VN Ren'Py Karlsson's Gambit [v0.8.2B Final] [Grym Gudinna Games]

[f96zonetrooper]

This VN uses an impressive number of flags and variables. The data transfer from season 1 to season 2 contains more than 300 (!) values. Right from the start the player can make choices which increase/decrease variables but most of them seem to just store player actions and may trigger small dialog variations without changing the course of the story. For example elena_p, Elena's opinion on mc (player), can increase/decrease based on player choices but is NEVER evaluated so far, so the player can completely ignore the value when playing current version E1 to E8.2.

Is there a list of the really important variables which fork the story?

Spoiler: data transfer

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[Maviarab]

This VN uses an impressive number of flags and variables. The data transfer from season 1 to season 2 contains more than 300 (!) values. Right from the start the player can make choices which increase/decrease variables but most of them seem to just store player actions and may trigger small dialog variations without changing the course of the story. For example elena_p, Elena's opinion on mc (player), can increase/decrease based on player choices but is NEVER evaluated so far, so the player can completely ignore the value when playing current version E1 to E8.2.

Is there a list of the really important variables which fork the story?

Spoiler: data transfer

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The vast majority of character variables have not been used yet, along with the majority of actual labels.

My excel sheet in the OP lists every single one. As to your last question, far too many to mention.

 

[f96zonetrooper]

The vast majority of character variables have not been used yet, along with the majority of actual labels.

My excel sheet in the OP lists every single one. As to your last question, far too many to mention.

I wonder if Tess has a full "overview" of her variables and their effects?

For example " bad_joke " is a flag used only in the very first meeting with Elena in Episode 1 and causes only a slight variation in Elena's wording most players will likely miss. No need to transfer such a one-time flag to Season 2.

 

[Maviarab]

I wonder if Tess has a full "overview" of her variables and their effects?

Be a crappy dev if she didn't...so you can safely assume that yes, she does.

At the end of Ep7, there were:

173 Flags
40 different point variables for Characters
40 other misc point variables
and 21 point variables directly for Kane & Olivia themselves

 

[MilesEdgeworth]

Going a bit off topic, Im wondering how Callista faked a pregancy with Seth. Faking Olivia wouldve been easy since Elena was an absentee mother back in the day and Olivia was with Callista before Kane was born. But what about Seth. I imagine by that point, Olivia knew how babies were made.

 

[kinkyshin]

Going a bit off topic, Im wondering how Callista faked a pregancy with Seth. Faking Olivia wouldve been since Elena was an absentee mother back in the day and Olivia was with Callista before Kane was born. But what about Seth. I imagine by that point, Olivia knew how babies were made.

I've made a couple shitposts about this before:
https://f95zone.to/threads/karlssons-gambit-v0-8-2b-final-grym-gudinna-games.50840/post-17189743
https://f95zone.to/threads/karlssons-gambit-v0-8-2b-final-grym-gudinna-games.50840/post-16610179

Obviously no one knows... could just be that

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and Elena like she's already done multiple times now.

Perhaps a better theory though now that I think about it is that Callista was pregnant with twins. (Kane and Nadia) but gave Nadia to Cynthia (as was planned with Cole) and in return got Seth.

Cole never bothered to ask about Seth (seems unaware of his existence) but Cynthia has asked about Seth multiple times now. Personally, I think Seth has similar cheekbones to Cynthia, but that being said... During this scene:



There are different flags (with the names of gods) based on the options picked.
If Kane picks to save Seth then you get the flag 'Kaneashur', which according to wikipedia:

suggesting that Seth has no family.

If he has no family then I guess it could be so simple that Alexander simply knew she was pregnant with twins, so Callista had to swap Nadia with someone else... and Seth is just some random guy. I don't know...


Seth has the same sickness as Astrid. This line from Kiyomi always makes me think that the disease Alexander injected Astrid with came from Seth and that Cynthia played some role in it. But this is quite the reach lol

 

[The_Man_With_No_Name]

Seth has the same sickness as Astrid. This line from Kiyomi always makes me think that the disease Alexander injected Astrid with came from Seth and that Cynthia played some role in it. But this is quite the reach lol

Maybe.
Veronica then proceeded to turn it on Alexander after he refused to acknowledge boundaries, even after she threatened him with breaking the whole system, so her appetite for revenge might be sated already.
As for Cynthia, not enough info on the Dekock side of things.

 

[harsha_26]

Which paths "are getting cancelled"?
You mean the fact dom Kane can't shag Elena?

