A few introductions, each with a reason.
One at a time, in your own evening. Nothing expires. No streaks, no badges.
Heartstrings · A Zang Inc. company
Meeting someone used to happen while you were doing something else.
Heartstrings makes co-operative games for exactly two people. One of you can see what the other cannot. Neither of you can finish alone.
01 What happens after the match
Everyone is good at introducing two people. Nobody fixed the next part.
Dating apps made the introduction efficient and left what happens after it untouched. That is where most connections die: two people, a chat window, and nothing to do.
For over a year we ran a place where people met each other. Some of them started playing games together, games we did not make and did not support, because that is what people do when they like each other. They solved the hard part themselves. We watched them do it.
So we are building the something to do.
The internet used to be a place where you met people.
Then it became a place where you rated them.
02 The game
Made for exactly two.
One of you can see things the other cannot. Neither of you can finish it alone. You have to talk to each other, out loud, under pressure. That is the whole design. The game is the reason to show up, and talking is what actually happens while you play.
You see
the way through
They reach
the thing you saw
- i
Two players. Never more.
Every story has exactly two protagonists. Never one hero, never a crew.
- ii
Co-op, never competitive.
Competition lowers exactly the thing we are trying to grow between two people.
- iii
You will have to talk.
Communication-forward by design. Silence is not a strategy that wins.
- iv
A low floor.
Built so someone who does not call themselves a player can still play.
- v
Play it again, together.
Swap who sees and who reaches, and it becomes a different evening with the same person.
03 Released in seasons
A library, not a feed.
The games arrive in seasons, each one a complete story for two. We build the machinery once: the thing that puts two people in a session, keeps them connected, saves their progress and lets new stories be made without starting over. Then every season is built on top of it.
Season One is in development.
Own it
Buy a game once.
The cheapest way to keep a game forever.
Play them all
Subscribe to the library.
The cheapest way to try. Every season, and the place to meet the person you play with.
Either way, we are paid whether you stay single or find someone. That is the opposite of how dating apps work.
04 The name was carrying this from the start
One note is a note.
Two notes make harmony.
A string is a thread and a string is an instrument. The red thread connects two people, and a string resonates when something touches it. Pluck one, then the other.
Touch a string
The score is ours. Original music only, never licensed, so four bars are enough to know where you are.
05 Around the games
A place to meet the person you play with.
It should feel more like meeting people in real life than swiping does. So we wrote down how real life works, and designed to it.
In real lifeIn Heartstrings
You meet people while doing somethingThe game is the introduction
A mutual friend says you two should meetEvery introduction carries the reason
Real life has eveningsA few introductions arrive in your own evening
You cannot talk to five people at once in a roomOne conversation open at a time
Nobody hands you a list of humans in a barNo feed, no search, no grid of faces
You never learn who considered you and passedDeclines are silent. No counters.
Attraction is present, but it is not the first thingA face at first. The rest, once you have talked.
A live queue, blind until contact.
No preview, no browsing. You see them as you meet them, and leaving costs nothing.
Open a game. Meet the person in it.
Matched with someone to play with. If the evening goes well, the rest is there to act on it.
06 Why it lasts
Every other app is designed to be deleted. This one is designed to be kept.
Looking
Introductions, the games, the seasons.
Found someone
Introductions pause. Nothing is deleted. The games are still for two.
Together
A library for two people who already chose each other.
Monetise the games.
Never monetise the connection.
- Boosts
- Roses
- Priority in the queue
- Paying to see someone sooner
- Extra introductions
- Profile highlighting
None of these are for sale, and none of them will be. Charging for how often you meet someone is charging for loneliness.
07 Where it started
Discord was the laboratory, not the destination.
Heartstrings began as a community on Discord, run by a matchmaker we built and named Aenoria. Every member passed a short live check with a real person before getting in. Most people did it anyway.
That is where we learned the introduction was the easy part. Aenoria stays with us as the mutual friend: the one who tells you why you two should meet, and never speaks for you. The games are where we are going.
Read the recordLong term is not an age. It is a posture.
For anyone who would rather know one person properly than forty people shallowly. You don't need a timeline. You just need to be done being a card in a deck.
08 People
Ankit Jingala
Founder
Making games since twelve. Founded Zang Inc. in 2020, and built the Heartstrings community from nothing before there was any funding behind it.
Theodore Ly
Chief Operating Officer · Paris
Composer, sound designer and sound engineer, studying Music and Sound Design at ISART Digital Paris. A TEDx speaker on breaking the formula of modern music. At a company named after a string, that is not a coincidence.
It opens when it is full, not when it is built.
Nobody should arrive to an empty room. The community is open now, and it is where the first players will come from.
Or write to heartstrings@zanginc.net
運命の赤い糸
Unmei no akai ito
The thread may stretch.
It may tangle.
It never breaks.