Category:Black Heart

Black Heart is a story collection created by ol666, made entirely out of boss fight levels. The story centers on Jestar Heart's pursuit of the player's "souls" on their trail, which he hopes to ascend to godlike status with. In order to reach this goal, he sends numerous assassins after the player. The levels in the collection were originally created with no story in mind, until a plot to connect the levels was created to be revealed in A New Dawn, where Jestar Heart first appears.

Black Heart is the most popular collection of all time on the Steam workshop^[1] and is possibly the most popular Project Arrhythmia collection overall. Some levels in it have broken records - Party Time and Medusa are among the most popular levels of all time on the Workshop,^[2] and Party Time holds the record for the most views on a Project Arrhythmia video, with at least 3.6 million.^[3] Another level in Black Heart, Peer Gynt, inspired a collection of 14 levels based on it, which itself credits the Black Heart level for a rise in the song's popularity.

Plot

Chapter 1

Black Heart begins with Jestar Heart's first two assassins - Nautilus and Aura, who both work together to fight the player. They both fail, leading to Puffer being sent afterwards. Nautilus and Aura then return separately to fight the player on their own, yet they do not succeed. With Solario, Siren, and Myst attempting and failing to kill the player as well, Nautilus is brought back into the action when combined with The Core to create N.A.T.U. - a cyborg assassin with increased power. Despite his upgrade, Nautilus fails once again - having done so the most out of all assassins. Jestar's next move is to send Colossus, a virus, to attack the player from inside. The virus succeeds, successfully stealing one of the player's souls. Jestar then reveals himself to the player and explains how he was behind the onslaught of opponents they have faced and his goals of world domination. He uses the soul Colossus gained to increase his power, attacking the player himself for the first time. Unable to take another himself, Jestar changes his strategy, trapping the player in his Heart Locket while he creates Medusa, his strongest assassin, with the power of the soul.

Chapter 2

After being imprisoned in the Heart Locket, the player attempts to escape, fighting against The Core as they wander through and see statues of the petrified assassins. Eventually, they find Nautilus, who expresses regret for his actions as an assassin and wants to help the player fight back against Jestar. Soon after, Jestar reappears and attempts to kill the player himself, destroying the Heart Locket in the process and freeing the player and Nautilus. The two then move on in search of Medusa, hoping to use their gem to free the petrified assassins from stone. The player then goes to face off against Medusa, who nearly defeats them. Nautilus manages to attack Medusa while they are distracted, knocking them out as they are teleported away before the gem can be recovered. After this, Jestar returns to Perry's place of death to use the soul's power to revive him, only to transform him into the monstrous Predator quickly after. Predator fights against the player until he seems to revert back to Perry - only to explode and die again when almost finished.

Characters

• Nautilus
• Aura
• Puffer
• Siren
• Solario
• Colossus
• The Core
• Myst
• Perry
• Jestar Heart
• Medusa
• Predator

Levels

Chapter 1

1. First Crush
2. Running my Head
3. Nautilus
4. Aura
5. Total Destruction
6. How Deep is Your Love (Removed)
7. Peer Gynt
8. Party Time
9. Exoplanet
10. A New Dawn

Chapter 2

1. Surface Tension
2. Medusa
3. Funk Hole (Removed)

Gallery

• 

  Current Black Heart collection banner art (created by Tsun)

Trivia

• Black Heart's story contains several plot elements that ol666 considers nostalgic. One example of this, according to him, is in Surface Tension with an escape after being trapped by a villain.^[4]

References