Don't get me wrong I find Elena to be one of the better looking and more intriguing character of this VN, but once one gets past the very first chapters it's easy to understand why she wouldn't be a LI and I mean on any path.
Not every option for every character needs to be open in a VN, especially one that has a strong focus on story and setting.

Spoiler

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Again I repeat, there's a part of me that would love for Kane to be able to "romance" or have more interactions with Elena, I truly like her character and her model, but ain't going to happen and has nothig to do with giving preference to submissive paths.

domKane wont able to romance Elena, yes because of you explaining that she believes daughter is best choice. But, she can fuck him in dom path in future updates (don't know when) as confirmed my Tess. But domKane has to support Olivia Faction in order to do that. Elena willing to do anything to make her daughter ready for Gambit. So, fucking domKane in order to make him more invested in her faction is not something out of the box.

 

[MilesEdgeworth]

I've made a couple shitposts about this before:
https://f95zone.to/threads/karlssons-gambit-v0-8-2b-final-grym-gudinna-games.50840/post-17189743
https://f95zone.to/threads/karlssons-gambit-v0-8-2b-final-grym-gudinna-games.50840/post-16610179

Obviously no one knows... could just be that

You must be registered to see the links

and Elena like she's already done multiple times now.

Perhaps a better theory though now that I think about it is that Callista was pregnant with twins. (Kane and Nadia) but gave Nadia to Cynthia (as was planned with Cole) and in return got Seth.

Cole never bothered to ask about Seth (seems unaware of his existence) but Cynthia has asked about Seth multiple times now. Personally, I think Seth has similar cheekbones to Cynthia, but that being said... During this scene:

View attachment 5291110

There are different flags (with the names of gods) based on the options picked.
If Kane picks to save Seth then you get the flag 'Kaneashur', which according to wikipedia:
View attachment 5291115
suggesting that Seth has no family.

If he has no family then I guess it could be so simple that Alexander simply knew she was pregnant with twins, so Callista had to swap Nadia with someone else... and Seth is just some random guy. I don't know...

View attachment 5291122
Seth has the same sickness as Astrid. This line from Kiyomi always makes me think that the disease Alexander injected Astrid with came from Seth and that Cynthia played some role in it. But this is quite the reach lol

Unless tess fucked up in the writing this right here shows us that Callista only had one kid:


If I had to guess, Nadia is probably the product of a one night stand with some rando before cole got serious with Callista.
It's hard to ignore the fact that Seth has the same disease as Astrid and that he's currently being used as research. No idea where he came from though. I wanted to say that Yvette ran across him somewhere and she gave him to Callista for safekeeping knowing that he could be used to help Astrid. But that makes little sense since she was probably affected later. No character that's ran across him gave him a knowing look either. Definitely need to learn a bit more about him before I can come up with a decent hypothesis

 

[kinkyshin]

Interesting... Before season 2 I always thought Nadia was Kane's half-sister due to the timeline, but then something in season 2 had me absolutely convinced that Nadia was Callista's daughter. Is there really no confirmation on this?

In the event that Callista has more than one child, I still don't think Tess fucked up the writing there even if it does look a little bit weird.

"I have a child too Elena" is factually correct.
"I have children too Elena" is not correct because Elena doesn't have children.

I mean, I admit it's a little weird to say "I have a jellybean" when you have 50 jellybeans, but technically it is true right?

 

[harsha_26]

Callista only have one son and that is MC. I mean dont have perfect proof. But, my gut feeling says it's the truth.

And Yes, Nadia is the half blood sister of Kane and the daughter of Cole.

Regarding, Seth.. Well, my guess is (again I don't have proofs or analysis) but two possiblities I can think of:

He is the son of Alexander but not with callista.

(Or)

He is the son of Alexander's one of Sisters. Alexander's Sisters have a significant role in shaping Alexander and Karlsson's City. We can't just ignore those "lore sisters".

 

[f96zonetrooper]

Be a crappy dev if she didn't...so you can safely assume that yes, she does.

No offence but didn't she say that KG is her first program ever?
She is now working 5-6 years on KG and if you check the script files the variables are all just added as they appear in the script.

Spoiler: Chapter 1 Variables

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For example for chapter 1 there are character stats like good/evil/dom/sub for mc and sis, scene specific variables like shock and bad_joke, scene choices like samsadist and patpunish, relationship stats like elena_p, pat_p, sam_p, ... While some variables may have a global scope and are valid for the whole game, the value of other variables is really just limited to the first scenes in the game where Kane is in prison and waits for his evaluation. Unless you want to summarize the complete playthrough at the end of the VN, most of these variables are not needed in season 2.

