Wizard Worm finished Tortured Hearts after 400 hours - here's the review:

Tortured Hearts Review - Or How I Saved The Universe. Again. (Old-School RPG)

The Wizard Worm reviewed Tortured Hearts:

Tortured Hearts Review - Or How I Saved The Universe. Again. (New old-school RPG)

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You will see my Tortured Hearts - Or How I Saved The Universe. Again. Review. It`s a New old-school RPG. Tortured Hearts crpg is Party-Based RPG. In size, this is just a huge adventure that will remain in your heart for a long time. Also check my tortured hearts Guide.

After a long developmentment time Tortured Hearts has been released:

Tortured Hearts - Or How I Saved The Universe. Again

Tortured Hearts - Or How I Saved The Universe. Again. was created by 1 person with the occasional help of a few others, in 12.5 years. It's a quasi sequel of 2 NWN-1 mods by the title of Tortured Hearts I & II.
This is an old fashioned, hard-core CRPG featuring turn-based combat and an estimated 200 hours play time, minimum. TH is supposed to be speed-run proof. The story of the game is about a Seasoned Adventurer who merely was out for a little loot and glory, but finds him/herself getting to the bottom of who actually runs the universe.
The story is conversation driven and spans 185 areas in a multiverse, with a potential 8 major henchmen plus a few lesser ones available. Hundreds of NPCs and many meaningful conversations await you. Your behavior and answers in conversation will result in lasting consequences through the game, influencing the henchmen available to you and your relationships with them, the quests available, and the outcomes of quests and the final outcome.
There is a very versatile, non-class based character development system. By using different character builds and choosing different actions, there is great re-playability.

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Tortured Hearts will be released on March 1st. You can check out 1/3 of the game already, because SubBassman just released a free demo on Steam:

Tortured Hearts demo is available now!

It covers 1/3 of the entire game without any particular restriction.
One of the NPCs will notify you if the demo concludes.
Please tell us if you find any issues. (teleportgameshq(at)gmail.com)
On this link you can find a very very spoilerish description of quests.
Don't read it, unless you are really stuck! No, really. :)
This list is not complete, it'll be expanded over time.

Read the pdf document attached on Steam, please.
Also, consult the in-game HELP section for important info.
Don't forget to buff yourself all the time.
A few people can have motion sickness due to the FPS view.
In order to mitigate it, you can adjust camera FOV by the mouse wheel.
Also, you can turn the targeter off which helps a bit.

After several years of development Tortured Hearts will be released on March 1st:

Tortured Hearts - Or How I Saved The Universe. Again.

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Tortured Hearts - Or How I Saved The Universe. Again. was created by 1 person with the occasional help of a few others, in 12.5 years. It's a quasi sequel of 2 NWN-1 mods by the title of Tortured Hearts I & II.
This is an old fashioned, hard-core CRPG featuring turn-based combat and an estimated 200 hours play time, minimum. TH is supposed to be speed-run proof. The story of the game is about a Seasoned Adventurer who merely was out for a little loot and glory, but finds him/herself getting to the bottom of who actually runs the universe.
The story is conversation driven and spans 185 areas in a multiverse, with a potential 8 major henchmen plus a few lesser ones available. Hundreds of NPCs and many meaningful conversations await you. Your behavior and answers in conversation will result in lasting consequences through the game, influencing the henchmen available to you and your relationships with them, the quests available, and the outcomes of quests and the final outcome.
There is a very versatile, non-class based character development system. By using different character builds and choosing different actions, there is great re-playability. 

Thanks SubBassman!

The development of Tortured Hearts has been finished - the game will be released on Steam:

Tortured Hearts, or How I Saved the Universe. Again.

3. Jan. 2021 - Happy New Year, dear friends! Tortured Hearts is done. We are working on our Steam presence. Thanks for your patience!

Subbassman posted some interesting news about his RPG Tortured Hearts:

Hi there friends,

We would like to update you about what we have achieved so far regarding Tortured Hearts: Or How I Saved the Universe. Again. and what is still in the way of finishing it.

It may seem that it's taking forever: one of the most important facts to understand about this progress is that ONE person has done most of the work steadily, with intermittent help from about 5-6 others. This is not a lot of manpower for a game of this size and scope, but it's what we could afford.

