Ambition: A Minuet in Power is a game of relentless tension in the French court, where a single errant word or poor reaction can see you headed to the guillotine.
You arrive in Paris seeking your fiancee, but he’s nowhere to be found. Do you carry on as if nothing has happened, or do you seek help from other nobles and countrymen? It’s hard to say, but for my playthrough at PAX East, I tried to got to a party he’d been invited to, hoping to find some answers. I seemed to have said something wrong to one of the nobles, though, soon finding myself taunted and tossed outside. Oh yeah, and someone sent my driver away without me.
You’re constantly evaluating what you want to say or do in these political and social circles throughout the game, as it is all about making decisions and saying the right thing. You have very little power or money, and you need to use your charm, words, deeds, and cunning to get ahead. This means knowing what your opponents like and what, then saying the exact right thing to manipulate them into getting what you want. Every single word must be weighed, as if you mess up, you’ll start creating danger for yourself. Enough troubles will eventually lead to the guillotine if you;re not careful.
At the start, I wasn’t quite prepared for how hard those decisions would be. I took a ride from a kindly soldier since I was without a carriage, which ended up causing some salacious rumors about me to begin. Without an income, I started skulking around seeking information from people who were a bit too free with their information. That information would go onto influence revolutionaries and monarchists alike, causing further story changes. Every single call I made felt like it carried real weight and caused damage I hadn’t anticipated, making me appreciate the power in ever single choice I made.
The result is this constant sense of pressure as you play through Ambition: A Minuet in Power. You feel like you can’t take a single thing for granted, and as you’re free to choose what to do with your days, it all weighs on you. When things start to go well, though, there’s the thrill of a well-hatched plan and a sense of cruel glee that you’ve manipulated people into thinking exactly what you want them to. You skew so close to ruin that it’s quite exhilarating to play – enough so that it kept me absolutely riveted to it for my entire playthrough.
This play between tension and triumph was impossible to put down, and had me scrambling to see if I could squeeze just a few more minutes out of the demo. It was hands-down the best game at PAX East this year, and something I am dying to really dig into when it releases. Who knew I was so into the political pressures of dress choice in the French court?
Ambition: A Minuet in Power is currently in development, but in the meantime, you can add it to your Steam Wishlist.
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