Carnage Heart

Carnage Heart is a 3D turn-based strategy game released on PS1 by Artdink studio. The game is set in the future and focuses on the battles between robots. The player doesn't directly control their machines. Instead, they have to program the robots before the battle to make them behave in a certain way on the battlefield.

Mechanics

Gameplay in Carnage Heart is divided into three successive phases. The first one is based on negotiations and trade with various corporations to gain information about enemy movements and obtain additional parts for robots. These are called OverKill Engines - OKE for short.

Phase two is about designing and constructing our OKE. First, the player selects the individual parts for their machine. The choice is quite diverse and allows you to create machines with specific specializations, from slow and powerful tanks to light flying units.

After selecting the parts, the player has to prepare software for the robot. This stage doesn't require programming knowledge, although the whole is based on the so-called flow diagrams, which are used in computer science to illustrate the processes occurring in programs. The player creates patterns of robot behavior in specific situations and makes sets of consecutive instructions that will hopefully bring them victory.

After creating and testing OKE, the third phase begins. Teams of up to three robots follow the instructions given to them by the player, such as patrolling, defending the base or taking over an enemy building. When OKE encounters enemy units, the fight begins - the player has no direct control over their units. Their behavior is determined by the software prepared by us.

Technical aspects

Carnage Heart has quite simple graphics, characteristic for early 3D games. Robot models consist of a small number of polygons and the environment doesn't have many details.

Last updated on February 12, 2020