VN Ren'Py Karlsson's Gambit [v0.8.1 Part I] [Grym Gudinna Games]

[f96zonetrooper]

Imho :
You should not forget that KG is a story in development.

When ch.1 was written, not much was known and fixed how the story would evolve. The longer the game and so the story is developed, the more twists and inconsistencies may occur.

Olivia is one of the main protagonists. The player has to do decisions for her but in early chapters has no clue that she probably knows everything about the Gambit, probably even more than the other Karlsson girls. Instead she acts in early chapters like she knows nothing. This feels very strange in retrospective. Imagine that in later chapters it might be revealed that Kane and Seth also knew everything about the Gambit upfront and were trained and everything was just a charade to deceive other characters and the player ...

The single chapters are best viewed as a series of separate short stories with a consecutive cast and theme but not yet as parts of a consistent full novel since this novel is still in development and not finished. Once the game has reached its end, it would be wise to go back to start and rework dialogs and scenes so that the early parts of the game are consistent with the late game story.

Nevertheless it is interesting to see how the overall story evolves and changes from chapter to chapter ...

 

[MilesEdgeworth]

Read the hiking flashback. Or the Stacy flashback. MC was trained a lot. Not specifically for the game, but rather for success.
She basically made him study the complete subject instead of making him solve practice papers for a specific exam.


She could reach out to Veronica disregarding everything if she was desperate for Seth's life. It's been established how brilliant she is, so she could've worked with her solve the disease much faster & saved her son soo much pain.
She could've partnered up with the DeKocks & their researchers to work on it.
At the very least, it'd have been better than a public institute with a lack of funds.
Seth would've been more comfortable at the least & could've been frozen like Astrid at the worst.
Remember the DeKocks are on par with the Karlssons, despite not having a Veronica.


Maybe not 100% guaranteed (DeKocks, Callista herself is brilliant, etc.) but true enough.
Yet Callista didn't desperately knock on their doors, showing she still had some amount of control over the situation.

I didn't mean she could save him, but that she had options/avenues other than leaving him in a subpar public hospital.

But that's what happened. The great Callista, spoken of so highly by everyone in the game, could only manage to leave the fate of her terminally ill son to a subpar hospital.
It just doesn't match. Rather it's more convincing & in-line with her image if it was deliberate. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

compare kanes training to olivias. Kane was just educated really well, nothing he was pushed in helped him in the game. Hell, he didnt even know that the karllsons were coming for him. If she did train him for the gambit, she failed, badly. Meanwhile not only did Olivia get acting and music lessons, but she also was well aware that the karlssons would be coming for her. Couple that with the fact that Olivia and Kane were raised as brother and sister which puts Olivia at a severe disadvantage, tells me that she wasnt planning on Kane being part of the gambit and her hand was likely forced.

Its hard to knock on doors, etc etc when nobody has a cure. Veronica literally had to put her sister into cryo cuz she didnt have any answers. Callistas best bet prior to that was hoping the hospital would figure it out, once it became obvious that it wasnt going to work, she traded her beloved son for an opportunity to cure seth.

 

[Remembrance]

compare kanes training to olivias. Kane was just educated really well, nothing he was pushed in helped him in the game. Hell, he didnt even know that the karllsons were coming for him. If she did train him for the gambit, she failed, badly. Meanwhile not only did Olivia get acting and music lessons, but she also was well aware that the karlssons would be coming for her. Couple that with the fact that Olivia and Kane were raised as brother and sister which puts Olivia at a severe disadvantage, tells me that she wasnt planning on Kane being part of the gambit and her hand was likely forced.

Eh. Mc seems to be doing well. Olivia was trained as an agent while MC was trained as a examinee. He didn't need to know specifics to do well as long as he developed the skills required. You can see others praising Callista's tutelage directly or indirectly, i.e. she didn't fail.
Rather, the MC suceeding even when unware of the deeper mechanisms of the Gambit shows she suceeded pretty well in her aims (which was not to baby the MC, or reduce Seths pain - but rather to train & use them as chess pieces in the gambit & bet on them. A little extreme version of tough love, lol)
Also, it was probably a requirement of the Gambit that the MC be unware. I can see Callista being confident enough in MC to accept, or maybe even propose that limitation.

