Maze of Ambition
A downloadable game
Overview
Maze of Ambition is a roguelite using cards as its central combat system. Choose your character, and enter the maze to see how deep you can get. Every time you level up, not only your cards and abilities will get stronger, but your character's body will also get an upgrade. Every character has its own storyline, its own card pool as well as its own growth type.
Bunny time - March 2026
Main additions in this latest update:
- Spinelle: New character focused around Ass expansion!
Limited to patreon subscribers at the moment. She can go up to level 6 as of this update.
Her current content is a bit lighter than the other characters at the moment, but she'll get there in time. I hope you'll give her a try if you can.
Content
More content gets added for public members and patreon supporters every update.
- Amber (FMG) - Up to lv 10
- Ruby (Futa) - Up to lv 10
- Pearl (BE) - Up to lv 10
- Beryl (GTS) - Up to lv 10
- Spinelle (AE) - Up to lv 6, Patreon supporters only
Access the game
The game runs on its own website, and there is no downloadable content apart from your own saves. I had to put a file to download for indexing purposes, but you don't need it.
Play directly online here: https://mazeofambition.com
Links
Support me on Patreon: Patreon
Join my Discord: Discord
Follow me on Twitter: Twitter
Disclaimer
I am a developper and game designer, and don't have the artistic abilities necessary to make all of my assets by hand. As such, I am using AI to create the graphical assets used ingame. Let me assure you that this is only improving the quality of my game, not the opposite. Without it, this game wouldn't exist to begin with.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Public Spinelle!40 days ago
- Public Pearl lv.1095 days ago
- New ass expansion character - Spinelle is out!Mar 07, 2026
- Symbiosis update - improved gameplay!Feb 24, 2026
- Ruby unlocked + what's to comeFeb 12, 2026
- New growth stages for Pearl + new image handlerNov 16, 2025
- New growth stages for AmberOct 17, 2025
- New growth stages for RubyOct 01, 2025
Comments
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Anyone know how to be the contest in Pearls story?
Ive definitely been liking spinelle momentum mechanic with good luck against the first story boss i was able to set up doing around 50 dmg a turn just from momentum which helped me beat them
I am having fun with Spinelle, I survived by the skin of my teeth and I am filled with motivation!
can save be somehow extracted? Btw - great game ;)
You should be able to save and load files manually in the options. Save editing is not supported as it can cause pretty major issues. Feel free to ask for save files in the discord though.
i love this game and would really love if there could be a bestiary for enemies that we've encountered on any character
actually I can play the game offline with brave but the images doesn't appears so its like play being blind
What date is Spinelle going to be released?
Next month for public
1w more
Could some sort of confirmation system be added when skipping battle rewards?
I've accidently skipped all rewards a few times.
Me TOO I'm very cautious about it only tap once and wait
GUYYYYYYYYS I NEED GUIDE FOR BERRYL, how i suppose to beat up the WITCH??? She is too much powerfull for me but i understand already i need spent hours to upgrades traits to max right now i have traits:
Card upgrades 4 level
Starting level 6 level
Starting hearth 3 level
Health per level 1 level
Regeneration 3 level
What i suppose exactly to target in game to make cards and relicks to beat her up?
So i dont know if shes been updated since when i beat her but when i did i noticed its best to take out her ally thing as iften as possible then while its dead to target her other than that i cant really help much
Okay i will try but it been okay when she attack, she every time get stronger, like one time she attack 30 damage, after 40 after 50 and etc?
I use the following traits:
-Card upgrades level 8
-Starting level 5 or 6
-Starting health level 5
Health per level rank 4
Regeneration any level ( it doesn't matter for story boss fights tbh)
Here are some relics where I think you need to have to stand a chance:
-Amulet of simplicity because it makes the basic blocks pretty good -Guardian Totem is an ok way to start, but you might beat her without it too -Aconitum+ring of the snake= gets rid of any totem buff
-Fertilizer is pretty decent too because it halves the damage
-Pro sunglasses are good with living root
-Phantom shell is not bad to start the fight, but you don't really need it.
For tips, I'd say to have a lot of poision, defense and quake/fission moves so you can deal constant damage, but be sure to have some powerful damage moves too. In rest, it's all RNG
Just try again, it's better level Up your cards levels because you have a passive level cap but don't understimate your passive level. I recomend this division:
(Always farm on maze level 2)
cards 7/10 (it's your main priority)
Starting level 5/10 (second prio)
Starting health 3/10
Health per Lvl 2/10
Regeneration 4/10
Apparently i beat her already, but thx for answer i beat for with 9 level cards, 9 level start, starting health 5, health per level 4, regeneration 7 and grind on 2 level, btw it been ez with POISON litterally just spam in her and her helper with poison and after beating them with blossom what attack enemy with dmg and number of stuck poison. currently i try to fully complete 2 level of maze and i was shock what i see what final boss of 4 chapter on 2 level can in one hit do 600 damage.
