Karlsson's Gambit
by Grym Gudinna Games
3DCG
Anal Sex
Animated
BDSM
Cheating
Creampie
Drugs
Dystopian Setting
Female Domination
Female Protagonist
Footjob
Group Sex
Handjob
Humiliation
Lesbian
Male Domination
Male Protagonist
Masturbation
MILF
Multiple Endings
Multiple Penetration
Multiple Protagonist
Oral Sex
Romance
Sex Toys
Sexual Harassment
Slave
Spanking
Teasing
Tentacles
Twins
Urination
Vaginal Sex
Virgin
You play as a male protagonist who has recently been - in his mind unfairly - arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. While in prison, he is approached by a mysterious woman who offers him an opportunity to work under a special "inmate rehabilitation" program with one of the richest companies in the world, The Karlsson Group. This program will allow him to get out of his sentence in only six months instead of five long years...if he can survive and thrive. Little does he know that he will be exposed to a far more dangerous and strange situation than he anticipated, as he will be exposed to a world of conflict, ambition, cruelty, passion, and of course sex.
Screenshots
Android
v0.8.31 FinalBAnais1
This update has 39 new renders and 16 new animations some fixes.
v.0.8.31 FinalA2
I up now 24 hours and release what I have Tess tell me no matter what get out by this time so I am
I made list with more corrections but add to Final B or A3 super fast on 26th but everything like animations and almost all scenes done! Only one small part I not finish which is a number two choice for one part but I am working now. I try contact Tess to ask wait one day to include last 35 rendres but I cannot reach her so I just follow her deadline!
I spend Christmas no work but I do a lot on 26th on and try get Final A3 or B out super fast. Plz help if you see big errors I try fix if you tell me.
I still making few more fixes and testers giving me list for december 26 big work fixes
I am sorry if anything not as good but I try really hard!
I write and render more I think 26 or weekend! I just fix not real write don't worry haha!
v.0.8.31 TestB
1) Remember that a Test Version is not designed to be the final version of this update. Some things are definitely missing, among them 2 dom scenes and 2 sub scenes. I have noted in the update where they are if you come to that spot in the story. While I put in a few animations in one scene on the Test Version, I have done about I would guess 50-60 animations that will likely end up at least 40-45 in the Final Version. (I tend to reject some every update)
2) Use LOAD to get your 8.2 end saves, START is more for loading Season 1 saves from the end of Episode 7. I just throw that out there as a reminder as sometimes I get messages about this when an update comes out.
and don't fly through/skip them super fast as it might be important long-term.
I still have a few edits I wanted to make but I really wanted to commit to getting it out this weekend, so here it is!
I would really appreciate any feedback or things that I and the people helping me missed!
I especially want to thank the people that helped test this version along with me before it came out! They are far better than I at catching certain errors that someone like me can't see because of how I work/evaluate things (plus I also lack the fresh eyes perspective very often, etc.) Words cannot fully express enough how much I appreciate their help! But I really love and appreciate each person that contributed! Thank you!
v.0.8.2B
minor bugfixes
v.0.8.2A Final
(from Test to Final)
Sub Path: + 125 renders
Dom Path: + 103 renders + ~~likely 82 renders (185) - I had wanted to try and be ambitious and include the entire 200 render scene I have in my head, but I am going to cut it short and stick with 80ish and continue it in Part 3.~~
40 renders = 143 renders
Animations: Approximately 115 added
Tess Outro: 29 renders
Anais Intro to TQA: 9 renders
Anais TQA Preview scene: 33 renders
Rough Raw Totals Added: 339 renders + 115 animations
v0.8.2 Test
n/a
v0.8.1 Part I
This update features nearly 3500 renders and continues the story developed in Episode 1-7!
v0.8 Test Part I
Dom Path: 1128
Secret Sub: 189
Main Branch (all can see): 464
Sub Path: 1,434
All renders: 3,215
v0.7b Final
Fixing the save issue for next season. If you have allready v.0.7a Final installed, use the
Save Fix
.
Chapter7: 16,500 lines of code and 4,100 renders.
Chapter 6: 3,507 renders, approximately 110,000 words. New game total is roughly 9,500 renders and 320,000 words.
Chapter 5: 2159 renders, roughly 65,000+ words. New game total is roughly 6000+ renders, about 210,000+ words.
4/11/2021
Chapter 4 Final Release: 57,611 words, 1749 renders, new total of game is roughly 3950 renders, 135,000 words. Choice paths have been tweaked from Beta so highly recommend saves under 0.4 Final Release for compatibility for 0.5.
