VN Ren'Py Naked Ambition [v0.82] [Apollo Seven]

[Thomasz123]

Anyone got "total submission" open in gallery?

 

[Arisushi]

Anyone got "total submission" open in gallery?

(I don't remember if you need him to be the mentor for this, most probably not.)

Just make sure the princess continuously keeps giving in to every demand of Ulric (by having enough pink cards). It will be unlocked eventually.

 

[riadhloch]

This game should be on Steam. There is discernible devotion to creating a game and a story, not merely a masturbatory aid.

There are aspects to this game that annoy me e.g. doing everything I can to try to make sure I have a red card available before a scene, then getting screwed by RNG, and the only recourse being to start the game over entirely or use a checkpoint and pray. However, there is no doubt that this game continues to be fun and have incredible potential. That I keep trying to find all the different paths speaks to the variability and enjoyability, at least in my opinion.

But I digress: if you're looking to expand your audience and don't mind the cut that Valve will take, Steam is a valid, additional option for distribution and finding an audience.

 

[fjabbegreven]

Good point, also I'd like to add that maybe you could keep in the adult stuff and make it bad/baddish ends. Granted I would love to see a proud, confident, wise, exhibitionist Queen, but the first three should be the goal. - make all the bad ends HIGHLY VISIBLE steam achievements .P

Also would like to add that I really love the thought cabinet idea, have you played Disco Elysium by chance? will maybe steal for a cyberpunk'ish game, where you're a decker "possessing" a half-cyborgs bit and pieces, maybe .P

 

[Deleted member 791157]

I know this has already been brought up a lot, but I play these for porn, not for a 6 hour long text-based roguelike. The content itself is great, and the format is great when things are going as planned, but the unforgiving nature of the card randomness is madness. I just played 3 hours straight going for a trust route and I've had to abandon my run because I failed a payton the merchant 2 trust check with 6 trusts in my deck. The only purpose of me playing at that point was to see payton's questline to the end. The fact that it's intentional to have to replay the same 3 hours of text and cutscenes to get back to the same point and try the roll again hurts my head.

Is there at least a method via save editor to reset the roll? Otherwise I would strongly suggest adding at least a reroll button to be used once for each check, makes it focus more on the deckbuilding and less on the randomness.

 

[fjabbegreven]

I know this has already been brought up a lot, but I play these for porn, not for a 6 hour long text-based roguelike. The content itself is great, and the format is great when things are going as planned, but the unforgiving nature of the card randomness is madness. I just played 3 hours straight going for a trust route and I've had to abandon my run because I failed a payton the merchant 2 trust check with 6 trusts in my deck. The only purpose of me playing at that point was to see payton's questline to the end. The fact that it's intentional to have to replay the same 3 hours of text and cutscenes to get back to the same point and try the roll again hurts my head.

Is there at least a method via save editor to reset the roll? Otherwise I would strongly suggest adding at least a reroll button to be used once for each check, makes it focus more on the deckbuilding and less on the randomness.

While i tend to disagree, a cheat option could be useful for QA purposes/scene hunting, but it is supposed to be a game as well.

Imo with games like this you should wait for it to be completed and do 3-5 playthroughs that get progressively less "yolo", until you reach your current level of frustration and drop the game .P

Why I'd be against a "QA option" is that "we're" playtesting gameplay, not playtesting QA operations. The finished product should be a game, not a slideshow, just wait for CG rip bro .P

 

[Deleted member 791157]

While i tend to disagree, a cheat option could be useful for QA purposes/scene hunting, but it is supposed to be a game as well.

Imo with games like this you should wait for it to be completed and do 3-5 playthroughs that get progressively less "yolo", until you reach your current level of frustration and drop the game .P

Why I'd be against a "QA option" is that "we're" playtesting gameplay, not playtesting QA operations. The finished product should be a game, not a slideshow, just wait for CG rip bro .P

But im not interested in cg rip, I enjoy the pace and the story and the choices, I just don't like spending 3 hours to have my payout ruined by rng.