Now beat her with Pearl
sorry but nuh uh, because its game took me too long time o fully complete gts route for now(half of year) + i only love gts from the all growth
Poison is definitely The Way. As many Death Clouds and Echoes of the Forest you can stack up. Fart on that witch until she falls over dead.
i have only played pearls story so far, i noticed her cards change image when you unlock greater power which is a fantastic feature. unfortunately in the collection page you can only see the car images you currently have. would there be a chance to change it so you can view all the card art you have unlocked?
To look at the other card arts just go to the gallery if ya click on one of the images theres dots at the top that when clicked will let you look at the different arts for the card
thankyou for explaining that. even after you telling me it took me way too long to figure out where they are as you just cant see the dots. the ui element definitely needs to be changed so it is more noticeable
Yes yes yes yes
So ive had a weird bug with the seahorse pet thing where when i try to use its ability my screen just goes white and I have to refresh the page i havent seen if its the same with the other pets yet it may just be because i play it on mobile but figured id let ya know
i guess they will have more lvls
Replicate on Strike and Defend completely ruins Pearls early game deck consistency, the game is easier on Upgrade Rank 7. Am I missing something?
Hello, the bug from the with hunt update is back. It's the one when you try to return to the menu on a run with maze power 2, you don't have the option to continue the run anymore. Even if you make a save manually, when you try to load it, you are sent back to the menu, with no possibility to continue the run.
Thanks in advance for the fix.
Hi, it's been fixed a bit earlier, sorry about that! Also fixed an issue where the lv 10 story boss fight wouldn't show up.
When's Pearl's lvl 10 content coming to public? Been quite a while since that's been added to my knowledge.
Yeah, I was late on making these public due to bad planning. She gets released on Saturday.
Yay!
Hey, looks like a pretty good update, very impatient to play spinelle, continue the good cook! Now, can you make a preg character... pretty please?
Hyper Preg is on the list as a potential theme for a character, but that's among others and in any case, I don't intend to make a new one soon, so probably don't get your hopes up. I'll keep working on the current cast for now!
Still whorth it
I wanted to request a way to see what the effects of a companion will be once you end your turn, I like Fye and other companions that debuff enemies as a safety net but it's a bit hard to plan around just doing the math in my head. Also at level 8 Beryl's sprite almost entirely cover's Fye's clickable area so it's hard to mouse over it for the tooltip.
As an aside, I expected not to have any interest in Ruby but she may be my favorite character story.
Another suggestion - Naughty Ring's description is ambiguous whether the 10 limit applies to the amount of EXP or the number of cards above minimum.
hmm, Something went gone wrong for me (All it took was a refresh to fix
)
im a patreon supporter, but pearl is only going up to level six. what do i do?
Check the options, click "Claim patreon benefits"!
How much do you need to upgrade each character's cards to see all of the variant card art?
Also, how exactly is Pearl's bust being measured? Her stat at level 1 is 2 inches which to me sounds like her whole chest is only as big around as a Sharpie. Is it just depth? I've never seen anyone measure bust size like that though.
Gonna be honest ive been liking this newest update especially helps with the fact that i was always forgetting to pay attention to get more of the puzzle piece things for more cards so I constantly went without getting new ones until I randomly picked more up also I've liked Amber's pets that I've seen alot
Might I ask how the new car system works? I don't really understand. Sometimes it's a single card forced into the deck, sometimes it's the usual choose one out of 3 option (which I prefer due to the luck aspect being smaller and being allowed to choose more). It feels like the change makes building a deck reliably longer and more luck-dependent due to the thining of reliable first choices. (Given I got used to the first 5 choices of 1 out of 3 cards and making my deck using them)
You get a random card after each fight. Card choices are now an optional fight reward you can route for, just like healing or gold (in such cases you get both a random card and a card choice). It increases randomness a bit at the beginning but you just collect more cards overall so you can cycle out basics faster and select which cards to keep. If you want more agency you can still route for card choices and shops.
