Others - Hilichurl's Ambition [v1.2.3.3] [Theofrad]

Not bad game. This interesting game, It reminds me of old strategies like Lords 3.

But for some reason, the numbers start to drift into fractional values. The management is a bit inconvenient for sending large groups of troops, and sometimes a random powerful hero may arrive at your base. Not enough new games, plus if that's the plan.

a nice game, but still has some imbalance, specially in the early turn when meet the unique characters, and the introduction of the system is too unclear. Anyway, its still a good game deserve a week time. Looking forward to the following versio.

I was quite surprised actually-- I didn't expect much. but wow.. This games pretty good.


It can honestly run on it's own without the porn elements and it'd still be pretty good-- Gameplay can be a bit hard to get down at first (Which we had tooltips, was confused for a while why the girls "broke" until i figured it out).. This is honestly better than most porn games I've played-- Let alone strategy. it's like a Mini-4X, AI porn edition, the Ai art isn't even that bad. It's all pretty good-- Especially when you consider there's several unique arts for every girl.

This game is excellent. Interesting gameplay and mechanics, and tons of heroines to catch. I think it's deeper and more fun than the Goblin Burrow games it might take inspiration from, with better looking girls.

People complain about the AI art, but in my view it's well done, better than some professionally made 2D games, and much better than a lot of the low-quality 3D and hand drawn art on this site. There's no way a solo dev could make animated art of dozens of heroines.

My main criticism is that the mechanics are pretty hard to figure out at first. Tooltips on everything would help a lot.

[v1.2.3.3]

First thing to know going in is, as some others have alluded to, this is less a porn game and more just a game. There's plenty of rape and breeding to be had, but it's all brief, low-quality ai cg. The porn is not the focus of the game, and I doubt this will ever change. You absolutely can play with one hand, but if you do I doubt your other will be doing much of anything.

I won't lie, I've never played HOMM or a HOMM-like, so I can't say if this game is one of them outright, but that is the impression I get from the combat on a surface level. Most of the game is spent in managing your army--breeding new and stronger units, moving pieces around the map, taking territory, replenishing any damaged units, things like that. In this, it's pretty engaging once you get the hang of it.

But that's only once you get it, because the conveyance of what you can do and how is lackluster, to put it politely. Additionally, this does not seem to be a game that's built around learning how to play the game being part of the gameplay--think Dark Souls, Cultist Simulator, etc., where failure and repetition are expected and part of the core gameplay loop. No such case for Hilichurls' Ambition--failure is failure. If you fail to properly prepare for some things that you have no way of knowing about without prior knowledge, it's game over. All in all, bad UX is a definite flaw.

This is to say nothing of how sparse on detail the actual UI is. The purpose of most items, buttons, etc., are best determined through trial and error rather than just being able to read what they do in a tooltip or something. I like the idea of how the 'tutorial' plays out in-world, and it feels like the dev stopped it right where it would make sense to do so. Only problem is, there was still a lot of things that needed to be explained, and just never are. An update focused entirely on communicating information to the player would be a godsend.

Frankly, the gameplay is nothing like it, but I'm most reminded of a game called Shadows of Forbidden Gods in general feeling. It's very rough around the edges, but there is an interesting game here that's worth playing if you like this sort of fare and can put up with bad UX.

This review is for for 2-3 changelogs earlier version.

Pros:
-Fun and engaging gameplay (once you figure it out).
-Nice strategic element.
-Fetishes deliver.


-Cons:
- Needs polishing.
-Poorly explained gameplay and interactions.

Overall very promising game.

A nice Conquest Strategy Game similar to Goblin's Barrow that is in early development, so expect for things to be clunky and the UI needs more work.
But it has enough Content with a nice Combat System and intresting enough management for the Team Building and the development of them.

Some tips and advice to get you started:
The Abyssal Power is an Upkeep and some Buildings and Upgrades have a Cost associated with it. It's also how many heroines you have captured.
You don't want your Upkeep(left) to exceed your Total(right).
You get more Total Abyss Power from breaking statues.
You can also plant Wedges and Abyss Trees, negative numbers is good as it reduces the upkeep and provide more Total Abyss Power.
The Nycto Element you need for using the altar is based on Total Abyss Power - Abyss Upkeep.

Early Game you want to balance the number of generic captured girls with the total number of Hilichurls you have for the purpose of breeding. That means don't invest in farming and mines yet.
Also be careful early on what you build in the farms as Abyss Farms increase Abyss Upkeep and Abyss Trees generate Threat.

For breeding heroines be warned that you can "ruin" your heroines.
You want to keep their resistance high and above 50% so that they remain disobedient.
Once they get below 50% resistance they become submissive and you can't get resistance above 50% and their element power and resistance gain slows to a crawl to the point of being unusable.
This is especially a problem in the early game where you don't have any masks or nectars.
Consider making heroines that have low maximum resistance become corrupted at the altar so that you can maintain their maximum Elemental Power and Stats.

Manage your Threat carefully as you can get curb-stomped if you don't get enough evolved Hilichurls going.
You can also use the Threat to farm certain girls reliably and to capture the heroiens that attack you at certain Threat Level.

Game needs an *actual* easy mode or in-build cheat menu.

On top of that, the tutorial is next to useless. Game mechanics are obtuse and difficulty scaling basically non-existent, you either do *exactly* what the game wants you to do or you die in the first week.

Shame, because the AI art for this game is actually pretty ok, but not worth trudging through multiple hours of restarts and deaths to events you just couldn't foresee, only for 3 CGs on winning a battle + 2 dungeon CGs.