It's all about how you perceive Callista, whether she is indeed as legendary as everyone makes her out to be or not.

"Callistas best bet prior to that was hoping the hospital would figure it out," the dystopian equivalent of a public healthcare hospital?? Callista wasn't that dumb

Tbh it all depends on whether Callista is the gambit queen or not.
If she is, it's likely everything was deliberate & even the theory Alexander had a deal with her seems more acceptable, since she has so much info.
The queen has too much control & info to have been forced into it. She's the Gambit's queen after all.
If she isn't & she really died, then it's more likely, though still inconsistent with how everyone describes her as the best thing ever.
Let's see.

Imho :
You should not forget that KG is a story in development.

When ch.1 was written, not much was known and fixed how the story would evolve. The longer the game and so the story is developed, the more twists and inconsistencies may occur.

Olivia is one of the main protagonists. The player has to do decisions for her but in early chapters has no clue that she probably knows everything about the Gambit, probably even more than the other Karlsson girls. Instead she acts in early chapters like she knows nothing. This feels very strange in retrospective. Imagine that in later chapters it might be revealed that Kane and Seth also knew everything about the Gambit upfront and were trained and everything was just a charade to deceive other characters and the player ...

The single chapters are best viewed as a series of separate short stories with a consecutive cast and theme but not yet as parts of a consistent full novel since this novel is still in development and not finished. Once the game has reached its end, it would be wise to go back to start and rework dialogs and scenes so that the early parts of the game are consistent with the late game story.

Nevertheless it is interesting to see how the overall story evolves and changes from chapter to chapter ...

Yup. The Astrid reveal, changing the k4 to k5 sisters, would be a more appropriate example tho.

Even if the Olivia plot wasn't planned during ch1, it was fit pretty well by the dev by the consequetive flashbacks in ch6+7.
Forming a nice narrative about how variable Olivia's knowledge, allegiance & goals may be.

I was just thinking a few minutes ago how ch1 might have this issue as it was done by Tess all alone before she was sure the game would even survive to ch2.
But the dev has so far fit everything pretty consistently.

The Olivia knowing reveal is done step by step & the great actor reveal being the 1st is great since we don't have too much context about it & are still biased by how we have seen Olivia so far. Then the 2nd shows she knew somethings, but not too much - leaving things open-ended. The 3rd flashback, a whole chapter (half year) later, is again giving info without too much directed hints (we get info about the birth timeline of MC in relation to Olivia) & then the 4th one is very directed hints, but no confirmations like the 2nd one.

Seeing how it was handled, I'd like to think the dev had the overall plot prepared from early on & wasn't just improvising.

But changing k4 to k5 shows there's a lot of things we thought fixed(4 sisters) could change very easily, including how much the MC & seth knows.
If it's executed with similar finesse like the Olivia reveal, I won't complain, but I feel once was enough for that.

With the MC it'd be better if the dev goes with a realisation plot, with the MC starting to piece things together

Anyway, let's see how the dev develops the plot. We can only guess & speculate whether it was premeditated or retconned in ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

 

[Stan5851]

I didn't mean she could save him, but that she had options/avenues other than leaving him in a subpar public hospital.

But that's what happened. The great Callista, spoken of so highly by everyone in the game, could only manage to leave the fate of her terminally ill son to a subpar hospital.
It just doesn't match. Rather it's more convincing & in-line with her image if it was deliberate. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

It is quite possible that, in this case, Tess did not intend any special tricks. And Seth's treatment in a regular hospital is just a plot move to introduce us to one of the key characters and then to show the difference between regular medicine and the high-tech medicine of the genius Veronica. Seth is still expected to produce some results as one of the three key players in the program. Callista took a risk by putting Seth in a regular clinic, but by doing so, she guaranteed his participation in Gambit on a par with Kane and Olivia.

