The Black Heart

The Black Heart is a horror-themed game developed with the M.U.G.E.N engine by Andres Borghi. It was conceived with gathering the updated versions of Borghi's acclaimed five characters that were previously individually available for the engine (Peketo,Shar-Makai,Ananzi,Hashi,Noroko), along with two characters that debuted in this game (Animus and the final boss) into one concise package. The two characters, along with updated versions of the previous five, had been re-released as individual creations for the engine about a year later per public demand.

For the game's 11th anniversary, an updated version of the game is being developed through the IKEMEN GO Plus engine, which would bring in new artwork for the characters and story mode, bring in some improvements allowed by the new engine (including online play) is currently available through Steam's Early Access program, marking it the closest thing for a case of a commercially available fighting game made on a M.u.g.e.n-like engine (possible through IKG+ having the MIT license, contrasting Elecbyte being unreachable for licensing the original M.u.g.e.n engine).

Story
The Black Heart has an otherworldly setting of a war-torn alternative world humans are unaware of existence of until the king of the world gets murdered. In spite of the fate he still possessed power that kept the world existing, therefore he got his titular heart ripped and stolen by a powerful creature that resides in a space between the worlds. The heart is said to be pretty powerful.

System
The M.U.G.E.N version of the game game uses a front-end that allows the player to set the difficulty level (this being a game built with the winMUGEN version of the engine that has yet to have inbuilt AI detection/scalability capabilities supplied by 1.0 and later), change the language settings, open a move-list documentation, input codes found within the game that would unlock gallery art as well as the final boss as well as run the game/engine.

All playable characters play via a four button scheme (with and  only working as shortcuts for their super movies). All of them with the exception of Final, have "Killer Modes" which give them a variety of effects in battle  and "Fatals" which are finishing moves which require a full power bar and your opponent having 1/3 of their life or less.

Most of these finishing moves are remarkably violent, with bloody decapitations and bisections being some of the fates to the receiving end. All of the game's characters (with the exception of Final, who is immune to Fatals) have built-in states and graphics to interact to the fullest with these Fatal moves. Other M.U.G.E.N characters require to be edited in order to do the same.

Characters

 * Peketo
 * Shar-Makai
 * Ananzi
 * Hashi
 * Noroko
 * Animus
 * Final

Reception
The game has been featured in 250 Indie Games You Must Play by Indiegames.com's Michael Rose. The game was also featured as a part of Two Best Friends ' Halloween-themed Fisticuffs series.