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

[Belphegor007]

For people complaining about the no saving part you can just use the unpacker unren and use the force quick save/load option

 

[MrDeadRat]

Anyone has any idea what needs to happen to open the "queen of flames", "warrior of flames", "cock surprise", "icky sticky", "Cecily's appendage", "wrestlemania", "a triumph of will" and "a failure of will" in the gallery?

Edit: "wrestlemania", "a triumph of will" and "a failure of will" need you to succeed with the noble woman, so you need defence offense and strength for these

 

[Tavarokk]

"queen of flames", "warrior of flames"

Flame festival checks your highest reputation during outfit selection, so I imagine stacking political and combat rep respectively.

 

[manscout]

As someone that generally dislikes roguelikes and loves to savescum, I will still say a lot of people here are missing the point of the game.

The game is trying a fresh concept here, a hybrid of a roguelike and a trainer visual novel. I'm not gonna say I think it is a perfect idea. If anything I feel it is combining two niche genres that have a steep barrier to entry since they both embrace first run frustration (visual novels with complex routes and roguelikes are both genres that don't expect you to win everything in your first attempt), and to make it rougher, I feel combining those genres will remove the mitigating aspects each one has (roguelikes generally follow a "fail fast" philosophy, but this being a visual novel means that even a terrible first run will take long since there's a lot of content to read; complex visual novels on the other hand make up for their convolution by at least making it static so that once you learn something you won't get it wrong again, but since this is a roguelike with a lot of RNG you can still just get unlucky and fail at what you were trying to do even if you already knew what you needed).

One could try to make an argument about trying to make up for the unreliability by making the right decisions more intuitive, but I think the game is already trying to do that, I just don't think there is much more it can do since it is not a mechanically complex game, the main game loop consists of making basically 3 choices and then seeing what happens. If the game goes much further in trying to be intuitive, it will just end up giving away all the answers and then congratulating the player for their incredible accomplishment of being able to follow basic instructions (but I guess some people are into that).

Also it is not like anyone here can really say the game is guaranteed to make you lose in your first attempt, we don't even have access to half of the game's content yet, maybe letting the Vizier train Colette into being more promiscuous will automatically win the support of the drunk duke, so at that point you'd just need to not lose Evette's and Peyton's support and just gain one more, considering there would be another half of a year of events to increase the acceptance, that doesn't seem like such a difficult goal. Point is, the game will involve you failing at a lot of events, but it is too early to say the balance is complete bullshit and winning will be impossible in your first attempt.

The game is not perfect and I think there is still a lot to be done and voicing your concerns about it is fair game, but imagine shitting on an indie game that is actually trying to do something conceptually new just because it doesn't adequate to your personal expectations and "real game standards".

 

[maladjusted]

You can't plan for things you don't know exist, this is how all rougelikes work. Meta game knowledge is a key part of getting better at the game. In games like Slay the Spire of Binding of Isaac, the first time you encounter an enemy you're likely to do badly, as you're not aware of their patterns and what they can do. Same thing with Naked Ambition. The first time you see Evette coming up, you don't know what she can do besides vague ideas about what skills she likes and what signs she favors. So you'll probably fail but you'll learn and do better next time.

This game is meant to be played dozens and dozens of times. Once the game is finished even if you're perfect you'll have to play it over 35 times to get all the endings. You play the game, fuck up, play again, get better and fuck up less.

I love your art, world building, the many interesting charcters you came up with and your good writing. And I like that you're trying something new and making an actually good game instead of just porn. I even like the no save feature and think it makes for a more intense experience in games. And unlike some players, I do like reading in games. I really do. But how can you think anyone wants to read the whole story and all those conversations 35 times? (Yes, I understand they will change in different playthroughs, but there will be a lot of repetition as well.)

Maybe I'm just not getting what you want to show us. I didn't give it a fair trial yet, I only played a few minutes. But just knowing I will have to read the dialogues several times again and again, makes me not want to continue.

I would really love to train Colette to become an awesome and sexy queen through bribery, skullduggery, battles, diplomacy, politics, seduction, blood and sex. I don't want to fast click through the story over and over in hopes I get lucky with the RNG.

I would advise you to rethink these mechanics, if you want to claim your rightful developer throne. Your game has so much potential, but who will want to sit through all of this to get to it?

 

[y0sman]

Luckily, the skip text button will only skip text that you've seen before, and stop at card selections. So reading the same thing over and over is not a problem.