 

[lightalex]

Everybody think Callista is dead, we don´t know when the helicopter crash could happen how long the three MC are alone.
How long are they watched?
Olivia know they would come she was on her own without Kane, Callista hide, the only help she can get was to bring him in Hospital knew when the stakes are high the karlsson would react.
First i think the project ST or island4 was only to safe/ cure Astrid but the big security and how big this is makes no sense, also Cynthia mention V hide it from the board, project NOAH ist to repopulate the planet and the board know

 

[santiago_campanella]

I am now moving through Kane's dom path, and chose Olivia dom path too. And now started to wonder, could anyone tell me, --- If you choose Olivia's sub path, does it change her scenes with Kane? Ie. within existing game does she get ~on his level or maybe even lower [K9 for him at this chapter of walkthrough]?

 

[f96zonetrooper]

... does she get ~on his level or maybe even lower [K9 for him at this chapter of walkthrough]?

AfaIk : No. She is part of the management (Z-rank), not a slave (K-rank).

 

[Remembrance]

Seth is still expected to produce some results as one of the three key players in the program. Callista took a risk by putting Seth in a regular clinic, but by doing so, she guaranteed his participation in Gambit on a par with Kane and Olivia.

With this game, I always assume there's a hint or hidden meaning. Messing up on grymgudinna made me examine everything

But yeah, I meant the same thing. That it was Callista's informed decision, not one born out of helplesness, & given everything we know about Callista's brilliance, that informed risk was minimal, while also placing Seth in starting position for the Gambit. I.e. she was more or less confident Seth could survive in the hospital without dying before the Gambit.
I just can't imagine Callista as a hapless/desperate mother with no other options, especially if she turns out to be the queen. That's all.

I am now moving through Kane's dom path, and chose Olivia dom path too. And now started to wonder, could anyone tell me, --- If you choose Olivia's sub path, does it change her scenes with Kane? Ie. within existing game does she get ~on his level or maybe even lower [K9 for him at this chapter of walkthrough]?

Olivia's (and Kane's too) dom & sub variables do not have any affect as of ch7, outside of a few dialogue variations, like Pat reporting to grymgudinna.
I maintain it at 7:8 so I can change it as necessary if it ever becomes relevant.

 

[lightalex]

In how many parts ch8 will be splitted?
3? when every update gets bigger and part 1 ~ 1500 renders.
Makes me realize it could be we wait another five Years before we have all answer

 

[| Vee |]

Is there any discussion yet about "Fratricide" (= the act of killing one's own brother)?

I don't think it is by accident that we have 2 brothers as MCs who are named after 2 of the most well known brother killers in mythologie.

Kane or Cain killed his (younger) brother Abel in the biblical Book of Genesis.
"Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices to God, but God favored Abel's sacrifice instead of Cain's. Cain then murdered Abel, whereupon God punished Cain by condemning him to a life of wandering."

Set or Seth killed his (older) brother Osiris in egyptian mythologie.
"Set is a god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion.  In Ancient Greek, the god's name is given as Sēth. Set had a positive role where he accompanies Ra on his barque to repel Apep, the serpent of Chaos. Set had a vital role as a reconciled combatant.  He was lord of the Red Land (desert), where he was the balance to Horus' role as lord of the Black Land (fertile land)."
"Osiris is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion."
"In the Osiris myth, the most important Egyptian myth, Set is portrayed as the usurper who murdered and mutilated his own brother, Osiris."

So there might be endings where Kane kills Seth and vice versa, maybe based on good versus evil rating. (Evil Kane kills Seth to take over the company, good Seth kills evil Kane to save the world, ...)

I DID MENTION THAT BEFORE

IF names have meaning to whom they are then i would CAREFULLY CHOOSE IT

Spoiler

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BE MINDFUL!

It just clicked my mind that there is fuckseth point so there might be fuckkane point in future too because of names of Gods but it is not looking as both MCs can be controlled by us and given how things are progressing between kane and olivia my this hypothesis should be truly wrong. I am rooting for kane and olivia!

 

[| Vee |]

IT MIGHT NOT BE A COINCIDENCE THAT WE HAVE SEVERAL ANCIENT NAMES AND ON TOP OF THAT IN (SOMEWHAT) SAME WAY TO ORIGINAL NAMES!!!

Something to think about hard!!