11/7/2020
Chapter 3 Final Version: 34,000 words, 992 renders, total of game is now roughly 2200 renders, 77,000 words
HIGHLY recommend saving under 0.3Final and not 0.3A for 0.4 compatibility.
Story is now clearly tweaked to both male sub paths and a male dom path, but your choices before 0.3 determine which path, so choose wisely!
7/17/2020
Chapter 2 Final Version
: 24,585 words, 657 renders
Edits/adds to dialogue, music, renders, and
highly recommend
saving under this version for 0.3 given flags
Created separate dark text box version of game for final version (for people suffering from contrast sensitivity reading original text)
Added Discord server invite
7/5/2020
Version 0.2bb: Approximately 24,000 words and 650 renders, new overall total roughly 1,100 images/42,600 words
Special thank you to the following for assistance:
Mankinder - Android Port
Zoey Raven - Walkthrough
RStar8 - Minor tech assistance and future coding on 0.3
TD 1900 - Great fan sigs, please check out his game
Pale Carnations
!
Krull - Great fan sigs!
5/18/2020 - Fan made Android version added to page
Version 0.1d Fixed a lot of transitions to help those sensitive to too many flashes
Tweaked some dialogue and script
Added a walkthrough in the game files under the "Game" folder (a PDF)
Suggest playing new save if you got the Sam sitting on your lap in jail scene
Final release for 0.1, moving on to 0.2!
Version 01.c Audio slider hotfix - tech newbie strikes again, fixed customized music channels to use sliders properly
Version 01.b release: Approximately 18,600 words and 450 renders
There's a couple things that hold this back from being truly excellent, so I'll mention those first. The art style and design can feel a bit "icky", in a way. Hard to describe. Obviously the scenes and characters are pretty hot, but the style is a *little* unpleasant (especially the men). It's mostly noticeable given the overarching themes amplifying this. Anyway, aside from that, I must commend the writing and scenarios. A twisted but inventive mind, the creator must have. I strongly enjoy the absolutely evil/ruthless depiction of rising to power.
Full disclosure, I do the multimod for this AVN so I am trying to stay unbiased. To be honest, I have struggled with this AVN for a while now, both while playing and working on the MOD. I am not a fan of a submissive MC but the only way to play as a dominate player is to be totally ruthless with everyone. There is really no inbetween. For example, if you have the MC push back and fight everything at the beginning, you start out in a submissive role. Once you are in that role, as a player, you no longer have any kind of resistance choices which doesn't make any sense. If your MC fought back at the beginning, why wouldn't you be able to continue to fight back? So your choices are either become an ass hole or a submissive. On a positive note, the developer is seriously committed to this AVN. The depth and detail in the code is seriously impressive. There are all sorts of variables tracking all sorts of things and the paths and options, especially later in the game, are seemingly endless. That's not true, of course, but it's crazy how many different paths your MC and sister could take. I have no idea how they keep track of everything, but they do and their releases rarely have any bugs or problems. Additionally, this dev has gone all in on the story and you can tell they have things worked out and know where they want to go with it. I am seriously impressed with this developer; they produce regular, long updates filled with a ton of content and story progression. The artwork is good and the scenarios are unique; you will not find another AVN out there anything like this. For me, however, I just have a hard time playing an MC that is cruel. I know you can navigate it a little and be either a Dom/evil or a Dom/Good, but you still have to be pretty ruthless to get through it, but on the other hand, there is no way I could play a MC that was submissive. At the end of the day, I think it depends on what you like. If you like the submissive approach then you will probably love this game. IMO, the submissive path is probably the path the developer considers canon. Taking the other path means you have to adjust your moral compass and stomach a lot of crazy things. This is one of the most unique AVNs out there and the developer is one of the best as well. I am so impressed with the amount of love and attention they have put into this AVN. I can only imagine how much time and dedication it takes to put this together. Seriously impressive and I wish them all the luck.