 

[Atlas]

Luckily, the skip text button will only skip text that you've seen before, and stop at card selections. So reading the same thing over and over is not a problem.

This.

 

[T51bwinterized]

I think that in general, the combination of high repetition built into the system, an emphasis on retrying, an absence of manual saves, and a high emphasis on randomness altogether is viable in a narrative game.

Let me lay it out.

Dilemma: The game's pre-existing systems encourage replays, as a consequence of multi-path, learning critical systems, and the inability to make save states. However, the game has relatively straightforward text, with conditionals and randomness in order of events as the primary mechanism of inducting replayability. At it's core, there is a conflict between text-heavy/narrative-heavy storytelling and repetition heavy mechanics.

Solution outlined by others above: Just use the skip button to move through playthroughs.

Response to proposed solution: Abusing the skip button is a fundamentally unsatisfying answer for two reasons. First, that it turns whole replays into games of "hunt the new content" because skipping past material is, if not more boring then a straight replay, then at least very boring.

Second, it prevents the game from feeling like a complete story. Skipping breaks narrative flow, and it reduces stories to "chunks of content" rather then allowing the game to feel like a complete begining, middle, end narrative.

Better Solutions: The simplest answer is just "suck it up" and let players create game saves. That solves, or at least heavily mitigates, the narrative issues presented. But, comes at a cost to gameplay.

There is a different (better) solution, but it is more labor intensive.

The randomness and stat heavy nature of the game works to its asset. Events are much more likely to depend on stats in a game then the minutia of what happened in a scene. The game remembers the relationship with the other cast members mostly numerically.

This means that certain scenes can be "subbed out" so to speak. The first scene with the general can have two or three variations that might play, each with their own conditionals. Most scenes that are just based on a relationship with one charachter can be replaced with others, because the only real effect that scene will have externally is via a variable.

The same is true with the random event system. There can be many more possible weekend events then can be seen in any one play through.

To pair with this, more conditionals and more possible outcomes need to be worked into events that cannot be avoided like the fire festival. As a basic rule of thumb, the more playthroughs a scene has the more conditionals it needs to have.

Eventually, you will hit a cap on it and it will still fall flat on replays. But, expanding content this way allows dramatically more replays before the player gets annoyed. Even if it's a small (20% to 30%) ammount of new text, players will still percieve the entire expierience as less boring, because players over-value new content relation-wise.

Basically, I think there's a tension here in that this game is fundamentally designed for, like, 2-3 or three playthroughs max in terms of narrative content variation. But, mechanically, it seems designed for like 6-7. Perhaps as much as ten. You either need to scale down the intended mechanical playthroughs, or scale up the number of playthroughs the narrative content can support.

 

[xeivous]

It's not really a trainer game, it's a rougelike with a lot of text

What.

That's a great vision to have mate, but that's sure not looking like what you've made from where I'm sitting. As far as I can tell, you've got a trainer game where half the things that a trainer game would have the player be making careful choices for in a plan born from meta-knowledge from all their playtime and (given the current state of gaming) community interactions are instead left up to card draws and dice rolls with the whole mess being called a roguelike system. The action game equivalent would be the button combos for a given combo attack being random in each playthrough. What you'd want in a action roguelike would be the randomize when and where you got the unlocks for the combos, not the button prompts for them. This is a philosophy you may want to think about how to apply to the trainer mechanics some more. That or prune them until you've gotten a balance that's much more "roguelike with a lot of text."

 

[T51bwinterized]

Actually, let me add a bit more to this.

Let's take the encounter with the general. The time it happens is variable, but the event itself is always constant. She goes and meets with him, plays a strategy game with him, then a messenger comes and gives her a chance to show off her knowledge.

This constitutes 3-4 separate checks (I don't remember), one of which is a card base checked. As a consequence, you might multiply it by total number of paths and say that there are 6-7 possible resolutions.

But, in practice the event is designed as two concentric variants, with fail states and win states. So the only realistic solutions are Fail, Pass, Partial Pass.

This tracks with the number of ways a player is realistically likely to do. The player is either aiming for the general and capable of playing the game, is not masterful at the game or only tangentially gaining for him, or totally not aiming for him.

But, as stated above, the game is designed to be ran more then 3 times. So 3 (I'd argue more 2.5, but that's just blubbering) possible end states is not good enough.