 

[MilesEdgeworth]

Eh. Mc seems to be doing well. Olivia was trained as an agent while MC was trained as a examinee. He didn't need to know specifics to do well as long as he developed the skills required. You can see others praising Callista's tutelage directly or indirectly, i.e. she didn't fail.
Rather, the MC suceeding even when unware of the deeper mechanisms of the Gambit shows she suceeded pretty well in her aims (which was not to baby the MC, or reduce Seths pain - but rather to train & use them as chess pieces in the gambit & bet on them. A little extreme version of tough love, lol)
Also, it was probably a requirement of the Gambit that the MC be unware. I can see Callista being confident enough in MC to accept, or maybe even propose that limitation.

It's all about how you perceive Callista, whether she is indeed as legendary as everyone makes her out to be or not.

"Callistas best bet prior to that was hoping the hospital would figure it out," the dystopian equivalent of a public healthcare hospital?? Callista wasn't that dumb

Tbh it all depends on whether Callista is the gambit queen or not.
If she is, it's likely everything was deliberate & even the theory Alexander had a deal with her seems more acceptable, since she has so much info.
The queen has too much control & info to have been forced into it. She's the Gambit's queen after all.
If she isn't & she really died, then it's more likely, though still inconsistent with how everyone describes her as the best thing ever.
Let's see.

MC only succeeds half the time, depending on your playstyle. If you follow callistas teachings of basically treating everybody right, you start off at 4 and struggle to advance. Kane is put into a life or death situation without any prior knowledge or training. If that was Callista's intention the whole time, then she's a worse person than even Juliette at this point since she did that to her own flesh and blood.

Only two people perceive her as legendary. alexander was in love with her and veronica barely knew her. Besides, the world that tess set up, there are haves and have nots and her constantly moving tells us she was trying to hide which limits her options .

 

[Remembrance]

MC only succeeds half the time, depending on your playstyle.

Well, for sub players, getting k4 is success. I don't judge people's kinks.

If you follow callistas teachings of basically treating everybody right, you start off at 4 and struggle to advance.

When was it mentioned that Callista's teachings were so black & white? She was not a preacher preaching morality.
What MC was taught was intellectual/observational/survival problem solving skills (speculation) seen during the work - especially Dominique & Veronica works. Those answers wouldn't be available options if MC didn't have the aptitude to solve them.

MC only ends up as k4 if the player wants him to be sub, or if he cannot leverage the situation to his benefit. Callista's tutelage gives him that edge, hence the ability to get to k5/6, which is very very rare.
So it's entirely on player choice if he ends up on the sub route.

Basically both possibilities are there to give us 2 routes based on our preferences.
The logic I have explained before.
You can teach everything & send your child off into the real world, but it's ultimately upto them whether they succeed or not.
This(MC's aptitude & Dom/sub preference) is kept not fixed for the sake of giving us 2 routes.
Cannot blame the teacher for that. Blame the player.
But you can see the upper limit(k6) as the high aptitude MC trained by Callista the board is so wary of.

Kane is put into a life or death situation without any prior knowledge or training. If that was Callista's intention the whole time, then she's a worse person than even Juliette at this point since she did that to her own flesh and blood.

Given Seth was her real child(i have doubts), she kept him in pain for 10+ years despite having the connections to ask for help. My mother would beg everyone she knew to grant me even a slightly better QoL.
We need to adjust to the crueler world of KG.

Consider it as having an eye on the bigger picture &/or a dystopian version of tough love & trial by fire. Callista was no saint, but I wouldn't call her evil. Just believing in her children's success & endurance.¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

Only two people perceive her as legendary. alexander was in love with her and veronica barely knew her.

Cynthia, phoebe, etc. have high opinions of her (& therefore MC for being her son) if you read between the lines. Goes for a lot of characters. Like the board (Olivia-Elena conversation in ch7), etc. Whole tone of the game presents Callista as special from the very beginning.

Your theory is a lot kinder, but I think my crueler theory fits the story more appropriately to the characters & facts.
I don't believe Callista was cruel, but she wasn't soft either.
She prepared her children & sent them into the Gambit, hoping to win, not just herself, but the MC too, as well as the world (again, speculation).
But one thing I'd be pretty sure was that Callista wasn't helpless nor forced. Not the Gambit Queen herself.

