Scarred By Heaven is a beat-em-up about an otherworldly murder mystery, aiming to combine unique 2D brawling with a strong narrative and a small but content-rich sandbox.

The game is still in development, and is being created as a solo project by me. You can check my website for more info, or play the demo below.

For the past year, the coastal city of Jadewater has been plagued by a string of grisly murders, with the bodies of five victims left lying lifeless in the city streets, completely drained of blood. As an unlucky delinquent finds out, however, the truth behind the deaths seems to lie in a different world entirely...

You play as Sakiko Mizukawa, a brand-new young adult who's recently left her childhood home behind. Arriving in Jadewater by pure chance one night, she soon finds herself at the center of the city's paranormal mystery after a seemingly ordinary street fight takes a bizarre twist.

Wielding an otherworldly power tied to a strange new scar over her eye, Saki plunges into the 'other' Jadewater to discover the truth behind it all--but soon learns that she's not the only one to have been 'Marked'.

Scarred By Heaven features a beat-em-up system focused on fast-paced brawling, combos, and parrying--combining inspirations from beat-em-ups like 'Yakuza' and fighting games like 'Guilty Gear'.

Face off against against gangs of local thugs in the real city and monstrous 'Phantoms' in the Otherworld with an ever-growing array of attacks and weapons. The game also features several unique 1-on-1 boss battles with others who've been granted powers, each having their own attacks, tricks, and style.

Combat aims to provide a lot of potential depth, but still be enjoyable at all skill levels. The game will feature a robust set of difficulty modifiers, allowing you to pick from a selection of presets, as well as customize and fine tune details about the game like enemy damage, the leniency of parry timing, and more.

 

The strongest warriors know what they're fighting to protect.

Outside of combat, Saki can explore the city of Jadewater--a sandbox carnival of side content with a variety of distractions to discover, including shopping, cooking, fishing, arcades, eating at restaurants, and helping locals out with various problems in unique sidestories.

You'll earn small amounts of XP from exploring (as you also do from combat) that you can use to upgrade your combat abilities--as well as discover various other small rewards that can both help you become a better fighter, and further enrich Saki's life outside of combat.

Demo

Right now, the only playable version of the game is the short combat demo below, which contains the game's first seven fights (including the first two bosses) devoid of any story context, instead featuring a silly non-canon scenario that vaguely connects them. The demo also features a 'post-game' where you can freely fight the early game enemies.

At the moment I consider this demo to be an accurate demonstration of how combat will look, feel and function in the final game. Though, you'll notice some placeholders and unfinished things in places, mostly in some of the menu UI.

Please report any bugs or strange behavior encountered, and record the error message if the game happens to crash. Thank you for checking the game out!