This presents you with two design options:

Events with more complex possible end-state gains. You do these with a few events such as the fire festival and the ball. These are a bit better. One can easily imagine adding an extra variable to the equation like a chance to impress the soldiers (Lust) at one point. This can multiply the end states by 2, especially if you make the success/fail endstates modified by the lust endstate. Rather then just you get the lust points and it doesn't effect the end of the event, the event text and modifiers gained changes if he is impressed in some respects but is reserved/thrilled about her sluttyness.

We'll call this option "increasing event multi-variation"

The second option is just make another event, perhaps with pass fail conditions too, and then just set the game so only one of them plays in that slot. Such an effort is more satisfying in some ways then the other event (makes the game feel lress predictable) but also potentially more labor intensive.

But, they key point is that either method doubles the potential end states, giving the game much more replay value on a narrative level.

You should do some of this retroactively to this segment of the game, since players are going to have to replay it a log. The second version (just making alternate versions and making them run instead) is easier to do when retrofitting a pre-existing segment of the game.

But, when designing future segments, the former sollution will become more viable, because you can design events like that in the first place rather then retrofitting. You can do things like have events where there are TWO council members present, and it's possible to please one, both, or none.

 

[T51bwinterized]

Oh, also what folks are saying above is bullshit. It's not pure random. It's skill based randomness, because you can change the chance of success with skilled play.

 

[T51bwinterized]

Skill based randomness is perfectly possible to build a skill game around. Building a strong DnD charachter and playing them well is a skill. But, even if you do everything right, you can still fuck up. You can build a god killing monster slayer, and then roll all ones.

What "doing it well" entails is "stacking the deck" so that you win more of the time. Making it so that 15 of the possible dice rolls go your way, instead of 5.

 

[starstar44]

Oh, also what folks are saying above is bullshit. It's not pure random. It's skill based randomness, because you can change the chance of success with skilled play.

i'm going to pop back in real quick and stop you right their and say that makes no sense, is outright wrong in several cases and is HEAVILY contradictory.
i would suggest never saying that to a game developer in the triple A industry as they would immediately punch you in the stomach.

alright, that is all, imma Ollie outie for real this time.

 

[Apollo Seven]

I think that in general, the combination of high repetition built into the system, an emphasis on retrying, an absence of manual saves, and a high emphasis on randomness altogether is viable in a narrative game.

Let me lay it out.

Dilemma: The game's pre-existing systems encourage replays, as a consequence of multi-path, learning critical systems, and the inability to make save states. However, the game has relatively straightforward text, with conditionals and randomness in order of events as the primary mechanism of inducting replayability. At it's core, there is a conflict between text-heavy/narrative-heavy storytelling and repetition heavy mechanics.

Solution outlined by others above: Just use the skip button to move through playthroughs.

Response to proposed solution: Abusing the skip button is a fundamentally unsatisfying answer for two reasons. First, that it turns whole replays into games of "hunt the new content" because skipping past material is, if not more boring then a straight replay, then at least very boring.

Second, it prevents the game from feeling like a complete story. Skipping breaks narrative flow, and it reduces stories to "chunks of content" rather then allowing the game to feel like a complete begining, middle, end narrative.

Better Solutions: The simplest answer is just "suck it up" and let players create game saves. That solves, or at least heavily mitigates, the narrative issues presented. But, comes at a cost to gameplay.

There is a different (better) solution, but it is more labor intensive.

The randomness and stat heavy nature of the game works to its asset. Events are much more likely to depend on stats in a game then the minutia of what happened in a scene. The game remembers the relationship with the other cast members mostly numerically.

This means that certain scenes can be "subbed out" so to speak. The first scene with the general can have two or three variations that might play, each with their own conditionals. Most scenes that are just based on a relationship with one charachter can be replaced with others, because the only real effect that scene will have externally is via a variable.

The same is true with the random event system. There can be many more possible weekend events then can be seen in any one play through.

To pair with this, more conditionals and more possible outcomes need to be worked into events that cannot be avoided like the fire festival. As a basic rule of thumb, the more playthroughs a scene has the more conditionals it needs to have.

Eventually, you will hit a cap on it and it will still fall flat on replays. But, expanding content this way allows dramatically more replays before the player gets annoyed. Even if it's a small (20% to 30%) ammount of new text, players will still percieve the entire expierience as less boring, because players over-value new content relation-wise.