 

[Apollo Seven]

But im not interested in cg rip, I enjoy the pace and the story and the choices, I just don't like spending 3 hours to have my payout ruined by rng.

Use the seasonal checkpoints, they reset the Princess's decisions.

 

[Deleted member 791157]

Use the seasonal checkpoints, they reset the Princess's decisions.

Huh fair enough, I hadn't checked that option. Does it reset other progress? like cards and previous events? Also from a game design prespective have you considered a reroll mechanic? either once per choice or on a longer cooldown (maybe even once per season)? I can only see positives to it.

 

[Apollo Seven]

Huh fair enough, I hadn't checked that option. Does it reset other progress? like cards and previous events? Also from a game design prespective have you considered a reroll mechanic? either once per choice or on a longer cooldown (maybe even once per season)? I can only see positives to it.

It resets everything back to how you were at that checkpoint this run. So cards, stats, relationships, they'll all be the same.

As for rerolls, it conflicts with the theme. The Princezs is making these decisions, how did you playing as Maria make her reconsider? Maybe as an heirloom.

 

[Deleted member 791157]

It resets everything back to how you were at that checkpoint this run. So cards, stats, relationships, they'll all be the same.

As for revolts, it conflicts with the theme. The Princezs is making these decisions, how did you playing as Maria make her reconsider? Maybe as an heirloom.

Excellent, sorry about the previous negativity, that pretty much solves my issue. Yea I mean, as is mentioned in the game, video games are all abstractions and macguffins, can't be too hard to come up with a lore reason for it, it would just feel good from a mechanics and balance perspective, give the player some extra agency over choices, and make it less likely for terribly unlucky rolls to happen without making much difference on less likely rolls.

For example, if you need to roll a paranoid but only have 1 in deck, the reroll won't help much, still a low percentage chance as you didn't prepare your deck well enough for it, but if you had 3 paranoids and didn't get it, the reroll would be a great save. Thinking about it more, once per x weeks (anywhere from 2 to a whole season) would make it a rare and powerful mechanic that adds quite a bit of depth and strategy to the game.

 

[manscout]

As for rerolls, it conflicts with the theme. The Princezs is making these decisions, how did you playing as Maria make her reconsider? Maybe as an heirloom.

Heirloom for Maria's ending could be interesting.

Alternatively it could be a new meditation mechanic like visualization, although I don't know if re-rolls should be a temporary buff or based on stored "roll points".

 

[Apollo Seven]

Excellent, sorry about the previous negativity, that pretty much solves my issue. Yea I mean, as is mentioned in the game, video games are all abstractions and macguffins, can't be too hard to come up with a lore reason for it, it would just feel good from a mechanics and balance perspective, give the player some extra agency over choices, and make it less likely for terribly unlucky rolls to happen without making much difference on less likely rolls.

For example, if you need to roll a paranoid but only have 1 in deck, the reroll won't help much, still a low percentage chance as you didn't prepare your deck well enough for it, but if you had 3 paranoids and didn't get it, the reroll would be a great save. Thinking about it more, once per x weeks (anywhere from 2 to a whole season) would make it a rare and powerful mechanic that adds quite a bit of depth and strategy to the game.

I don't mean it doesn't match the theme in terms of how it physically happens, I mean in terms of what emotions the game and story is trying to evoke. The game is simulating what giving advice to a real person is like. And people tend to do what you don't want them to do all the time. Being able to retry decisions could work as something you add in exchange for something else to push for scenes you want (like an heirloom) but as a base game mechanic it goes against what I'm trying to evoke.

Heirloom for Maria's ending could be interesting.

Alternatively it could be a new meditation mechanic like visualization, although I don't know if re-rolls should be a temporary buff or based on stored "roll points".

There is going to be a new meditation mechanic for .7 actually. Right now it's planned to be an ability to guarantee a draw that week in exchange for deleting the card you force drew.

Now if you're asking "wait, how is force passing some checks different than rerolls?" well they both compromise against the theme, but we're getting towards the late game, some compromising has to be done ti make the game actually enjoyable.

