In the hustle-bustle of what is the holiday gaming season, or rather what it has become thanks to the delicious Steam sale and the unforgivable urge to shed all my money-pounds by giving it to developers and publishers, it has become hard to sit down and play a game for over a few hours and actually write a review. What with Skyrim and Arkham City and the umpteen indie bundles I’ve purchased throughout the months, I start questioning whether I’ll ever even get to actually playing the games, or if I’ll just be purchasing them in the hopes that one day — presumably when I retire — I will play the hell out of each of them.

Enter Die Gute Fabrik’s Where is my Heart?

Though simply a PSP Mini that could easily be overlooked (as so many of them are), Where is my Heart? had a poignant art style that attracted me the moment I saw its first screenshots about a year ago. It is, at its simplest, a puzzle-platformer. The game bends your mind by introducing a rather original puzzle style: instead of straightforward platforming, it requires you adjust to the tiled pieces strewn across the screen. See, you still have all the pieces needed for the complete picture, but they’re all spread about as if the game were a jigsaw puzzle.

Furthermore, you’re not only accounting for one character, you’re accounting for three. These three characters are part of a family of monsters, and your main objective is to try to get them back to the Heart Tree. In fact, most of the puzzles will require you use all three by stacking them and/or completing certain objectives like transforming one of them into a more advanced character. This might sound difficult, but honestly, it’s as rudimentary as it gets. Where is my Heart? so elegantly poses its charm, however, that its hard to believe anyone who enjoys this sort of indie game will turn the other way. Beyond its simple but often very challenging mechanics, Where is my Heart? is soothing and gorgeous.

With an electronically-laden calming soundtrack that fits the pace of the game perfectly (this isn’t a Super Meat Boy type of platformer), the pretty colors and pixelated graphics are a fresh view, even on a large flat-screen in favor of a PSP. It’s clear that other reviewers have docked points from Where is my Heart? because of its lack of graphical prowess — and, I’ll admit, this confuses me. When we review graphics for a game, do we really take into account just its utilization of modern graphical advancements or is it how well the game is visually and stylistically presented in context of the entire experience? I would think we serve the latter purpose, and in that sense, Bernie Schulenberg and Die Gute Fabrik should be proud of creating a very pretty effort.

Where is my Heart? isn’t a perfect game by any means, though. I found the pacing of the difficulty a little questionable and, moreover, some parts were downright frustrating. There is an in-game “How To” guide, but it does nothing more than simply give you controls. I’m all for the challenge and puzzle it has to offer, but newer players could certainly be turned off by the lack of hand-holding. Perhaps a “hints” section would help with some of the tougher puzzles?

Where is my Heart? is a game that requires you to suspend disbelief, but its charming aesthetic and simplistic elegance should attract just about any indie gamer and definitely every fan of platformers. It makes sense why the game won the IGF Student Showcase in 2009 and, likewise, was on display at the IndieCade booth at E3 this year. Having come a long way since then, Where is my Heart? is a cute quirky title you’ll want to get to playing on your PS3 and PSP.

[Where is my Heart?, Die Gute Fabrik]

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