Ambitions and Ambivalence

I am in a bit of a conundrum regarding what to do about my ambition. I had reached the content boundary of Ambition: Nemesis early last year and have since forgotten almost all it. I have also completed FL’s major stories and so I am therefore considering restarting my ambition.

I don’t mind the 50 fate cost, however I’m not sure whether to re-do Nemesis or to do a different Ambition. What is considered the most interesting Ambition and what is the general tone around which each Ambition revolves?

I have heard that Light Fingers is an update behind the other Ambitions. Could someone elaborate on that?

What’s important to keep in mind about Ambitions is that they are not yet finished, but will be at some point, so you need to keep in mind that, if you choose a different Ambition you won’t get the payoff for the current one. In the recent past, there was also an opportunity to reminisce about your ambition, which would allow you to refresh your memory of what happened by viewing the echoes related to it. It’s not available anymore, but will likely be returned at some point, maybe when the new updates start. Keeping all that in mind, here is an incomplete review of other ambitions:

[spoiler] Heart’s Desire is my Ambition and so the one I can say the most about. It is centered around different players of Marvellous, the card game in question, and their backstories. Some of the players are Bishop of St Fiacre’s, Manager of Royal Bethlehem, and Topsy King. Their stories are often heartbreaking, but it has moments of levity and fun as well. It ends just when the final player is ready.

Bag a Legend is centered around Vake and the hunt. It’s more of an adventure, with betrayals, sudden allies, and the unexpected reveals. Has Sardonic Music-Hall Singer and Sinning Jenny in it, albeit not in huge roles.

Light Fingers starts as a light heist and mystery story, but then turns into a more of a horror story with pretty unique lore and revelations of more extremely horrific crimes by Masters. It even offers you to change your Ambition for free approximately in the middle. A while ago, there were several Ambition updates in relatively close succession, but Light Fingers never got its, likely because of all the changes with the game. That’s why it’s said to be one update behind. That update can be combined with its final one, if Failbetter wants, so it won’t necessarily end later than the rest of Ambitions.
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Personally, I would advice to stick with your current Ambition for now. The End of Ambitions will not be postponed indefinitely.
edited by menaulon on 9/4/2016

If both the Fate cost and the item/action cost aren’t relevant to you, I’d recommend Bag a Legend or Heart’s Desire, since it’s my understanding that Light Fingers is the furthest behind on updates, and no new updates have been so much as teased in a long time.

That said, if you’re just looking to kill time, perhaps save the Fate and create an Alt to explore the other Ambitions. I just created my first Alt to do Seeking Mr Eaten, and it’s rather fun to play through all the old content again.

I’ve done Nemisis as my main account’s ambition and Bag a Legend on an alt and of the two I think I liked Bag a Legend the most. It has some of the more interesting bits mechanically and toes a nice line between serious and silly. I can’t speak to Heart’s Desire or Light Fingers unfortunately.

If you feel like creating an alt it’s a good way to explore these things. I really want to know the end to both of these ambitions and resetting means when they finally finish these off you’ll only end up seeing the last one that you reset to (unfortunately for me, my Bag a Legend alt will go NORTH later this week so I’m going to miss out there anyway). Depending on how long ago you created your original account going through the start of the game again might be an interesting experience. The early game feels a lot different with the introduction of the Making your Name tracks.

Perhaps and alt is in order then. I have considered making one for a while now, and now seems as good a time as any. I think I’ll go with Bag a Legend and after that go NORTH to wrap it all up with a neat little bow.