But again, let's see. This is turning into speculation about her character/kindness & I wouldn't do that in a world which has Julliette ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

 

[f96zonetrooper]

MC only ends up as k4 if the player wants him to be sub, or if he cannot leverage the situation to his benefit. Callista's tutelage gives him that edge, hence the ability to get to k5/6, which is very very rare.
So it's entirely on player choice if he ends up on the sub route.

I had the impression :
- mc wants to be friendly and "good" -> K4
- mc/player has read Macchiavelli and uses it -> K6

I don't know what Callista taught mc.
In the end all the crucial decisions (good vs evil, dom vs sub, ...) are made by the player and not mc nor Callista.

 

[Remembrance]

I had the impression :
- mc wants to be friendly and "good" -> K4
- mc/player has read Macchiavelli and uses it -> K6

It's not so simple. If you have a loaf of bread, you give it to your friend & you die of hunger. Is that good or stupid?
If you have a job, you denied someone else that job. Is that evil? If you come 1st in class, you knocked someone else off from having that joy/honor.
Now go dystopian level extreme with this logic.

In fact you can be kind & still get k6.
You just need to be prudent & logical instead of being a brainless white knight.
Like if you take the food to preserve your strength & take the deal to stay on good terms with the guards, you can be kind to Zach(slave+=1).
You just need to have some self preservation instinct.
You can see this from Dominique. She's relatively kind, but still knows how to make things work to her advantage.
Similarly, you need to be intelligent when dealing with Elena, not good/kind or evil.
It's not good to be too kind, especially in a cruel world.

Rather, using the circumstances to one's advantage when navigating unfavorable situations should be something the MC displays after Callista's tutelage.

I don't know what Callista taught mc.
In the end all the crucial decisions (good vs evil, dom vs sub, ...) are made by the player and not mc nor Callista.

Exactly. Hence you cannot judge Callista's tutelage or MC's aptitude by the outcome.

But the available options/possibilities tell you things.
For example, a tenth grade student can score between 100 to 0 depending on their aptitude & attitude.
But when a 9th grade student with no inkling of the curriculum takes the test, the upper range decreases to what can be accidentally scored with zero knowledge.

Similarly, you can see the upper limit(k6) as the high aptitude MC trained by Callista the board is so wary of.

The best case scenario k6, is the combination of the best possible factors like Callista's tutelage, MC's aptitude, character & leadership aura, etc.
The worst case of k4 is the opposite, where the MC's overall skills & his worth is set lower by the players decision, allowing the story to flow into the sub route.

If MC didn't have certain skill levels and/or knowledge, then his possibile range should've been lower than k6.
Just like there's no option to kill everyone in prison & run away as MC doesn't have abilities like laser eyes, or guns or whatever.
Choices define the range of the possibilities.

Like if this was a femdom only game, the male MC could only have been a 'worthless slave' with no dominance or leadership skills & those possibilities would not appear within the choices.

In short, the players choose to set the MC's character/skills/preferences (like Dom/sub) etc.
But the available range tell what else could have been possible within the confines of the story's narrative.

This is how you can extract information about the possibilities from a player choice. Even though the player chooses differing choices, what can be chosen is still decided & restricted by the creator within the confines of what the story allows.

 

[MilesEdgeworth]

Well, for sub players, getting k4 is success. I don't judge people's kinks.


When was it mentioned that Callista's teachings were so black & white? She was not a preacher preaching morality.
What MC was taught was intellectual/observational/survival problem solving skills (speculation) seen during the work - especially Dominique & Veronica works. Those answers wouldn't be available options if MC didn't have the aptitude to solve them.

MC only ends up as k4 if the player wants him to be sub, or if he cannot leverage the situation to his benefit. Callista's tutelage gives him that edge, hence the ability to get to k5/6, which is very very rare.
So it's entirely on player choice if he ends up on the sub route.

Basically both possibilities are there to give us 2 routes based on our preferences.
The logic I have explained before.
You can teach everything & send your child off into the real world, but it's ultimately upto them whether they succeed or not.
This(MC's aptitude & Dom/sub preference) is kept not fixed for the sake of giving us 2 routes.
Cannot blame the teacher for that. Blame the player.
But you can see the upper limit(k6) as the high aptitude MC trained by Callista the board is so wary of.


