Many things about style="font-style: italic;">Lucent Heart,
Gamania’s “free-to-play social
MMO,” will be familiar to most any gamer, from character
classes to fantasy lore loosely inspired by Greek mythology.
There’s fighting, revenge, monsters, chases, escapes, true
love… Wait--true love? Is this a kissing MMOG?

A Match Made…By
Cupid

Actually, it is a kissing MMOG, sort of. style="font-style: italic;">Lucent Heart
uses a unique
matchmaking and dating system that rewards players for finding their
Soul Mate and interacting and adventuring together. (Although the term
“soul mate” implies that you’ve found
your one and only, characters can actually have up to three different
soul mates. Talk about playing the field!)



There are a couple of ways for players to make a match. If you already
have someone in mind, you can purchase a Cupid Key from the
game’s item mall, which enables you to pair up with the
person of your choice. Or, if you’re flying solo, you can use
the game’s matchmaker, Cupid, the god of love.  At
specific times of day, players can queue up to be matched by Cupid.
Each character has a daily fortune, determined by their zodiac sign,
and your fortune level in the Love category determines your position in
the queue and affects your chances of finding a match.

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Cupid plays the ultimate
matchmaker in
Lucent Heart.

By now you’re saying, “Hold it, hold it, hold
it…where’s the fighting? What’s with all
the gooey love stuff?” It’s not just fluff. In style="font-style: italic;">Lucent Heart,
pairing up plays an important role if you want to be successful. By
putting their compatibility to the test daily, paired players can earn
a 2x experience bonus for adventuring together.  They can tend
flowers with their Soul Mates, and the flower petals can become special
accessories while the nectar serves as mana and health potions. Unique
couples-only emotes give significant buffs. (There’s even a
“tent” emote which creates a tent with the couple
inside, which then bumps up and down. In other words, if this tent is
rockin’…don’t come knockin’.)



Cupid takes some of your attributes and desires into consideration when
making your perfect match--things like your age range, level, zodiac
sign, and other special characteristics such as gender preference.
(Yep, same sex pairings can happen in this game.) Matches are
calculated and announced 3 times a day, and if you’ve been
matched with a player a glowing heart will appear above your character.
There’s no complicated eHarmony-esque profile system and no
need to make a corny (or href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showpost.php?p=461608&postcount=5582">scary)
video bio. Just press O to open your community interface, select the
Cupid tab, and see who you’ve been matched with.



If you and your Soul Mate really hit it off, you can even take the
plunge and get married. Getting married is a big deal in style="font-style: italic;">Lucent Heart
and involves some careful social coordination. You’ll have to
set a date and time and send wedding invitations, which you
personalize, to your guests. You can invite as many as 50 friends to
attend your ceremony, but only three are necessary to witness this
“bwessed awangement.” Guests can interact with
special items such as balloons, and you and your newly wedded spouse
will receive wedding rings.

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If you like it then you should
put a ring on it.

Of course, not every match is made in Heaven. If you find that you and
your Soul Mate aren’t hitting it off after three days you can
part ways--it’s as simple as hitting the
“delete” button on your Cupid List, which almost
seems worse than breaking up via Facebook or text message. Divorce will
be an option for married couples, and although we didn’t get
the lowdown on divorce when we toured the game recently, we suspect
it’s probably more involved than clicking
“delete.” Of course, when you break up with your
Soul Mate you lose any flowers the two of you have been growing. Ah,
the heartbreak.

Beyond Romance

While social interaction is what makes style="font-style: italic;">Lucent Heart
beat, the game
isn’t just about dating and meeting the woman (or man) of
your dreams. You can have pets (including battle pets). And you can
have more than one. It’s possible to find yourself running
around with a small army of virtual critters who aid you and do your
bidding. And there are mounts, as well.

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Small companion pets can give
stat bonuses, provided you keep them fed and happy.

Lucent
Heart also gives you the
decidedly cool ability to create your
own dungeon by gathering your group at one of three Prophecy Assembling
Platforms throughout the world and using items called Star Cores.
You’ll need to acquire three cores of the same level to open
a dungeon--a Creature, Scene and Treasure core. The Creature Core
determines the type of enemies you’ll face in the dungeon,
Scene determines the dungeon type and number of levels, and Treasure,
as you might imagine, determines loot. Star Cores drop from monsters
and bosses in the game, and can end up being worth quite a bit of
in-game coin depending on their rarity.



On our tour of style="font-style: italic;">Lucent Heart
we were told that dungeons in the game were
not easy to complete and that, in fact, the developers have seen
hardcore WoW
players wipe while trying to complete one. Mushy love
stuff aside, dungeon crawling is not for the weak. Careful pulling and
crowd control are key to success.

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Lucent Heart is taking aim at
the social
gaming crowd.

Lucent
Heart also has crafting, and
if you want to make some in-game kaching you’re going to find
learning a trade important. You can choose from the following trades:
Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Alchemy, Machinery, Jewelry, and Card Design.
Once you have some crafting chops, and you’ve acquired some
recipes, you can hit the OEM boards, the game’s crafting
marketplace hub. Rather than selling already crafted wares,
you’ll be showcasing the items you’re capable of
making. When a player with the appropriate materials in his inventory
comes across your listing, and finds your price acceptable, he can
simply make the purchase and have his item instantly assembled whether
you, the crafter, are actually online or not--a rather ingenious
system.



And finally, the Eventure system lets players sign up for and jump into
daily events. Throughout the day, system messages will alert you to
upcoming events. To get in on an event, you’ll need to either
visit an NPC or open the Eventure (EV) interface. You’ll also
need some gold and event tickets (purchased in the item mall). If you
meet the qualifications for a certain event, you can click the Sign Up
button to participate.

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The EV Interface lets you
track
events.

You can win prize money for achieving specific ranks during
the event. And you’ll also participate in pvp fighting over
contested monsters--may the best toon win!



Whether you’re a lover or a fighter, there’s
probably a little something for everyone in style="font-style: italic;">Lucent Heart.
This MMOG pushes social gaming to an extreme that many Western players
have abandoned in favor of a solo-to-the-level-cap-then-raid mentality.
A lot of careful thought has gone into creating the systems in style="font-style: italic;">Lucent Heart,
and the game’s mechanics bring some much needed innovation to
the free-to-play arena. The cutesy anime-style graphics and theme
won’t be everyone’s cup o’ latte, but if
you’re looking for a novel game concept you have nothing to
lose (and perhaps a Soul Mate or three to gain) by giving style="font-style: italic;">Lucent Heart
a try.