 

[Arisushi]

There is going to be a new meditation mechanic for .7 actually. Right now it's planned to be an ability to guarantee a draw that week in exchange for deleting the card you force drew.

Now if you're asking "wait, how is force passing some checks different than rerolls?" well they both compromise against the theme, but we're getting towards the late game, some compromising has to be done ti make the game actually enjoyable.

(After pointing out in my review about the game's lack of flexibility to try SOME routes without starting from scratch) This is going to be quite hypocritical of me, But here I go anyway.

I, for one, am really glad I got to play the game before the force draw mechanic is implemented.

A significant part of the fun was/is the nail-biting moment as the cards start to line up and the sheer joy when it passes the requirement. If force draw was a thing from the beginning, my lazy ass would have most definitely abused it and simply skimmed through every route.

What I'm really trying to say is : The original card mechanics of the game was amazing and it needs no further improvement.

(But, at the same time, I also understand the need for such a compromise and I hope it is well received.)

 

[Apollo Seven]

(After pointing out in my review about the game's lack of flexibility to try SOME routes without starting from scratch) This is going to be quite hypocritical of me, But here I go anyway.

I, for one, am really glad I got to play the game before the force draw mechanic is implemented.

A significant part of the fun was/is the nail-biting moment as the cards start to line up and the sheer joy when it passes the requirement. If force draw was a thing from the beginning, my lazy ass would have most definitely abused it and simply skimmed through every route.

What I'm really trying to say is : The original card mechanics of the game was amazing and it needs no further improvement.

(But, at the same time, I also understand the need for such a compromise and I hope it is well received.)

I guess I need to clarify. This is a new mechanic for .7 content onwards, things that happen after the Festival of the Sun. You can't use it in the existing stuff. By the Festival of the Sun dual color cards are pretty played out and there needs to be something to keep the monthly meeting deck building interesting. Originally I was planning on triple color cards but that just makes the not drawing a specific card problem even worse. Forcing a dual color card for a better chance at passing an advanced check at the cost of losing it after that week has a nice risk reward balance. Do I just keep pruning the deck or do I tilt this weeks odds in my favor at the cost of weakening the deck in the future?

 

[Arisushi]

Ah, I'm sorry. I was the one who completely misunderstood what you said.

Interesting to see a new mechanic at this stage of the game.

With only around 5 (or 10?) more weeks left in the calendar, I'm quite excited to see how big a role the new mechanic will play in the final outcome of the game

 

[Apollo Seven]

Ah, I'm sorry. I was the one who completely misunderstood what you said.

Interesting to see a new mechanic at this stage of the game.

With only around 5 (or 10?) more weeks left in the calendar, I'm quite excited to see how big a role the new mechanic will play in the final outcome of the game

We're at week 37 of 55 so there's actually 18 more weeks. 14 of those are "real" gameplay weeks and 4 of those are "story" weeks.

 

[Arisushi]

We're at week 37 of 55 so there's actually 18 more weeks. 14 of those are "real" gameplay weeks and 4 of those are "story" weeks.

Wait, really?!

This is quite embarrassing, but I just looked at the roadmap, and once again, I seem to have completely misunderstood things.

For some reason, I saw the words "Ball" and "Secret Events" in week 51 and thought, "Well, we just finished those, so there must be only two more updates left."

My lazy brain didn't even recognize the fact that we're literally at 0.6

(The new card mechanic makes even more sense to me now)

---

Still, very happy to know there is quite a bit more of 'Naked Ambition' coming in the future

 

[Apollo Seven]

.61 is out. This update is mostly maintenance things like bug fixes and typo fixes with a small amount of new content.

 

[Grimtown]

There's a tentacle and tape tag because there's a tentacle rape scene in the game. Only one though and it's pretty minor and a little hard to find.

That would suggest that it's completely optional/avoidable. Is that correct Apollo Seven ?
Is there any other rape content in the game by now?

I love 2d pixel art, but am not equally fond of non-consensual stuff.