Given Seth was her real child(i have doubts), she kept him in pain for 10+ years despite having the connections to ask for help. My mother would beg everyone she knew to grant me even a slightly better QoL.
We need to adjust to the crueler world of KG.

Consider it as having an eye on the bigger picture &/or a dystopian version of tough love & trial by fire. Callista was no saint, but I wouldn't call her evil. Just believing in her children's success & endurance.¯\_ (ツ)_/¯


Cynthia, phoebe, etc. have high opinions of her (& therefore MC for being her son) if you read between the lines. Goes for a lot of characters. Like the board (Olivia-Elena conversation in ch7), etc. Whole tone of the game presents Callista as special from the very beginning.

Your theory is a lot kinder, but I think my crueler theory fits the story more appropriately to the characters & facts.
I don't believe Callista was cruel, but she wasn't soft either.
She prepared her children & sent them into the Gambit, hoping to win, not just herself, but the MC too, as well as the world (again, speculation).
But one thing I'd be pretty sure was that Callista wasn't helpless nor forced. Not the Gambit Queen herself.

But again, let's see. This is turning into speculation about her character/kindness & I wouldn't do that in a world which has Julliette ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

1. Not about the kinks, its about the story. If you're not an executive, Kane's in a bad place story wise.
2. The only way you go above f4 is bullying zach, of all the things we've heard about Callista, do you really think she'd be cool with Kane bullying a younger weaker kid?
3. Whats wrong with the hospital? Nobody, not even veronica has a cure for the Zach's condition. Putting him in a place where he can be treated until a cure is found is the best she can do.
4. Theres not one thing in this game that Callista prepared Kane for. Kane wouldve made the same choices with or without Callista
5. Everything indicates giving Kane to the Karlsons was a last result, otherwise she wouldve stayed where she was and raised her kids in wealth as opposed to always hiding from the big syndicate.

 

[femdom worshipper]

Guys, I missed the moment, we are now waiting for the release of ep8 as always in about six months? or will there be a second part of ep7?

 

[Stan5851]

Guys, I missed the moment, we are now waiting for the release of ep8 as always in about six months? or will there be a second part of ep7?

According to the preliminary roadmap, future updates will now come out ~ every 4 months. So, we're waiting for chapter 8, which Tess says will be split into 2 parts. And the most important thing here, in my opinion, is how long it will take for the second part of ch8 to come out. If it's going to be another + 4 months, that would be too bad. Hopefully, Tess will adjust the timeline wisely, and the second part will come out 2 months after the first one at the most, and we'll end up with the same six months.

So, let's recap. If all goes well, we should expect v0.8 pt1 in about 4 months after the release of 0.7. V0.8 pt1, according to Tess, will contain about 1500+ renders.

 

[lightalex]

According to the preliminary roadmap, future updates will now come out ~ every 4 months. So, we're waiting for chapter 8, which Tess says will be split into 2 parts. And the most important thing here, in my opinion, is how long it will take for the second part of ch8 to come out. If it's going to be another + 4 months, that would be too bad. Hopefully, Tess will adjust the timeline wisely, and the second part will come out 2 months after the first one at the most, and we'll end up with the same six months.

So, let's recap. If all goes well, we should expect v0.8 pt1 in about 4 months after the release of 0.7. V0.8 pt1, according to Tess, will contain about 1500+ renders.

sorry but at the end of WT she says only parts, and every ep 1-7 is gettin bigger so far
i hope but don´t think 2 parts are sufficient( sorry google translater)

 

[Stan5851]

sorry but at the end of WT she says only parts, and every ep 1-7 is gettin bigger so far
i hope but don´t think 2 parts are sufficient( sorry google translater)

According to Tess's idea, the game should have 12 chapters (eps). As for the fact that each next ch/ep will be larger than the previous one, I can't tell you anything specific. I haven't seen that message from her and you have to ask Tess on her discord. Tess, as I understand it, no longer wants to disappoint players with a long waiting period (which this time her illness has superimposed on it, increasing it even more), so we have what we have.