Constant choices in different types of paths doesn't give same level of outcomes in those different types of scenarios game promises true freedom in outcomes but undermines one paths importance completely over the other. But it's not good for just viewing it from one standpoint that would be a little hypocritical Like for example if you love femdom games there is no way you won't like this game it's top tier in that regard And if you are a person who watches it for story bases without carrying any bias in your heart this game will still not disappoint you in that regard as it has quite a unique story So the conclusion will be every person is different and carry different morals and believes if you are really having doubts about playing this game i would recommend you to go ahead and experience it yourself because at the end of the day it's you who can truly judge a piece of media for yourself Thank you
The sub stuff is not to my taste and its totally avoidable an overall great game with beautiful sex scenes and alluring characters might be more for the people that have darker kinks The MC shows visible development throughout the story and we can shape how he is and what we will encounter based on what he have decided so the choices truly matter I recommend having 3-4 different playthroughs for all 3 main times of MCs, good neutral evil I didnt no the submissive mc path and have no idea about it so I will leave it to your imagination
Karlsson’s Gambit [v0.8.31] “Creating any kind of beauty like this is art to me. I’m so proud of you, Tess! Your mind is truly a gift to humanity.” — Callista Story and World: 7/5 ⭐ Writing and English: 5/5 Render Quality and Visuals: 5/5 (good in the early chapters, but constantly improving and absolutely top-notch toward the end) Animations: 3/5 (average at best) Female/Male Assets: 4/5 H-Scenes: 4/5 Choices Matter: 5/5 Before I start talking about the good and the not-so-good, I want to point out what I did not so good from my side : using the fucking walkthrough instead of just playing the game and falling straight into the claws of the Karlsson sisters. That one’s on me. That said, if you truly only want to play a dom-MC, using the walkthrough is probably not that bad of a decision. Although I think this AVN is way beyond many other works on this site, there are still a few things that could be better: some female faces look plastic and Barbie-like, with boring, “perfect” skin textures some of the mature women don’t reflect their age in their skin textures the MC’s dick is just an ugly, oversized, straight, staff-like penis vaginas lack variety. We basically see one type all the time — and I truly mean all the time . With so many females, why not make them different and interesting? way too many side characters… “who was that Alyssa chick again??? … uhhhm, yeah, right, that was she…!!!” because of that, almost all of them lack proper character development. I do feel that most characters have a distinct personality, which is good — we just don’t really know why they are the way they are, because they don’t get enough screen time. The only two characters that fully worked for me were the MC and Veronica. Dominique sends a weird and inconsistent signal in terms of moral alignment. Early on, I clearly felt she would lean toward the “good” side. I know she’s meant to be a wavering character, but in many scenes she just comes across as straight-up evil. many H-scenes on the dom path lack creativity or are simply too many. Some people may love seeing every female who’s running around get fucked — and there are plenty of them — but I’d personally prefer quality over quantity , with more passion and buildup. What’s missing in many scenes is a real connection between the MC and the LI, or at least a reasonable buildup. Most women feel like they’re just properly brainwashed by the Karlsson group and can’t do anything other than jump on the only big dick available ;-) Besides all this… I do love, love, love, love the story — did I mention that already? The tension, the mystery, the cruelty, the sadistic women, the different outcomes depending on your choices — all of that is fantastic . There’s really not much more to say here.
The basic point is that this is an effective, bizarre, and extremely horny game, featuring a number of very specific and rather radical kinks. I don't want to write a long review, so I'll just give you some points to consider. The game is grotesque enough for you not to feel too bad about the very dark stuff going on, or wonder how the hell a medieval torture chamber has an image of H.R. Giger's "Alien" on the wall. It works. And there is some thematic coherence which ties everything together. There is a lot of variability here. Ever wanted to look at a dominant man thrive in a femdom dystopia? Easy-peasy! The characters can be comically evil, but each is comically evil in their own, kinky way. I adore every single one. And, finally, the most important thing. This game is unapologetic in its cruelty. You can fully embrace being an amoral, horrible human being who can achieve hedonistic happiness and maintain some form of wickedly wholesome connection to other depraved individuals. There are quite a lot of AVNs that like to play around this little fantasy: "The world is unfair! Everything is just one big Epstein Island! Money rules everything! God is dead, we killed him! Now let's look at some poor soul knee-deep in this shit! Maybe we'll feel bad about our boner!", and all that jazz. I think that "Karlsson's Gambit" may be the only game which doesn't treat this like some deep and problematic revelation about real world. This is the stuff that dreams are made of, baby. And my personal dream features a power couple of loving non-incestuous psychopaths having the world at their feet. My therapist knows this.
For everybody who is still unsure to watch the novel: strongly recommended to watch the intro first and then to decide, if to go on or not. Tess - the narrator - is 100% correct in her description. Didn't follow such a dark novel for quite some time. Not easy to manage a path forward for the male MC and his siblings. But interesting storyline and very good quality for the characters. Still early in watching, but I love to see more.
