Ren'Py - Abandoned - Ambition [v0.3] [powd]

Just finished v0.3. It's surprisingly good. Not too grindy with the sandbox stuff. Easy to navigate. Not many lewd scenes so far but story is pretty good and the renders and characters are amazing. Not super long currently but hopefully the dev is still working on this and will have more content in future versions!

TL;DR:

• v0.3
• Beautiful Renders and Amazing Animations
• Believable Story, Dialogues and a relatable MC
• Sandbox sucks!

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This dev is talented! It's quite rare to find a game that features a well written Story, believable characters AND well made animations/renders.
Of course, there is not much in the lewd-departement yet, but what is there is VERY promising!

Sadly the game currently comes with a sandbox-mode... This is very rarely done well and this game sadly is no exception. Though it has been done way worse in other games. In this one you at least get a hint-system, so you know what is needed to progress the story.
I simply don't like having the same damn conversation with characters dozens of times, simply because there is no way of knowing whether there will be something new or not.
I simply don't like the repetative tasks that have to be done EVERY Day at the right time (School in the morning, Work in the afternoon, Gym in the evenings) with no real reward (What did I increase my fitness for!?).

Luckily the dev just put a poll on this patreon-page to decide, if the game should be turned into a VN. And it looks a lot like it is going to happen (currently 78% for VN!). So there is hope. If this happens, I would gladly give this game a 10/10.

[v0.3]

I felt pretty bad while playing this one. Here is yet another game with great writing that is squandering it's potential due to a totally unnecessary and detrimental free roaming gameplay.

The strongest point by far is the dialogue writing. The writer really knows how to create natural sounding dialogue. Not just in the speech patterns, but in the content of the dialogue as well. These conversations could actually take place among human beings. This extends to characters. I know the "distinct personality" bit gets thrown around a lot, but the characters here really come to life. The boss's son who is all flamboyant and "bro-ish." The head nurse who is playing subtly veiled mind games. The boss who looks and acts just like Herr Starr from the show Preacher. These are all characters that we either know in real life or through some depiction in a movie/show. Distinct personality does not just mean cute/bitchy/caring/etc here, but rather, the writer succeeded in creating actual characters.

We have a decently relatable and reliable MC here. He is a normal guy that decides to become "the man of the house," but not in the expected porn game way. He actually decides at the game start that he wants to be reliable to the family. He wants to become self sufficient. He wants to be responsible. We are just getting into the meat of the main plot, where he will have to navigate a shady corporate culture that is way above his pay grade, and it will likely produce a lot of inner conflict for his growth in either direction (corrupted by power vs remaining a decent guy).

Now we get into the shitty things. The game actually has a very interesting plot, but its mired by some pacing issues which is exacerbated by the absolutely abysmal free roam. This is one of those games that have free roaming that serves no purpose. You have to go to school in the morning and go to work during the afternoon to progress through the game. That's basically it. What's the point of free roaming without an actual sandbox to play in? You are stuck on an essentially linear plot progression which is advanced by viewing the events that happen in school and work in succession.

Not only does the free roam serve no purpose, but it actively detracts from the immersion and flow of the game. The house mates that you can talk to around the rooms at home are stuck in a time bubble. They have the same dialogue every time. They don't react to changes in the MC or circumstances of their situation. It's just the worst really. It's still early in development, and these lacking interactions could be improved in the future, but I won't hold my breath. It would take a tremendous amount of effort and time for the dev to actually integrate the free roam interactions to the core plot progression. In the end, it would still be a collosal waste of effort and development time. I've come to appreciate some games that do free roaming correctly, but this game would benefit so much by just going full VN.

The game has a baffling amount of pointless text, an open world that serves no purpose, way too many characters and very little charm.

A much more experienced dev might be able to pull it off, but ironically it's overly ambitious for a first project.

The MC is not a simp, this guy wants to man up asap & despite being a rich boy is not looking for handouts.

The story line is very engaging & the script feels very "realistic" if that makes any sense. It just feels very natural & well written.

I love slow burn love stories. Liz is adorable, her pout was the best thing ever during the shopping. It's very fun slowly seducing her since she seems she innocent.

A welcome surprise is the relationship with Angie, a bad girl with tats & a mouth may not be everyone's taste but I'm loving her. It almost looks like she has cute high school crush on you even though she won't ever admit it to your face. It's my favorite relationship buildup so far.

Mia is my goddess, If she were real I would marry her in a heart beat. I hope we can still interact with her & build a relationship with her even if we leave the job in the clinic.

Marie is very mysterious, why was she so against visiting you and your family before her husband died? Did she dislike you all? She is very controlling now that she is living with you, her character is complex... but in terms of design she is a 10/10

Barbara has a beautiful milf design, she rarely got content so I'll wait to see were the dev takes her storyline.

HUGE potential with this game. I hope this one keeps going, the renders & story line are too good. Hopefully this review gets more people to give the game a chance.

A decent start. The writing is OK, models are fantastic, Liz is adorable. Quite a wide variety of characters, although the naughtiness is lacking so far (0.2). Hopefully that picks up. The sandbox element is still a little empty, but I'm sure that'll get filled in as the updates come.

Pros: Good renders, the women are all beautiful and there are two redheads (my weakness). Some animation already

Cons: Story is weak, very little player input. MC is incredibly passive.

I know this is a demo + 1 update but I am disappointed at how little input the player has in the story/game. Almost all decisions are made for the player, the choices left to make are inconsequential ones such as "Talk" or "Not Now", there is no interactive dialogue with any of the characters so the player is left to read a bunch of uninteresting exposition. The MC is too passive, which seems to be a recent trend in games, and the player doesn't have an option to choose to be a more self-confident person (the MC allows people to mistreat him in various aspects of his life without complaint - his sister being an ass to him the few times she is in the story, passively accepting a mediocre blowjob from a blue haired freak in the women's bathroom of his college, being referred to as an ass licker by the head nurse at his Aunt's clinic, etc).

In addition the set up is incredibly generic (another game about a MC who is a college student living in a house full of beautiful women), by update 1 the player is following a step by step "quest" list to get everything done, and there are no meaningful choices to make (by meaningful choices I mean something that actually impacts the storyline/causes a branching in the story/changes something in the overall narrative). Overall not a promising start to a game that needs to differentiate itself from the overcrowded field of "passive college dude" games out already.