Basically, I think there's a tension here in that this game is fundamentally designed for, like, 2-3 or three playthroughs max in terms of narrative content variation. But, mechanically, it seems designed for like 6-7. Perhaps as much as ten. You either need to scale down the intended mechanical playthroughs, or scale up the number of playthroughs the narrative content can support.

I largely agree with your analysis. The problem with manual saving is that kind of invalidates the whole game. The card system checks are supposed to not go your way a lot of the time, they're the Princess making a decision. If you can just go back and time and redo it until she does what you want, what's the point? If I had a way to let you save without being able to change these checks, I would be completely fine with it. But I can't think of a solution to that beyond saving the outcome of every card check to a persistent variable and clearing them on a new game start. I'm okay with the player saving a point for branching out or scouting ahead, but the card system itself needs to be 100% save scum proof or there's no point.

Remember that this is the first release, this is just the MVP I could make that would demonstrate the game. There's supposed to be more events, more variations of events, etc. They're just not in there yet. The content expansion solution is essentially what I'm planning. Stuff can be essentially added ad finitim as long as it doesn't have heavy art costs.

 

[Apollo Seven]

i'm going to pop back in real quick and stop you right their and say that makes no sense, is outright wrong in several cases and is HEAVILY contradictory.
i would suggest never saying that to a game developer in the triple A industry as they would immediately punch you in the stomach.

alright, that is all, imma Ollie outie for real this time.

Have you never played a card game before? There are entire genres of games built around the game play loop being essentially minimizing the effect of randomness on your outcomes. This discussion really isn't productive because I'm saying what the game is and it's goals and people are essentially coming back to me saying "nu-uh, those aren't your goals and that isn't this game". People can comment over and over about how the randomness isn't conducive to being a VN or trainer game and that's true. Because that's not what the game is. You don't play as the Princess. You play as her friend with minimal agency. The game is about using said minimal agency to guide the Princess to the goals you want. Her not doing what you want is 100% by design and the entire point of said design.

Telling me that the design that achieves my goals doesn't achieve the goals of a different game you have in mind isn't productive. People can keep commenting about how it's not a rougelike because X, but that will never change my mind about anything here. Because it is a rougelike, at least in my definition of the terms. You could have a rougelike that was all dice rolls and had no player input at all. I built a version of this game where you controlled the Princess much more actively, and I didn't like it. Because it didn't achieve my goals. This design does and although it has some finicky bits, I've spent a lot more time thinking about it then anyone else in this thread.

 

[manscout]

Apollo Seven
Stepping away a bit from general game design discussions and going back to this game specifically, would you consider adding an empty week between the ball and the first councillor meeting? Since we only gain the calendar after the ball, it sucks to have a meeting scheduled with a councillor you actually wanted to pursue immediatelly after, you have no time to fix up the skills you need unless you were already doing so during the prologue (which is pretty much impossible in a first run since the first 2 skill sessions are done before you even meet the councillors, and even in future runs it is annoying because it usually involves giving up something in the prologue itself just to deal with the off chance the councillor you wanted is the first you have to meet). Giving an extra week would help a lot with being able to react to it.

Spoiler: Another couple of things

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[Apollo Seven]

Apollo Seven
Stepping away a bit from general game design discussions and going back to this game specifically, would you consider adding an empty week between the ball and the first councillor meeting? Since we only gain the calendar after the ball, it sucks to have a meeting scheduled with a councillor you actually wanted to pursue immediatelly after, you have no time to fix up the skills you need unless you were already doing so during the prologue (which is pretty much impossible in a first run since the first 2 skill sessions are done before you even meet the councillors, and even in future runs it is annoying because it usually involves giving up something in the prologue itself just to deal with the off chance the councillor you wanted is the first you have to meet). Giving an extra week would help a lot with being able to react to it.

I can't add weeks,everything is planned out to match with seasons. March can't magically gain an extra week. But I am adding the calendar one week earlier in the next update.

Spoiler: Another couple of things

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That was a gag that made a lot more sense in a previous version of the game. This game is called .3 for a reason, there were two completely different systems I used to represent the Princess's mind before I settled on the current card one. They didn't work out for various reasons. As for your second suggestion, it's a good one, I'll do that.

I've been thinking a lot about saving and loading and have come to this conclusion. The only thing that I care about not resetting that can't be seeded is card checks. I don't care if you go back and choose different lessons, or say different things to the Princess. So here's my concession. You can now save and load the game at will. However if the Princess makes a decision, (card color checks) that decision will be stored permanently for that run. So you can't save scum her decisions, but you can go back and chose different options. To reset her decisions, you have to start a different new run. This will also delete your saves so the old seeding doesn't interfere with the new seeding.