Really dont see why this is so over rated, either theres a ton of femdom lovers or to many fishy reviews.... Your told from the start that you can play dom and its supposed to be choice driven, so i would expect it to be choice driven on both MCs your playing but its not, like when the sister meets Juilette or whats her name, she was told by her Cas that she should be tuff or Julliet would bully her and i was playing her as dom to, but game couldent careless it gives you 0 choice if you want your pussy licked by a dude you hate???? and Juilette also starts playing with your tits???? theres 0 ways to stop that scene and i hated that part playing her as a dom and seeing her as a pure sub.....and yes this happens multiple tmes where i wouldent want my female MC to get her pussy licked by strangers but its never a player choice. Same goes for dom path on male MC, your have shit forced on you like blowjobs and licking pussy on someone you might hate, so much for the choice driven novel.... Some choices are also totaly idiotic, like 4 girls in a room which one do you want to lick....well i want to lick none or maybe one, but naah you lick em all because this is a choice driven novel right? all the talk in the start is pure shit, it happens all the time, next is Claudia you cant turn her down you have to pleasure her even when you hate her.......nothing makes sense. So yeah thats a yes to forced LIs and forced sex scenes.....never seen games with that shit rated so highly its just to wierd and yes theres multiple forced sex scenes with people you dont even know....0 choices. Also be ready for ALOT of femdom none stop and alot of feet fetish....i would even say it has a ton of NTR since they girls your male MC can go after does a ton of sex shit with other people and without MC. To me story was a total mess, mostly due to the lack of choices and all the forced shit, i did the good/dom route and it was piss poor with so much forced shit even after you pick romace with a girl MC still fucks around multiple times and then at some point later it gives you the fucking option fuck someone and call it cheating???? LOL but allll the other times where not cheating? i mean gimme a break its piss poor writting. As for the girls i wasent a fan, its 95% big tits and when your forced to fuck people you dont like its just a turn-off and kills the story and romance altogether. Renders are pretty dated and grainy and the animations are average. Music is ok but nothing special. Choices are a jungle and impossble to figure out even with mod your unsure what the points mean since theres sooo many diffrent points and then theres all the forced shit on top of that. So if your into tons of femdom, feet fetish and all kind of weird shit and forced sex scenes and dom routes that arent dom and playing a female MC that you have no controle over meaning lots of forced shit with her to...then maybe this is for you, but for me its a huge failure and i will never understand why anyone ruins a story with forced stuff when it could have been good. And on a sidenote season 2 is more of the same, first thing it does is force a sex scene on you with Veronica one i hated from day 1 and never showed any interrest in but game simply just dosent care about choices, its pretty close to being a mindless fuckfest where you can turn down some but not anywhere near all and you cant have a single girl route or faithfull route with anyone.
Totally overrated, idk how the f**k this crap game has almost 5 stars while other games like midnight paradise or life in santa county are rated towards 3.5 stars tags are anal sex, vaginal sex, creampie but in reality 95% of the game consists on girls stepping on your balls, peeing you, or kicking your ass. Mostly a femdom game with almost no real classic sex scenes.
Absurd premise aside, this game is purely about kink. Well that and being a cuck. Its pretty unapologetic about that so there is that. If that's all you need then you're in luck. The writing is bad. The models are dated. This is basically a masochistic cuck rape fantasy. Its the type of writing that screams male feminist. All of the women in control are one note and there is no way to make the MC do anything but be a bitch. There is a dom path but it really has no energy put into it. I can hear the author loudly thinking men are the worst and we deserve this. The story makes little sense. They have a main character who isn't at all. Then they shoehorn in a female character who is supposed to be kind of a good person, but she clearly isn't with how quickly she take to ruining her friends life. All of it with an air of "see isn't this better?' and no it fucking isn't. Its basically set dressing for femdom torture porn. The writing is atrocious and is really a backdrop to excuse bullshit. What's worse is even the title is misleading. This is all set up to create cuck men. The whole system they set up and spent billions on is just to make a stable of cucks. Like.......who the fuck would spend this money to do this when people like this dev clearly exist? There is also clearly no way this happens without someone eventually killing one of these women. Oh god and the lame twists at every turn and stretching this monstrosity longer and longer. The writing is so bad that clearly this was never designed to have an end.....just keep having women rape and abuse this stable of men until the end of time. Last note, the ball torture......this is either written by a woman who doesn't understand how this wouldn't last this long or a dude with a kink he's never explored himself. Like ffs, they don't just heal over and over.