Still, will keep an eye on it and change my review if things improve

If you value your time I highly suggest not playing this game. its mostly low effort AI cgs for a game system that was made to be grindy with a power scale system that is kind of meaningless when your built up forces can be one shot by characters and having to move armies across the map is incredibly tedious.

Simply brilliant. Its incredibly fun and has really good H scenes. However I would advise to wait until a proper tutorial is introduced and some parts are rebalanced. The game has a couple of incredibly frustrating power spikes that can ruin your whole run. I was 60ish turns in and suddenly a Giga Chad Kitemaster 3000 Fischl decided to attack me. No matter what I put against her she just 1-2 taps any unit except Noel at an incredible range. + once you get close she just teleports away, the net doesnt work since she just teleports anyway. I don't even want to think about how bad its at difficulties other than easy.
(I beat her with mages... but still game feels way too punishing. I dont think a juiced up Lumine should attack when you have incredibly low threat.)
Cant wait for the game to develop further.

This game can get really captivating quickly, design wise it looks good. HOWEVER the absolute lack of tutorials is damaging. Through my first run at the game i did not even know how to use torture or how to get energy nectar. These functions weren't even expanded on in the online tutorials. I had to manually find out that the nectar is produced by growing whopperflowers. Overall great potential!

hard game that isn't an easy sceneviewer but that fits with the theme very well. the art is ai but the work you have to put in to get it makes it feel good anyway. honestly 99% management and 1% h scenes, so if you aren't into that it's not for you. but for me even in such a early state it is fun.

Just needs a way for combat to be more enjoyable because currently it is a grind if you want to be optimal and keep from killing the girls.

peak is peak, almost nothing like it on this site. Looking forward to updates.

Really solid game. The strategies are deep and meaningful, not just surface-level. You actually have to think, plan, adapt. It’s not easy, and that’s what makes it so satisfying.
The pacing keeps you engaged, and the mechanics complement the theme perfectly. It rewards patience and smart play.
Looking forward to how this evolves. It has a strong foundation, and if the dev keep building on it, this could grow into something truly special. Definitely keeping an eye on it.

Really good for whats released so far v1.1.2. The game has two big issues personally that can easily be improved so its not subtracting a star from my rating.

1. Really needs keybinding as your hands will hurt from clicking a lot having to click on tile you're unit is on then range attack and choosing what attack to do should just be on 1,2,3,4 as you have press spacebar or click bottom right of screen to end turn anyway. Same with a keybind to keep ending turn until enemy makes a move, just would be a good QOL.

2. Really need to reduce on amount enemy attack each turn because of the threat. Maybe just make it once every 2 days instead of 1, I wish I could autobattle it, but its simply not possible without losing units on early days that you wouldnt if u manual. Its kinda not fun to do 2 battles per day that take 3 turns because they got move forwards to you so thats like 2 minutes per day.

AI cg doesn't bother me at all and for anyone else who complains about it, it is in the tags, you knew what you signed up for.
With that out of the way. The game itself is kinda nice. You catch heroine, peasants, and other characters and make an army. There is corruption but I won't get into it. Attacks other cities or outposts, rinse and repeat. Enemy also create units periodically to attack. There is danger level and the enemy reacts to actions you take.
All sounds good? Why the 2 stars you might ask and I will simply say because this is NOT a strategy game. The dev might have as well slapped VN tag and just made it story based and removed all the base building and turn based combat.
Why do I say that? The game is filled with gotcha moments that you are sure to outplay it next time around or play around it. Like unwinnable fights (even the dev writes in his guide that you should not attack certain character). Second one is when you reach certain danger they will attack your base. Like out of nowhere drop from the sky with again unwinnable fight that you are meant to just survive until they leave. Not to mention not enough heads-up about it. Oh and don't send your best army there because they will die all the same. I could go on and on about these gotcha moments.
Anyway, the game requires heavy balancing but it is too early to judge a game based on that.
Don't be fooled by the version number, this is an alpha stage game, hopefully it will mature (and change direction .)
When I played this game, I was really excited, finally a game that has the perfect mix between strategy and erotica which is the reason I was holding off writing this review because I was hoping it would get better. And it did. The dev added percentage for "offspring", the guess work was driving my crazy. Alas, what I mentioned earlier is obviously something the dev does not intend to change.

Challenging & one of the most fun games I've played since a long time.

Be ready to learn the game, it does take some time. The Art is also good.
Very promising start, looking forward to further improvements and more content

Awesome game!

v1.1.2

AI Slop at its worst. It's low effort, as you might expect, and overall just not very good. Also call me a weirdo but the artwork rubs me the wrong way. Not something I'd recommend to people as a whole and generally just not something I would pick up.

Great game for management-game lovers. I really don't care or have ever played Genshin, but the management system is really enjoyable. One of the few management taged games in this site with actual management gameplay, really glad to see. Hopefully it will keep growing, but the fundation is more than solid.

This game is bizarrely good, like the CG's are whatever AI slop but the real fun is in the gameplay, It's almost exactly like goblin burrow but without the hard checkpoints and inheritance systems making it so players can actually take time getting used to the gameplay before voluntarily going into harder content and once you get into the swing of things you start to snowball pretty hard leading to great satisfaction, It's pretty hard to explain with words how the game grips you but I actually had a lot of fun with it.

I would not recommend the game if your just here for a quick fap, its much more of a slow burn with actual gameplay.

I also recommend looking at the guides because this game doesn't tell you shit beside how to move and combat.

If you're like me and you play H games for the H, I'd step away from this game. It's a management game that has a small tutorial and stumps you early on, even on EASY difficulty.
The concept is great but the UI is horrid, H-scenes are not good and not worth the time.