 

[manscout]

That was a gag that made a lot more sense in a previous version of the game. This game is called .3 for a reason, there were two completely different systems I used to represent the Princess's mind before I settled on the current card one. They didn't work out for various reasons. As for your second suggestion, it's a good one, I'll do that.

Ah okay, it could still be neat as a secret ending where you can just kill Adelin at the start of the game so there is no succession dispute at all, I'd just recommend making the odds a little more friendly. It can also still stay as an "impossible check" gag similar to the Foreign = 50 one, but if that's the case then you should change the requirement to be something more ridiculous like 5 reds, since it IS technically possible to have 3 reds in your deck at that point and people could get the wrong idea about it being possible.

I've been thinking a lot about saving and loading and have come to this conclusion. The only thing that I care about not resetting that can't be seeded is card checks. I don't care if you go back and choose different lessons, or say different things to the Princess. So here's my concession. You can now save and load the game at will. However if the Princess makes a decision, (card color checks) that decision will be stored permanently for that run. So you can't save scum her decisions, but you can go back and chose different options. To reset her decisions, you have to start a different new run. This will also delete your saves so the old seeding doesn't interfere with the new seeding.

I'm fine with that, although I can still imagine being able to use that to cheese the cards.

Say I want to make sure I will get the fencing event during the flower festival, I can play the game picking nothing but red cards to ensure Colette will pick the fencing event, then load an earlier save and build my deck for whatever else while still being certain I will get the fencing event. If you really wanted to prevent that you'd also have to permanently store the deck-building choices (what card I added and what card I removed in the weekends).

I'm of the opinion that there isn't much point trying to stop people that want to cheat a single-player game from cheating, and even if you do, if they want it hard enough enough they will find a way.

 

[Atlas]

As I mentioned earlier, I really like this game. The only additional comment I want to make is that part of the reason I like corruption games is for the role playing element that I am getting away with something. If I am the PC choosing to be corrupted, I have that angle. If I am doing to an NPC that is another option. While as Maria I can influence the Princess, I don't feel like I really take ownership of the results. I am not sure I have specific constructive feedback. One example might be practicing kissing with the Princess and getting an increase in a sex stat or a special event. Does that make sense? I am playing a corruption game where the PC is not dominant or even really casually taking part in the corruption aspects of the Princess. I don't mean this as a negative critique, just some open thoughts about how to get the PC more involved in the corruption of the princess.

 

[Apollo Seven]

I'm fine with that, although I can still imagine being able to use that to cheese the cards.

Say I want to make sure I will get the fencing event during the flower festival, I can play the game picking nothing but red cards to ensure Colette will pick the fencing event, then load an earlier save and build my deck for whatever else while still being certain I will get the fencing event. If you really wanted to prevent that you'd also have to permanently store the deck-building choices (what card I added and what card I removed in the weekends).

I'm of the opinion that there isn't much point trying to stop people that want to cheat a single-player game from cheating, and even if you do, if they want it hard enough enough they will find a way.

If people want to go through all the effort to set stuff then reset, I think that's okay. I just don't want them re-rolling.

As I mentioned earlier, I really like this game. The only additional comment I want to make is that part of the reason I like corruption games is for the role playing element that I am getting away with something. If I am the PC choosing to be corrupted, I have that angle. If I am doing to an NPC that is another option. While as Maria I can influence the Princess, I don't feel like I really take ownership of the results. I am not sure I have specific constructive feedback. One example might be practicing kissing with the Princess and getting an increase in a sex stat or a special event. Does that make sense? I am playing a corruption game where the PC is not dominant or even really casually taking part in the corruption aspects of the Princess. I don't mean this as a negative critique, just some open thoughts about how to get the PC more involved in the corruption of the princess.

You can train the Princess as Maria, just not in this version. There are endings where you become the power behind the throne with the Princess as your puppet/sex pet. There are four "relationship" stats that the Princess has. Those are those popups when you chose a color that says something like "Love++". If you get the Reliance stat high, so that she depends on you, you can start to push her into doing sexy stuff in a corruptiony way while if you push up Love, you'll get a more mutually loving relationship. The game just hasn't reached the point where that comes into play yet, except for after the Festival of Flames.