Trying to be objective here, if you happen to share author's kinks which are: noncon femdom, pegging, face sitting, body worship, feet licking, cruelty (torture. death) and don't mind mediocre writing and graphics, it easi;y can be 5/5 for you I guess. The game is very niche in its kinks combination. Now with the subjective part... Poorly written fanfiction with strong noncon femdom themes. Plot could be a filler in between porn scenes, but the writer decided that MOAR mysteries and plot twists are needed. The MOAR the better. So there's a HUGE plot twist in the end of almost every chapter. But the biggest issue is writing inconsistency. The game goes out of its way to tell you that there's a HUGE difference between ranks of the prisoners (K2, K3 and so on), and after repeating that multiple times, MC with ranking K9 is treated in the same way as the black dude from the mines with rating K6. Graphics and models are meh. Somewhere after 5th chapter a bit of animation and sfx appear. Sex scenes. There are 2 disctinct branches, depending if the MC is dom or sub, additionally there's good/evil branching. For the 'good' branch there's either a scene skip or more vanilla scene, for 'evil' is either more cruel kinks or pure sadism. Although the game allows for the MC to be 'dom' and the dom content is present, author's heart wasn't there. You have so much more creative options if it is MC who is dominated, MC dom branch was added as an afterthought. I.e. 1st playthru my MC was an evil dom, and he completely ignored existence of anything anal related when dominating his victims love interests, so it could be that author is just not interested in writing about this, right? Wrong! If you play as a sub, there are a lot of options how MC can be violated entertained anally and/or humiliated. To be clear the game warns you before too cruel scene, they are avoidable. Also there are too many characters to interact with, which wouldn't be too bad, if they were different! They all have the same bodytypes and faces.
TLDR: I can't believe the ratings this game has. Stay away unless you're really into non-consent femdom and murder. The "male dom" path is just an afterthought and you'll still be constantly femdommed. Terrible story, one-dimensional characters. MC is like a side character, most scenes don't include MC. Poor pacing. Outdated models, renders. Positives: Some of the girls are hot despite the outdated assets and rendering. Their bodies are all sexy (well, they're all identical). Once in a while you get to dominate a girl a bit. But it's nothing exciting and it's over quickly. ... literally nothing else comes to mind. (Unless you love non-consent femdom.) Negatives: I can't recall even one scene that really turned me on. Way too many women (25+) to even keep track of, let alone care about at all. They all look and behave the same too. 5 years after the initial release and there's only 20 sex scenes (all vaginal) when unlocking all scenes on the male dom path. MC feels like just a side character. The majority of the scenes are actually without the MC. Poor story-telling. MC gets tortured, kicked hard in the balls, etc. Have to watch women stepping on guys' balls, and worse. Really, WTF? Even when consistently choosing the male dom options there's a lot forced femdom. Basically, that's the entire story. No real relationships, affection, intimacy. I guess it's supposed to be a fuckfest? But there's relatively little fucking. Sex scenes are unsatisfying for a variety of reasons. For example, it may be interrupted by having to see another dude get tortured, see his balls stepped on, etc. The male dom sex scenes are also very short, vanilla, and feel "sterile". Forced lesbianism. A ridiculous amount of lesbianism in general. Almost no animations. Only includes a couple of basic animations starting late in season 1. Contrived, unbelievable story. Comic-book villains, over-the-top caricatures of evil. Immature, one-dimensional, lacks nuance. Must play as other characters than MC. Suddenly you're playing as the slave Seth. Or MC's sister. Or other people. Really stupid and unimmersive, feels schizophrenic. The male dom path is poorly made, isn't integrated properly into the scenes. Just feels like an afterthought. Again, so much femdom on the "male dom" path. MC is stupid, weak, insecure, passive. MC looks stupid. His body looks weird, like a soft noodle. Must watch the girls fuck other men, femdom them, torture, murder, etc. I don't care for all these scenes without MC. Poor and outdated character models and environment assets. Low render quality (e.g. poor lighting, no depth of field, volumetric fog, proper shadows, etc). Terrible pacing. No sex for a long time. Then suddenly you, literally, fuck 7 girls in one day. Unskippable cut scenes and forced "hard pauses" of the slides. Difficult to understand the consequences of choices. You're mostly just guessing. Exclusive paths for the girls. I prefer the _option_ of pursuing all the girls. Almost all the girls are already huge sluts at the start. I would prefer corrupting them. During sex scenes they keep talking bullshit, interrupting the action. Dev teases us with the sister all the time and then, despite all the game variables referring to her as MC's sister, pretends she's actually not his sister after all. No sex with her yet anyway. Forced cunnilingus. Many times. And in total there must be something at least 50 cunni scenes. Dev confuses "evil" with "disgusting". Warns a choice is evil but it turns out it's actually just super disgusting, making a guy eat MC's cum. Big turn off. Characters behaving against your choices. So if you make the sister always be a "good" person she'll still be really evil, torturing, sexual assault, etc. If you want to maximize the number of sex scenes you'll have to see plenty of murder, torture, men getting raped. Things like other men getting fucked in the ass by a huge dildo etc. Big turn off for me. Girls are almost always riding on top. Very boring, repetitive, and MC isn't in control. Every scene (sexual or not) is led by others. MC is just a passenger even when you choose the "dominant" route. Dev several times tries to get you to have other men drink MC's cum. Number of scenes when trying to maximize sex scenes (except a couple scenes requiring seeing men to be dildoed in the ass, etc.) Vaginal: 20 (Of these, scenes without MC: 2) Anal: 0 DP: 0 (Version played: v0.8.2B Final)