The game is in very good shape now. Since we did not continuously have a dedicated 3D artist, we had to purchase about 90% of the models from the Unity Asset Store or other commercial sources and adapt them to work in the game. Almost all the graphic assets are now in the game. At the moment this is 1644 inventory items, 1000 interactive placeables, 1016 creature instances, and 185 areas (all that were originally planned in our Neverwinter Nights module mock-up): a huge achievement.Though this is already an asset-rich game, we have planned it so it could be embellished and enriched further.

Some item property highlights--these give boosts when equipped or used:

Personal stats, elemental resistance, action point, attack/damage (absolute & relative percentage), elemental damage, alchemic damage, slayer, vorpal, toxic, regeneration (combat only), damage over time (combat only), race-specific attack/damage/slayer, parry, dodge, threat, outgoing and incoming healing amplification, immunities and some others.

Base playable characters are human male and female. All features are implemented, although a few are still buggy. Much as we want other playable races, each race and gender is a huge new modeling demand.

There are now 114 quests ready to go, plus outlines for 30 more contingent on funding. (see below) Many quests will have alternate ways of accomplishment and alternate outcomes.

COMBAT! Everyone's favorite topic

Combat is not interactive on character level: meaning you can't control your characters individually. It is turn-based, directive-based, and uses aggro-management. This means you can mitigate or amplify your aggro generation via equipment or combat directives, so basically tanking is possible. Healing generates aggro.

The higher your level of a particular combat skill is, the more options your character's AI can choose from and the greater damage he/she can inflict.

You can automate rounds or intervene between them using potions, bombs, special items and instruct your characters to behave differently as a team in the next round. In other words, you can set AI directives between rounds, for all of the party characters as a team.

The base combat styles are warrior, arcane caster, and divine healer. Melee styles are: HtH, small melee weapons up to bastard sword size (single wield), shield usage (small & large).

Other options are flee, berserk or parley.

As soon as TH can legitimately be called in beta status, we may launch a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for help to create more polish: intro and outro, voice acting, more CUSTOM models for henchmen and playable races, for instance.

When? Well... whatever the time frame, we won't start until the basic game is playable in beta.

Some campaign stretch goals: if we had the $$$$

1. More companions
2. Up to 30 of the omitted quests
3. Bardic Combat Style
4. Roguish Combat Style
5. Psionic Combat Style
6. Dwarf and elf playable characters, maybe gnomes and halflings too
7. Tower Shields
8. Two-handed melee weapons
9. Oriental weapons
10. Impromptu weapons like broken bottles or chair legs
11. Throwing Weapons
12. Bows
13. Dual wield
14. Crafting (Fishing, Gold Panning, Herbalist, Alchemy, Mining, Junk Art, Ragpicker)
15. RND Item Generator
16. Voice for VIP NPCs
17. Voice for Greater NPCs

In one of his last interviews for RPGWatch, Couchpotato talks with the developers of the Tortured Hearts NWN mods, and also discusses their commercial game called Tortured Hearts: Or how I saved the Universe. Again.

RPGWatch: How many hours of development time did you put into creating the mods, and did you ever think it wasn't worth it to continue development?

Zoltán: Each mod took about 4000 hours, the second one maybe a bit more. I had some helpers for both and they should be recognized. For Tortured Hearts 1, there was Lenore and about a dozen helpful people who helped me with proofreading.  For Tortured Hearts 2 there was a very large contribution to dialog by Jim Grimsley, an American novelist with plenty of books to his credit. It was especially helpful that he knew how to use the Aurora editor so all I had to do was write the scripts for his conversations. He also did quite a bit of proofreading. Other contributors to Tortured Hearts 2 were András Gáspár, a Hungarian sci-fi/fantasy novelist and of course, Lenore again as a proofreader and tester but at that time our relationship turned to friendship and we were already discussing a possible cooperation for a sequel.
On top of this there was the NWN community which shared so many good models and other supplements for all the mods. I did the area creation, scripting and story arrangement.

Developer jessepret posted a new update about the development of Tortured Hearts.

This game is coming along well. All the areas are set up and ready to be furnished with models. All the dialog works, the journal works, the GUI works. At present we are working on the introduction where characters are formed, and on the combat AI, and creating dungeons from a tile set. Next, fill out areas with models and test combat.

Well here is another game we haven't covered for a while since we last interviewed the developer. The game also failed on kickstarter shortly after the interview.

Anyway the game has had a few updates on Facebook, and the games website.

Happy New Year! Though some days it may seem like it's been forever, it's only been two years since we really got to work on TH, and we are making great progress with our small team. We are always cheered by your visits. Feel free to join the Forum.

Thank you HiddenX for the links.