Cool idea in theory, but terrible with some characters in practice. I tried playing Amber on Maze power 2 right away, and my experience was absolutely miserable. In the previous update, at least with Ruby, at equivalent upgrade, I easily reached floor 3 on my first run. With Amber ? I got destroyed on floor 2 in two run, and not because I felt I played poorly, but because I literally didn't have the tools to survive. The main reason for that is, as of now, Amber is by far the weakest character, and really need a buff. She can't reliably kill or defend quickly enemies like Ruby does, doesn't have the draw power and the ability to tank reliably like Pearl, and can't reliably generate mana and useful passive effects like Beryl. Her cards at 2 mana costs are borderline unplayable starting floor 2, because they take nearly your whole turn, and don't accomplish nearly enough for the cost. Her 3 mana cards ? You'll take 50-75 dmg if you played them. You desperately need some specific cards with her to barely have a chance to survive to begin with, which was possible previously, but you basically can't do that anymore, because if you don't go for the cards, you're screwed, if you go for it and don't get the good ones, you're screwed, and even if you go for it, and get the cards you need? If you didn't start with card upgrade rank 4 and starting lvl rank 4, you just put yourself behind in the exp and gold curve and now you don't have the resources to go for shops anymore, or have a high enough passive. I will go and farm shards on Maze power 1, because I'm forced too, so not really fun, and then I'll try some new runs and see what I'll get..
Balance between characters isn't perfect yet, it's an iterative process, but I am trying to make sure every character at least feels right against the current content. I am quite confident about Amber's power level, and she currently acts as the benchmark across the cast. She can get quite technical despite her apparent simplicity. I am aware Maze Power 2 can be rough, though, and will continue testing to make sure every character feels powerful in their own way and gets a fair chance.
Were there any changes to how crystal rewards work in the new version? I started a new run and none of the enemies on the first floor have crystals listed as a reward. Was I just unlucky?
There was a change. Optional shard rewards have been removed, and passive shard gain has been increased instead. This is so you can focus more on your individual run and don't feel like you have to sacrifice performance for meta progression.
それ は いい ですね (This is good, isn't it?
I'm a little confused about leveling. On this page, it says Ruby can get up to level 10. But when i got her to level 3, it said she was at max. Is there something I need to do to unlock the higher levels?
Yes! You can fight a story boss in the main menu (fight icon) to unlock further levels. The next update will add a message to avoid confusion.
Ah, okay! I did see that button, but it wasn't clear what it was for. Clicking on it prompted me to choose a deck that I had won with, so I thought it was maybe a way to battle against my own decks or something.
Thank you for the feedback, gonna make it clearer!
Any chance the Thickblood talisman can be changed from a flat 1 DR to a LVL based DR? It's kind of useless as it stands.
This is fun :)
Looks like Accelerated Growth
Yep! (I have no idea what that is)
Lets go new update time to start grinding on this game again
Welp finished the new boss just barely on my first try only had like 10 health left and did exact 172 dmg to finish them off
they have it so the main game just gets updates later than the patreon currently beryl can get the furthest letting ya get to maze power 2 and higher levels
Sorry for the late reply. Yes patreon features become public after a couple of months. Also to answer your other question a 5th character is coming, though for supporter first, while some other content becomes public.
It's unfair that your card cost more mana if you upgrade them, theres not progress
Not the way I would put it, but this is a legitimate point. There are several cards I noticed that became objectively worse or worse for the build I'm using when upgraded.
When you Will update the levels?
Reached the orc fight at level 6 but the game set me to level 5, are the story fights a pre-set level?
As someone with over 1k hours on StS (and a huge fan of the now seemingly abandoned Buxom BE mod for it, still hoping the 1.0 release for that comes out someday...), this was a very fun StS clone that felt fresh enough to keep me hooked for a good while.
I only played this for Pearl personally as I'm not a huge fan of the other kinks (with the exception of the green fairy girl which is tolerable for me and I'm trying out now, she seems fun too), and I loved her route and cards, so I can't wait for Pearl's lvl 10 to become public content and see how big she gets (probably nowhere near the Buxom from StS, but uuuuh... hopefully big enough that using Assimilate becomes more exciting)
I like the addition of meta upgrades, making this a more casual experience where runs just get objectively easier over time, though it sometimes does feel like the game is designed around you upgrading those in order to be beatable, since without those upgrades there's simply not enough upgrade opportunities mid-run to help you beat the number scaling. But that's whatever, this is just a consequence of having permanent upgrades in your roguelite game as opposed to a roguelike, I guess.
The silver lining here is that while lategame encounters can feel unfair with little meta upgrades, if I ever feel an encounter is frustrating, it becomes objectively easier a few runs later because I just have better starting stats and objectively better cards.
There's definitely a few roguelites that come to my mind which DO manage to pull off the balancing extremely well to the point they're still perfectly beatable in your very first run and the meta upgrades are just a bonus, most notably Rogue Legacy 2, but I don't expect any roguelite indie to hit the same mark, so this is fine.
