret for helping Richard, Luke decides to blow up the laboratory with him and Richard still in it.
- Love Triangle: Two different ones. The first is between Tanya, Luke and Helen. The second is between Luke, Helen and Tom.
- MegaCorp: The company Luke and Tom work for. They deal with nanotechnology, using this information to illegally build androids.
- Ms. Fanservice: Tanya and Helen both wear tight-fitting, Stripperific outfits that reveal lots of cleavage with exposed midsections. Worth mentioning is Tanya's post-Shower Scene when she walks out with nothing but her hands to cover her breasts.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: See Green-Eyed Monster above.
- Nanotechnology: Allows Tanya’s skin to completely heal within minutes even if half her face has been blown off.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Although the story is set in London, not one of the characters has an English accent.
- Only Friend: The only friend Luke seems to have at work is Tom, who is the social type trying to help Luke get out more. This makes it all the worse when Luke learns that Tom was having an affair with Helen, his girlfriend.
- People Jars: Richard has captured and preserved some of the greatest minds from the last 50 years into People Jars so that he can place their brains into android Prototypes and use them for personal gain.
- Personality Chip: Except that the personality chip in Tanya’s head is, in actuality, a human brain.
- Psychic Powers: Julia was a psychic in her past life, and has a vision of Richard’s dystopian future just in time to stop him.
- Robot Girl: Tanya and Julia.
- Robotic Reveal: Subverted. When Luke first meets Tanya, she has had half her face blown off by the police pursuing her, revealing the mechanical parts underneath her skin.
- Robotic Psychopath: If you fail to calm down Tanya after she discovers that she was a serial killer in her past life, she goes on a killing spree after having murdered Luke.
- Shout-Out: When Helen, Tom, and Luke escape to Mars, Luke’s alias is Lucas Walker.
- Single-Biome Planet: Global warming has destroyed Earth’s climate; as a result, rainclouds have blocked out the sun, and it is always raining. With the exception of Italy.
- The Mole: In the ending where Tina is captured, if you choose to free her and flee with Tanya without learning of Richard's whereabouts, it is revealed that Tina was already under Richard's control and is now his personal mole for the police.
- Tron Lines: Luke’s apartment seems to be completely made of Tron Lines.
- Unwilling Roboticisation: When you try to report Nanotech’s illegal experiments to the police, Richard arrives, captures you, and turns you into Prototype 11.
- Video Phone: Whenever Luke needs to call someone, they appear via video phone.
- Yandere/Cute and Psycho: Tanya’s feelings towards Luke drift from curiosity to obsession. There’s a point in the story where Tanya ends up in a dispute with Helen over Luke.
