3.60 star(s) 7 Votes

Garatempus2

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Aug 18, 2018
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The map is pretty small so It's not an issue for me personally. It's just that in current form the game feels very linear which put in question the purpose of sandbox mechanics.
You are still at the begining so I wouldn't make a big deal out of it. If you intend to give people more freedom in a future, I would keep the sandbox in.
 
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desmosome

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Sep 5, 2018
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Hey since you are here, I just wanted to expand a bit on the free roaming aspect that I touched on in my review.

Basically, it boils down to developmental resources and realistic delivery of product in a patreon model. Let's say we got a big team and no deadlines. A truly fleshed out world where you can go anywhere to see new scenes and events every time would be great. A sandbox that gives the player the freedom to interact with people as they see fit, where each interaction in each location tracks all variables, flags, and plot progression and responds accordingly. I'm sure that's what you had in mind originally.

The reality is that resources are finite and it's a monumental task to truly bring the sandbox elements to life in a game like this. When I say a game like this, I mean a story driven narrative which is what I consider this game. I've played some free roamers recently that was set up appropriately to play with free roaming in mind. Unlimited Pleasure is an example. That game doesn't really have a central plot. It's basically "go meet chicks in the town and raise your stats with them and fuck everyone." In this sort of set up, it makes sense to make a sandbox and let the players go explore. Tales of Terrera is super early in development and the world is literally empty with no where to go. But that game is set up as a RPG adventure. Exploration is a core game mechanic and it makes sense to make it a free roamer rather than VN. There is Void's calling which is also a fantasy RPGish set up. If we look at High Rise Climb, it also deals with climbing the corporate ladder, but it is framed as a life sim.

Maybe I am assuming too much about Ambition, but I don't see it as a gotta catchem all. Nor a life sim. Nor a RPG/adventure. It's quite simply a narrative/character driven story with a prominent core plot line. I say we are much better off focusing on the strengths here.

What would be the advantages of switching to VN? By definition, the pacing will improve dramatically. Immersion and cohesion in the story will improve as characters can react appropriately to what's happening in the core plot. But most importantly, the developmental cycle will improve I think. I'm not sure what the plan was, but having a vague goal of eventually padding out all the free roaming is a bit hard to deliver.

A patch note could look like this:
-Continuation of main plot.
-Promotion to head squad member
-Sex scene with Boss's son (jk lol)
-Added new jogging scene with Hailey

The jogging scene still just exists in a bubble in this case. And the interactions with sis is lagging behind the main plot. Are we to believe that she doesn't say anything about what's going on with the family? About MC's haircut. About the mom getting fired. Etc. Then after the jogging, we are back to sis in her room repeating her 2 lines.

In the end, you should ask yourself if you have the time to pad out the map, vastly increasing the event count for each room, getting rid of all the repeating dialogues, and rolling out satisfying updates? If not, I say VN is the way to go.
 

MrFriendly

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Feb 23, 2020
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This was a mistake. If you refuse the blowjob in the beginning, you will have another chance to talk it out with Angie where you can decide if you want to help her or not, and end her storyline or continue. My bad on that, this will be fixed on the next versions. The player doesn't need to interact with side characters he doesn't have interest in, romantically. Sometimes you will need to interact story-wise, but the romancing will be all avoidable.
Good to hear, I was not a fan of how Angie treated the MC, the forced blowjob (which you changed previously, thank you), and was uninterested in her at all. Aggressive asshole people get zero dick from my MC, now if she was to be more contrite or apologize then I would give her a second chance. Develop her and the friendly relationship more and I could see something more happening.


As for the sandbox aspect. I'll be honest, for the most part I thought the complaints about the open world were from people that disliked open world games, and I disregarded most of them. But so far I've read some compelling arguments as for why sandbox is a bad idea in this game. I actually agreed since the beginning the game felt empty and that there wasn't much to do around the map, but I always intended to fix it and keep improving this aspect with each version. The goal was to have enough content that you didn't need to check the notepad to see what to do, but going pretty much anywhere at any time gave you some storyline or continuation of storyline. The main point of the open world was to allow the player to pursue parallel storylines and focus on the characters they like the most. Linear games don't give you that kind of freedom, and sometimes you're stuck in a super long scene with a character you dislike. (I know I'm being a hypocrite with the current Angie situation, but that will be fixed). It was never about grinding or making the game feel longer. As a player, I dislike those things too. But I understand that, as a new developer, I don't have the resources to create enough content in such a short amount of time between versions. My computer is barely able to handle the rate I'm going right now. And it is low.

Anyway, you guys got me thinking and you have good points. I am learning from my mistakes and I still have much to learn.

If the game being open world really is this bad, I'm gonna talk to my patrons and figure out what to do for the next versions.

Thank you all for the criticism and feedback.