The fact that Tess simply transfered all 300+ variables to season 2 suggests that she has no plan which variables she may use in future and which not or that she simply doesn't care. Since v0.7b and v0.8.2b both work, nobody will change the coding and remove unused variables or restructure variables. (We all know how sensitive players are to restructuring data which may invalidate save games.)

For the players this situation with too many seemingly important variables is confusing, eg you start a new game, you see the variable "elena_p" and try to optimize your playthrough to get a high rating with Elena, just to then notice that "elena_p" is NEVER evaluated and so is an irelevant variable. By following the path to maximize "elena_p" you may make decisions which in the end lead to a closer relationship with Elena, but you may also unneccessarily sacrifice other options on your way. And this applies to other (flavor) stats like good/evil/sub/dom etc as well which seem to have less impact on the story than expected and mostly just cause slightly different wording in dialogs.

(Note : "good" is actually a very bad variable name since the script contains thousands (ca 3,400) of occurences of "good" in the dialogs which makes it difficult to search for code lines with the variable. It would have been better to use something unique like "p_good".)

 

[MilesEdgeworth]

Interesting... Before season 2 I always thought Nadia was Kane's half-sister due to the timeline, but then something in season 2 had me absolutely convinced that Nadia was Callista's daughter. Is there really no confirmation on this?

In the event that Callista has more than one child, I still don't think Tess fucked up the writing there even if it does look a little bit weird.

"I have a child too Elena" is factually correct.
"I have children too Elena" is not correct because Elena doesn't have children.

I mean, I admit it's a little weird to say "I have a jellybean" when you have 50 jellybeans, but technically it is true right?

Fair enough.
At this point all we have is vibes. Perhaps I went in with a bias but even that conversation between nadia and Calllista on the helicopter seems off if they're mother and daughter. We'll likely have our real answer this update.

 

[Maviarab]

For the players this situation with too many seemingly important variables is confusing, eg you start a new game, you see the variable "elena_p" and try to optimize your playthrough to get a high rating with Elena, just to then notice that "elena_p" is NEVER evaluated and so is an irelevant variable. By following the path to maximize "elena_p" you may make decisions which in the end lead to a closer relationship with Elena, but you may also unneccessarily sacrifice other options on your way. And this applies to other (flavor) stats like good/evil/sub/dom etc as well which seem to have less impact on the story than expected and mostly just cause slightly different wording in dialogs.

Oh boo hoo...

Are you actually trying to make a point or just preaching to the crowd (me in this case) for the sake of it?

Fair enough.
At this point all we have is vibes. Perhaps I went in with a bias but even that conversation between nadia and Calllista on the helicopter seems off if they're mother and daughter. We'll likely have our real answer this update.

They are not, but purely out of interest for conversations sake...when exactly did Callista have this mysterious second child and why is she brought up/raised by Cynthia?

 

[MilesEdgeworth]

They are not, but purely out of interest for conversations sake...when exactly did Callista have this mysterious second child and why is she brought up/raised by Cynthia?

If I'm understanding Shin correctly, Nadia is his twin but since she was a girl, Alexander had no interest in her so Callista sent her away to get her out of danger

 

[f96zonetrooper]

Oh boo hoo...

Are you actually trying to make a point or just preaching to the crowd (me in this case) for the sake of it?

No offence ...
In the past I never bothered too much with the variables, just used the walkthrough and followed a playstyle, eg good dom, etc.

Now I restarted the game and try to understand how each variable affects the course of the story. It's kind of embarrassing to see that seemingly essential variables like "dom" and "sub" are mostly dialog flavor and have no longterm effect after the scene early in E2 where mc can make a deal with Pat before the evaluation at the prison.

Usually a walkthrough is written when an Episode is published, so a walkthrough can hardly include information about longterm effects of variables unless dev includes a preview of consequences in coming updates.

 

[f96zonetrooper]

Are there any plans by Tess to revisit Season 1 and add an official gallery?

 

[HiHaHo]

Are there any plans by Tess to revisit Season 1 and add an official gallery?

well from what i've read she cut down on content,and is already planning/working the 2nd VN
so i doubt any revisit/rework will happen aside from smaller bugfixes/changes

 

[MilesEdgeworth]

Are there any plans by Tess to revisit Season 1 and add an official gallery?

For season 1 (and only season 1), you can use the sancho mod for the gallery, just don't save a game when its installed , cuz that save will be useless.

 

[Maviarab]

If I'm understanding Shin correctly, Nadia is his twin but since she was a girl, Alexander had no interest in her so Callista sent her away to get her out of danger

Yet there is zero evidence of that.

Are there any plans by Tess to revisit Season 1 and add an official gallery?

Will be added when S1 hits Stream end of the year (planned).