this game is awful despite having 2 protagonist game still show you perspectives of other characters and their sex scenes game have no real intimacy, affection or even sex its just foot fetish and some stupid cages or face sitting there is no penetration scenes or anything cool even if you score high with lady they just handle you from hand to hand with nothing going on game don't rl let you decide in most cases it feels more like cutscene selector with additional scenes of other people you didn't asked for i think game should focus way more on player characters or at least show player only scenes their characters can see/know off Some of the attributes like Good and Dom are underutilized game often switch and give you evil points instead of dom points i don't recommend it, i also don't wanna bother with save import for more of the same
Honestly, if you are a person that enjoys specifically femdom then you're likely going to get a bit pissed off given that this is mainly just a non-consent dystopian alt-reality. Femdom or maledom is based in consensual agreement, it has safewords and safeguards for the individuals involved, this has anything but. Are the females dominant in this game? Sure, but that's where any comparison to specifically femdom ends. If you're into a cruelty simulator specifically designed as a wish-fullfilment for the dev then by all means go for it. If you want to try out the non-sub route.. it ain't much. It's pretty clear what this game is meant to revolve around, and if you stray from that (even if it's by design), it just ends up feeling disappointing in a lot of ways. If you want an actual femdom game then you should probably just jog on. There are far better apocalypse/dystopia simulators out there, and there are far better games involving femdom out there.
Version 0.7 Final Karlsson's Gambit features a unique post-apocalyptic cum femdom story world that somehow offers so many story branches that you can actually forge a path to play as a normal non-submissive MC without feeling misaligned. Story MC is a downtrodden guy living a miserable life in jail when he gets an offer from the Karlsson Group to join a management trainee program in return for sentence reduction. Though the story supposedly takes place in a post apocalyptic world, you don't actually see any of it as events take place in a secret facility located on a private island. Gambit's world is built around the concept of femdom where the female executives of the Group go about dominating and abusing male and occasionally female slaves for their pleasure. Interestingly, players are able to steer MC towards either being a beta sub or slight alpha (game says dom points, but the general feel is neutral to light maledom). Much of the story takes place through the eyes of MC as a program participant and occasionally as Olivier, where you can (hopefully) make the right choices to advance MC's job rank. There is also an overarching mystery on the Karlsson family as well as the role MC, his sister and brother, Olivier and Seth, play in the grand scheme of things. There is also a lot of political intrigue between various Karlsson daughters, board members and rival companies as they vie for control of the company after the elder patriarch's death. Game Mechanic One of the games with the most meaningful choices I have ever played in a visual novel. The number of variables tracked as the game progresses is phenomenal and they will alter your experience in each single play through significantly. Besides the usual stuff like relationship points, good / evil, dom / sub, there are dozens of other variables that change depending on your choices and will lead to different scenes and dialogue. The challenge is sometimes there is no way to tell the consequence of your choices and you might inadvertently veer off into a path that you don't like. I highly recommend you play with Sancho's walkthrough mod so that you can make informed choices. Background / Character Renders Background is decent Daz3D stuff featuring mostly modern indoor venues in the training facility. Character designs are unique and highly distinguishable, something of great importance in Gambit due to the large cast of characters. LI's can be a mixed bunch from stale models gotten from Daz marketplace to some pretty unique ones. MC is decent looking while other male models are usually weak and ugly as expected for a femdom themed game. Character Development You do get significant agency to shape MC's and Olivia's character development so the experience is immersive as a player. As for other major LIs like the four Karlsson sisters, Katsumi and Kiyomi, each have their own distinct personality traits and not just the usual two-dimensional femdom mistresses. The depth and nature of MC's relationship with the major LIs will also to a large extent be shaped by the choices you make, so playthroughs will differ significantly. Sex Scenes The quantity is certainly there, but the earlier ones are mostly mediocre featuring a limited number of still renders and minimal dialogue. A lot of similar male abuse stuff becomes numbingly repetitive after a while and will only appeal to hardcore femdom fetish lovers. Animations are introduced from Chapter 6 onwards and the sex scenes only become fully erotic from Chapter 7 with a variety of interesting scenarios, good animations and spicy dialogue. BGM and Sound Effects Diverse BGMs that mostly fit the story though there were the occasional upbeat modern vibe ones which felt out of place as the environment as a whole is supposed to be oppressive and heavy no matter which routes you choose. There are no / minimal sound effects. Conclusion I'm not a fan of femdom so wasn't too keen to try out a game centred around this fetish, but gave it a try as multiple reviews mentioned its elaborate world building and choices. The reviews are right on both counts and I'm glad to have given this a go. If you are not into femdom, then the light maledom route would likely fit well. If you dislike and find femdom intolerable, then Gambit is not for you as there is no shortage of females abusing males throughout the game no matter your choices.