If you enjoyed the game (or its potential) and want to help it being developed, please consider supporting my .
If you have a story you want to tell you shouldn't sacrifice your narrative thread/plot in order to give a player "freedom". In addition the idea that the player must constantly check an in game walkthrough to know where to go defeats the purpose of having the free roam. Instead it adds more clicks to everything the player does. If you remove the open world aspect and add in more dialogue/conversation choices the player will still have the illusion of freedom/choice. Give the player a chance to interact with the story without making them find a building on a map to click on for something to happen. Allowing the player to feel like they influence the outcome is far better than the current situation where the player doesn't know what to do and must constantly check two different sources and then repeat the same activity over and over (go to school, work at the clinic, rinse and repeat).
 
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somebodynobody

Engaged Member
May 11, 2017
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powd

I won't argue on which way your game should go, I would say find other games that are considered decent of the variety you are trying to go for and see what they do to alleviate the problems.

A couple games that do sandboxing https://f95zone.to/threads/the-anomalous-dr-vibes-v0-8-0-final-drvibes.20377/
https://f95zone.to/threads/paradise-found-v0-7-00-grasputin.37176/
https://f95zone.to/threads/photo-hunt-v0-9-2-moochie.25264/
https://f95zone.to/threads/holiday-island-v0-2-1-1-beta-darkhound1.3782/

If you want to allow freedom while not forcing things, you could instead of doing sandbox do story choices, allowing the player to follow along on the paths they would rather. A game like https://f95zone.to/threads/where-it-all-began-v0-6-full-oceanlab.19856/


I like the story so far. I like the characters. The things about their personalities are great.

If you want, you can pass me a text file of all the text (minus code, and preferably in proper order) I will go through it. And pass you back a text file of just changes, which you can decide what to do with it.

I would also mention to maybe use a spellchecker/grammarchecker prior, and just copy paste the written text from it. Something like Grammarly or word/google docs.

There is no content for nurse Mia correct? Or did I miss something?
Regarding Angie, she just wants to be loved why are people bagging on her? She has a lot on her plate.
Only Angie and Liz have "content".
 
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Johnny6

Active Member
Feb 18, 2018
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If the game being open world really is this bad, I'm gonna talk to my patrons and figure out what to do for the next versions.
No, it's not bad. There is people who complains about sandbox games because they can't jump sex scene to next just holding ctrl down. And there is some really bad sandbox games with lots of clicking and grinding without a reward or guide. In your game sandbox is executed well and it was a pleasure to play it. Relationship screen could be quicker to use, no other complaints.
 

WhY NoT?!

Member
Sep 2, 2019
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powd does your week in the game do not have Saturday and Sunday? Every day college and nothing happens there we get +1 knowledge, how is this knowledge helps us in the game?!
 

doe50818

Member
Apr 5, 2020
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I do like the open world structure because the encounters are more isolated. Looking at a notepad ingame for hints what to do for a specific character beats having to always read a PDF walkthrough in an attempt to figure out what dialogue choices I should pick so the story takes the direction I want it to take. I do not like guessing which choice the developer meant to cause which effect. Location based encounters eliminate a lot of this guesswork, because if you show up somewhere, it's for a very specific reason.

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but open world allows individual story lines to be more linear (more guided), and that's what I like about them in games like these.
 

despot444

Member
Mar 10, 2018
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438
I don't like sandbox games because my thoughts about them is that devs often do that because they want to increase play time. Repeating same actions without fun. Not that I'm blaming you for anything, it's my thoughts about sandbox games.

Anyhow I'm giving 10 points for Angelina's squishy breasts. It's too early for me to review game but so far I like it minus gameplay.
 

Chrisdarock19

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Oct 15, 2018
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KoGa3 Could you look at this and possibly create one of your Audio/Music mod?

powd A cool feature when at the home would be to add some kind of character indicator to the rooms to show when a character is in a room, this would save the player from going to empty rooms.

Also a visual weekly cycle would be cool (Showing Monday, Tuesday etc) along with access to the hints/bio screen when at different locations, not just the home
 
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KoGa3

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Aug 14, 2018
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KoGa3 Could you look at this and possibly create one of your Audio/Music mod?
Ambition - here we go again.jpg

Now seriously: Without knowing the game so far, I only took a quick look at the script files - or better, tried to look at them. Oh dear... there are over 30! of them to look at - sorry, I lost track. And: it's freeroam, normally not my preferred game style (with few exceptions), so I will pass on this.
 

Chrisdarock19

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Oct 15, 2018
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View attachment 737351

Now seriously: Without knowing the game so far, I only took a quick look at the script files - or better, tried to look at them. Oh dear... there are over 30! of them to look at - sorry, I lost track. And: it's freeroam, normally not my preferred game style (with few exceptions), so I will pass on this.
I appreciate you taking the time to look into it. Thanks
 
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3.60 star(s) 7 Votes