Since its wildly successful kickstarter campaign back in 2014, many fans expected Alfonso Martin’s Heart Forth, Alicia to release in Q1 2015. But due to developmental delays, the game’s official release was pushed back to late 2016, and now, 2017.
The most recent delay will mean that HFA has been in development for nine years, echoing the prolonged development cycle of D-Pad Studio’s Owlboy. Much of the extra time invested into HFA was for finalising the OST, polishing environmental art, animating enemies and NPCs and to ensure the aspect ratio was updated to modern standards.
In addition to a new gameplay video, a recent kickstarter update revealed that a fresh demo of HFA will be showcased at this year’s Sony PlayStation Experience. HFA will also be one of over 650 independent games to feature at next year’s Independent Games Festival.
Heart, Forth Alicia is expected for release in Q1 2017 for PC, PS4, PS Vita and Nintendo Wii U.