Completely one-dimensional. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as people who like femdom should have games that appeal to that kink. But Karlsson's Gambit is a masterclass in constructing the perfect apathy generator. It's a guarantee that even the most patient player will lose all immersion and interest in a short period. How do I know that? - Introducing 25-30 characters (no, i am NOT exaggerating) in the first 30 minutes of the game. Who the fuck are all of these people? - Unclear protagonist. One would think that since I got to name the male MC, he is the.... well, the MC. WRONG! There's also MC's sister, MC's brother, random women, other prisoners, all of whom you get to make decisions for! Whoopty-doo!!! There's definitely no way that you won't just pick random shit because who-the-fuck-are-these-people-anyway ! - Bad graphics. I guess because this came out like, 5 years ago? Either way, very unimpressive visually. - No bad ending options. It'd be satisfying, and enough for a 5-star rating, if I could have a game-ending decisions to strangle the sadistic women, given they are weak and nowhere near capable of defending themselves, and it's demonstrated over and over that the prisoners have nothing to lose. But nope! Even the most 'maledom' character still bends over and spreads his cheeks to take it like a b****. This may as well be a kinetic novel. Nothing seems to change whatsoever.
Was referred to this game from another thread as a good maledom game, and I want some of whatever that poster was smoking. Because this ain't it. Mediocre graphics. Amateurish writing. A clearly inexperienced developer who quickly got in over their head with way too much branching and then didn't know how to recover without just hacking and slashing. Be aware that the dev's kinks are all about femdom instead and the game reflects that. The maledom route is horrendously underbaked, weirdly vanilla, the MC will still be subservient (and an idiot) with most of the prominent women, you're going to be locked out of a ton of content, and half the time you're going to be watching femdom with the two other main story characters no matter what anyway. And that's before the dev decided to axe even more of the maledom route, LIs, and endings recently. Wish I'd seen those posts before I started. If you like femdom as much as the developer and can deal with the above glaring limitations, more power to you.