Zoltan from the Tortured Hearts development team sent word that their website has been launched. Given that they were unable to raise the capital they needed at Kickstarter, it would be interesting to see what they can accomplish without it.

A short while a go Tortured Hearts appeared on Kickstarter trying to raise $300.000. We talked with the developers to find out more about this game.

RPGWatch: The combat system is an essential part of an RPG, how is this implemented in Tortured Hearts?

Lenore: We planned it as real-time, but on popular demand we switched to turn-based. I’m happy with this; real-time combat has an aesthetic like a movie, but turn-based is more versatile for the player. The basic ideas of combat abilities haven't really changed and also, our main programmer is quite familiar with turn-based combat. In my opinion it adds to the pleasure of mincing your enemy when you can do so contemplatively.

Zoltan: The player will be able to control each member of his party, his inventory, his weapons. Every member will have action points which determine what can be done in that round, and the whole party has a pool of special action points called tactical traits. These tactical traits either buff the party or debuff the enemy for a determined number of rounds. The trait points regenerate according to the skill level and gear of the PC and party members. You use them up, but they come back if you don’t get killed. Defense is important as well as offense.

There have been several updates at Kickstarter for Tortured Hearts. First, they have committed to turn-based combat:

First of all, turn-based is the runaway winner and that's what it's going to be.

The same post has an overview of the world structure.

A post on character development, which offers some interesting skills:

These are the Abilities: Strength, Agility (gross motor movements, helpful in battle), Dexterity (fine motor coordination for traps and contraptions), Bravery (stamina or resilience), Intellect, Appeal (charisma).

These are the normal Skills: Acrobatics, Animal Lover, Barehanded Fight, Bargain, Combat Tactics, Communication, Contraptions, Healing, Large Melee Weapons, Lockpick, Magical Knowledge, Musical Knowledge, Stealing, Psionics, Ranged Weapons, Scholarly Knowledge, Small Melee Weapons, Sneak, Swim, Traps.

There are special Skills called Sidelines which require XP and also training. These are crafting skills which yield saleable items or buffs. Unlike feats which you either have or don't, you can develop a higher skill level in Sidelines.

The Sidelines are Alchemy, Fishing, Herbalism, Junk Art, Mining, Panning, Ragpicker.

...and an update on game areas, complete with a video of the NWN Aurora toolset that was used to build the areas ready to port into Unity:

As we've mentioned, there are 200 finished areas in this game already. These areas were made using the Aurora toolset, by Bioware, but this is not the final format. I want to say that again: this is not another Neverwinter module. The purpose of making it was to generate data which can be exported as XML and imported into Unity 3D for final expression.

Zoltan Gonda contacted us about their Kickstarter campaign for Tortured Hearts: Or, How I Saved the Universe. Again. , a humorous indie RPG they are currently developing. The project is party-based and uses a 3D cartoon style - currently they are taking feedback on whether to make combat RT or turn-based. Here's a snip from their Kickstarter page and you can also check out the official site.

Tortured Hearts: Or, How I Saved the Universe. Again. (TM)

is an epicly epic, light-hearted RPG, dedicated to the proposition that most RPGs take themselves far too seriously. Since almost every imaginable plot scenario and character has already been used and overused to the point that cliches are unavoidable, TH instead revels in pointing out that the life of adventurers is one endless heroic cliche, some sort of existential trap created by the gods of RPG worlds. In other word, it has everything every other RPG game ever had, and introspective humor too. [...]

The Gameplay

Tortured Hearts™ is a typical old-school RPG, the kind that other nice people are trying to revive as well. There are six playable races: human, elf, half orc, halfling, dwarf, and gnome.The PC appearance can be modified as to head and gear. Races have different starting statistics as in most RPG. Character skills (e.g. communication) and abilities (e.g. strength) can be developed freely. There are no predetermined classes with built-in limitations, only trends which you can follow or not. Besides skills and abilities, there are sidelines, which are crafting skills that can earn gold and other rewards. You don’t have to be a crafter to get what you need. Generally speaking, the game world is rich and generous. You don’t have to play nice all the time although you will probably do better if you aren’t playing the jerk role. There are often ways to solve problems that don’t involve killing something.You can access all companion inventories. You can also train them individually and use their skills and abilities to make up for your own limits. They can help you automatically or you can tell them to bug off, you want to do it yourself. Combat is party based and real time, with tactical choices in the process: BUT, if we get a lot of feedback requesting turn-based combat, we can do that instead. Combat uses a party controller widget.