A Player's Heart

A Player's Heart is a 222,000-word, entirely text-based interactive lesbian romance novel set in the theater world of Tristendesande. You play a rising member of the city's all-woman Opera company, putting on shows, navigating drama on and off stage, and pursuing a woman’s heart. Your choices shape your role and relationships; the game has no graphics or sound effects.

Theater and politics

Tristendesande is a glittering rivermouth city with three great theater companies. Its legal ruler is a three-year-old boy, while his mother, the Regent, faces growing pressure from the Castagi Ambassador to restrict the city’s freedoms, including its theaters. The Opera’s leaders try to remain neutral, but the Electricity Theater—where men and women scandalously perform together in the same acts—works to undermine the Ambassador’s influence. In this theatrical world, love and politics are entangled.

Choose your role

You can play male roles, female roles or work as a theater technician. You can bring your fellow players together or try to outdo them, show your skill at intrigue in Madam Isalis’s salon, and attend a scandalous performance before escaping the watch. You can court your love through a fencing match or a shared performance.

Romance and relationships

You can pursue four women: Celeine, your elegant rival at the Opera; Myrr, a clever and resourceful artifex on the stage crew; Mervelles, a daring star and dancer at the Electricity Theater; or Jasquillyn Isalis, a society hostess. The choices include a scandalous rival, a fashionable noblewoman, a reliable friend and an ambitious fellow actress.