After deliberating for quite some time I've decided to give this game a go and see what's up, mostly because I've seen people praise it so it got me somewhat curious. There will be some minor spoilers ahead I guess, so be advised. Just to be clear I've only played the good DOM path and only played the game once, I don't like femdom, especially if there's humiliation involved, so my review is about the DOM content and hopefully will be useful to people who are interested in that part of the game. Before the DOM route review let me just say something about Olivia a.k.a the female protagonist. For some reason it feels like that Olivia is the MC, I can't put my finger on it why I feel this way, but the MC seems like a secondary character and I wasn't aware how big of a role this second protagonist will play in the game before playing. Sure we are making a lot of decisions for Kane but we are also shaping Olivia and somehow her impact seems much bigger in the game right now. It is understandable to a point, she is important for the story, especially after some revelations, however I was expecting a male protagonist game as stated in the overview - 'you play as a male protagonist' and there's no mention about a secondary female protagonist. I know that MC will probably have an important role later on (mostly his sperm though..), but that doesn't change the way I feel about their impact right now. General things: Weird out of nowhere pussy and boobs close-up shots were quite weird for me, I'm not sure what is their purpose but it isn't arousing when you are in the middle of a conversation and then 'BAM here is a close up pussy shot for you'. What really stood out for me is that the all the women look the same. Everyone has the same body type, no diversity there at all besides some has different skin tone. The lack of facial expressions were quite jarring, the characters just seem lifeless as they only have one facial expression throughout the game. Sure I'm exaggerating a bit, but I haven't really seen a lot of changing facial expressions. The lightning and posing feels wrong in a lot of the renders, like the characters were just copied into a background, there's no 'real' feel about the settings, no depth of field if you know what I mean. Everyone keeping secrets and everyone is scheming around, I know it's somewhat necessary, but I just can't enjoy the 'I can't tell you more now, be patient' narrative anymore in these games, especially if it's drawn out like in this game. There's way too many characters in the game and way too many branches, I'll admit I'm not a fan of heavy branching but I knew going in that I'm only gonna play it once, so it didn't bother me that I'm going to miss some (most) content. I can't really comment on the lewd content as I was mostly trying to avoid having sex with these women, but the ones I saw were average, however I didn't find them hot, but that could be just a me problem. The DOM path: You are going to see femdom even on the DOM path, the MC gets dominated and humiliated at the beginning, but it's almost non-existent later on, there's some femdom scenes (2 if I remember correctly) that you can skip but it still happens. Overall the DOM path wasn't really what I was expecting, it feels more like a non-sub path if you will, so far I haven't really seen domination just normal encounters, granted it builds up gradually so maybe later on the MC can actually dominate some women, but as of right now it feels like that the women just let him be an equal instead of dominating him. Hopefully MC dominating them happens at some point otherwise I'm not really interested in this game, I would say 99% of the LIs are just simply despicable for me and I'm only tagging along so the MC can put them to their place. I didn't like the fact that a good DOM MC have to treat others badly to gain extra DOM points, especially his friend, but I kinda accepted it as a necessary evil to be able to (hopefully) do good things later, although I'd have liked an option to let Jake know at some point that the MC will be required to do some questionable things. Also didn't like that we (the players) have to see how the characters are treating Seth (the brother), not to mention seeing him in sexual encounters, I'm not interested in that, same with Olivia to be honest, but that's another matter since she's an LI. I think this is the first game I ever played over the years where I was actually avoiding lewd scenes and only participated in the ones that got my MC a chance to climb the ladder faster. I don't find any of these LIs desirable because of how they act, especially after seeing them interact with the other characters. Olivia is no exception, at the beginning of the game I was hoping that she's not going to turn out like the rest of the board, but that quickly changed and she is in fact no different, just not as cruel as them on the good path. Even on her good path she's using people for her amusement and for sexual pleasure, which is just a huge turnoff for me in general, not just in her case. I'm 'collecting' her points right now as it seems some of it is needed for bigger revelations, but I'm hoping I can reject her later and I'm not railroaded into romancing her, I don't like her. The only LI I'm not disgusted of so far is Junko, mostly because I haven't seen her act like the rest, probably she'd done some questionable things but the MC is not aware, so blissful ignorance. Although I don't like that she's getting used by others, but she's needed for fast tracking the ranks, so I can tolerate that. Seeing possible LIs in a sexual setting is a huge turnoff for me, implied or shown doesn't matter, so basically 99% of the LIs are just not appealing for me because of that, same with Junko sadly, but as I said she's key to rise faster. Hopefully there's an ending where there's a revolution and all these people are put to their place and MC can end up alone and he doesn't have to pick someone to be with as I couldn't stomach being with any of the higher-ups and if the MC have to be with someone I'll just stop playing. Overall I think the DOM path right now is below average, maybe later it gets to actual domination, right now I would rate it below average, but I can't do that with good conscience because of the amount of work put into this game, even tho I've probably seen 25% of it, so I'm rating it average.
It's beyond me how this has such a high rating. - Writing is ridiculously bad. - Story and setting full of gaping holes and are just simply idiotic. - Renders are incredibly poorly composed, framed, lit. They're full of rendering artifacts. Author remembers to use DoF once every 200 renders for some reason. - Environments are kitbashed together from some of the worst quality assets I've ever seen. - Character poses and expressions are lifeless and just plain bad. - 95% of sex scenes are: girl steps on guy / girl makes guy lick heels / girl sits on guy's face. If your specific kink isn't femdom, and you aren't willing to scrape the bottom of the barrel, don't waste your time.
Great game. The design is very high quality, with numerous angles shown in every conversation. Clearly, a lot of time was spent on this. I saved the game almost 100 times as there are so many choice to make. I will play again to follow different paths as I know I skipped many scenes.
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