I also very much like the fact that this game is designed around limitless card voids/deck trimming and you just have a minimum card amount stat which is what you try to change mid-run rather than spend resources on individual card voids. That mitigates a lot of the RNG that makes or breaks Slay the Spire decks, and overall just allows event spaces mid-run to actually go towards something more interesting rather than half of them being card voids.
It also allows you to experiment with variations of a build within the same run rather than risking totally ruining your deck with one new card you want to try, since you can just turn it on and off at will. Very nice.
There's also the fact you keep your hand indefinitely rather than discarding it every turn, which feels good and somehow balanced.
My only real worry in this game is just it being locked to a website. Definitely an odd choice if I've ever seen it, but it seems to function well right now, so whatever. I don't personally like that it's online only and do wish this was an offline downloadable game. Though I still worry that this game may just up and disappear one day once it no longer becomes profitable to pay for the website's domain name (like when it's finished and thus no longer requires patreon support)
Hopefully whenever that comes around there will be a standalone downloadable version with no DRM, since by that time there shouldn't be any patreon-exclusive early access content.
I don't much mind the AI card art or spritework personally since it looks good (and I'm not insecure enough to blame all my life's problems on an imaginary AI boogeyman rather than the dishonest people who actually misuse these tools maliciously, which have always existed since the dawn of mankind), and the visual inconsistencies between the dialogue character design and card art design (like Pearl's hair) are small enough that it's kind of quirky rather than annoying.
Either way, this is really high quality for a free StS clone. I've played a couple on steam and this is definitely up there among the good ones. Cheers.
Thanks a lot for your comments! Quick reply regarding some of your points:
You did hit a sweetspot. I'm impressed at how relatively balanced it feels to have such fundamental StS things changed like limitless card voiding and and all cards having retain.
Happy to have confirmation for a download release once patreon content anti-piracy measures will no longer be needed. Looking forward to it.
But huh, really? I'm having a lot of success with Pearl so far, and I assume there's a lot of better unlockable goodies currently locked behind lvl 7-10 for patreon stuff.
Card draw is already one of the strongest things you can build around in StS and its clones (and is outright necessary to make most builds work consistently, such as for ascension, in this type of game regardless) so getting what is essentially free mana for focusing on card draw and re-shuffling is very, very good, even if it is a little bit random. The randomness kind of stops mattering when your deck is slim and half of if is just milk bottles, so you're guaranteed to get several every turn.
Not to mention there's a relic that gives you benefits when a card gets replaced with another, which works with milk bottles. There's definitely some snowballing you can pull off there, and I haven't even talked about her infinite block builds which scale great with this game's equivalent of thorns.
I'd even dare say that I like Pearl's playstyle much more than Beryl, even though Beryl is really, really strong right now due to her mana retain, mana generation, quake builds trivializing everything in the game while also giving tons of block since you don't need to attack consistently... not to mention poison builds, which definitely feel inspired by the Silent from StS, though they take so long to setup that all my poison builds so far just end up turning into Gaea's wrath + Influx + Telluric Resonance eventually, since Beryl's mana generation allows for spamming this burst damage combo to end fights quickly and take out problem enemies first, and more consistently than drawing poison and block repeatedly for a while.
I like poison builds in StS, but they have the same issue there of needing too much setup to be worth it half the time, being outclassed by other better things that are much easier to snowball.
That said, while Beryl is extremely strong to me so far, there's one outlier I noticed... her starting deck. It's basically completely carried by her passive. Her unique card, Release, is... really bad early on, and gets outclassed even more during lategame. Since it doesn't count the first mana spent as an attack due to it being part of the card cost itself, if you run the numbers, there's basically no benefit to ever using it below 3 mana, and even then it's negligible.
It only REALLY starts outscaling regular strikes in the same amount at 4 or more mana.
Now, I know it's one card so you'd think the burst damage from one card draw could make up for it, but Beryl already has several cards like that which just function better for the same purpose of high-mana burst damage, and work much better with synergy cards like Influx and Telluric Resonance (Gaea's Wrath, or even Unleash immediately come to mind), so... you're only ever using it in earlygame. Where you will always have several strikes regardless, even though you ideally want to replace strikes with something else to trim the deck.
I don't think I've ever had a moment yet where Release did something that I wouldn't accomplish by playing strikes I had in my hand on the same turn, or just ending the turn to block and drawing the strikes immediately next turn if I don't have them somehow. I don't even know how I'd buff or rework it, but I feel it does need some sort of change. I don't even think nerfing the obviously overpowered Beryl builds would make Release shine more, it's just fundamentally not very useful even in a vacuum.
