Review: AMBITION: A MINUET IN POWER is a Fun Choose Your Own Adventure Game

Ambition: A Minuet in Power is a new visual novel mixed with dating sim set just before the French Revolution. The game was developed by Joy Manufacturing Co. with Iceberg Interactive publishing it. The game is available now on Nintendo Switch and PC and Mac OSX via Steam. The team at Iceberg Interactive were kind enough to provide me with a PC code to review the game and I’ve provided my thoughts below.

18th century Paris – a city of love, lies and revolution. You are a woman of fashion trying to survive the political turmoil. Date a cast of unforgettable characters. Amass the wealth and respect you deserve. Engage in gossip that can alter the course of history, or lead you to the guillotine.

I’ve really enjoyed playing Ambition. It plays much more like a choose your own adventure type of visual novel and you get to make a lot of choices for you to make. Some choices are just for flavor while others adjust various stats like your Credibility and Influence with others. The art is really well done and the music is really well done. The main characters are really interesting and provide fun moments. Also, the game has great tutorials that unfold as you need them.

The main aspect of the game is attending social events, interacting with people, and obtaining gossip. You then take the gossip to a newspaper and can either sell it or you can use it to change the levels of influence and power that certain groups have. This allows you to potentially change which groups support the Crown and which support the Revolution and create more drama.

While the game has a lot of virtues like fun art and fun gameplay, Ambition does have some problems. Now, first things first, this is a game from a small indie team and so you may notice that there’s a lot of repetition in assets. Plenty of characters, clothes, lines, etc. are repeated with maybe a color swap. However, the game is still fun.

One real problem with the game is that as you play you can hire staff members, but I could not find a way to utilize all of them. The one that has me scratching my head the most is the tailor you can hire. The game says that he can help raise the novelty level of your clothes with some new flair. You have a choice to hire him (and pay him every week) but I cannot find out how to use him. I’ve checked every option I could find in-game and I cannot find where he is so I can fix up some clothes or even fire him so I can save some money.

I also wish that in the Journal, it would actually have some kind of system to tell you what your influence level with the various characters is.

At the end of the day, Ambition is a fun choose your own adventure visual novel. There’s mystery and intrigue and romance. Throw in the political intrigue and there’s a lot to like about Ambition.