Pearl meanwhile basically has mana generation that scales with your draw/shuffle power rather than just being at the start of your turn, which is arguably better depending on your deck since Beryl's only scales with her level and by having/playing specific cards (which usually have vanish, or require several in the case of generating mana leaves rather than improving the base generation effect), not to mention Pearl's tons of great block + thorns cards, AND block retain between turns. Her unique starting deck card also remains useful throughout the entire run due to enemies that fill your hand with hexes later on. As you mentioned, under this system of retaining all cards all the time, you sometimes run into the issue of dead draws or having too many cards and not being able to play them all to refresh your hand properly next turn. Pearl fixes this for free just by virtue of her starting deck, and has direct upgrades to that card she can find mid-run as well. Very nice.
Feels like a bit of a mix between the Ironclad's infinite block + thorns builds, and the Buxom modded character's insane draw potential + snowballing milk effects, except without Buxom's downsides of getting too big stuffing your draw pile with bounce/immobility status cards.
...Speaking of, I feel like a Body Slam (Ironclad card) equivalent in this would fit Pearl very well thematically, and also slot into her block builds very well... I'd imagine it would hurt pretty bad to get smacked by booba weighing half your body mass.
Anyway, sorry I'm rambling, but yeah, just sharing my thoughts. Loving the game so far and can't wait for more. From what I can gather a QoL update is priority right now?
Would be nice if we had some soundeffect variety or maybe simple visuals for certain attacks. Maybe an extra music theme per stage. StS does these two things because the devs knew it eventually gets annoying to have no variety in attack sound effects between playing a tiny dagger card and a big damage slam card or something, and music needs some variety in a roguelike since you're guaranteed to be visiting the same locations at the start of every run.
I'll be following the development of this and seeing how it goes, can't wait for Pearl's full content! Sorry for the wall of text, and have a good day.
Out of curiosity, how many levels do you plan for each girl to have?
I don't know for sure. I'll wrap things up when I feel like it, but multiple additionnal story arcs are planned for each.
I hope eventually, that you'll work alongside an artist to help make this game feel finished
I wish, but this is not going to happen.
Card games have tons of images. Hiring artists to work on the project would reallistically run over $100.000, which is not realistic for me to spend.
Image generation is the only reason I can make the game at all. I'm trying to better myself to give it the polish it needs. I completely understand if this isn't your jam, but an indie doesn't have the same constraints as a major company.
Its not impossible to find people who would do it for cheap who agree with your vision, you don't have to contract, you could just find people with the passion who want to make a card game in your community
Just finished all the new beryl stuff on the site super fun personally I do feel like beryl is definitely on the stronger side of the 4 but the boss still did put up a great challenge and the companions were fun as well of figuring which one worked best with the playtime of the deck I know I've said this before in another message but once again Great Game
Beryl is stronger at the moment for sure. More balance changes are coming to balance things out between characters, reduce frustrating moments and make sure all synergies are as equally viable. For instance quake is a bit too strong right now. Also thank you!
Hey, you got any advice for the new Beryl boss? I'm not having any luck, it seem like it scales way to fast.
My personal way was just make sure it was poisoned and continually knock out the minion that boosts your dmg over time and whenever i got the chance place more poison onto the boss
Love the game! Solid gameplay and fun overall. Two questions: Is there a way to see the card arts change without having to go to traits and level up/down card level? Its really tedious because you have to refresh the page every time you go up. Second, is there any chance of getting a third growth sequence? I know they're legacy content, but the sequences are one of my favorite parts.
You can see card arts in the gallery. When zooming on one, you should have the option to select other ranks for that card (the button is hard to see rn). Also I want to work more on making the growth aspect feel good. The growth sequences were dropped when the level system changed to be more gradual, and I focused my work on adding more content and gameplay elements, but this is now a priority (although it'll not necessarily come in the same shape as legacy growth sequences exactly)
I never noticed the gallery option! Its also nice to hear about the growth content. I look forward to seeing it!
The Sunbriar cards extra effect doesn't trigger off of the thornsilk weaver relic. I don't use discord so I figured I'd just report it here.
My only gripe is that there wasn’t any extra scenes after beating Maze pwr 2, I grinded the boss for 15 hours in endless attempts and then there was nothing no story conclusion no nothing
Right now, the game is aimed around you reaching the end of the story content, and the end of Maze 2 acts more like a bonus challenge for now. More balance changes should be coming soon, and content will keep getting added.