Hello, and thank you for viewing this trial thread. Well, I've been an active member of the forums for quite a while, but I've never actually made a trial. At least until now. This is the first trial I've ever released, and I hope it will prove to be at least somewhat decent.
This trial was made for the "Turnabout of the Century" competition, hosted by Wackyman and Dypo deLina. Keeping with the theme, this trial had to be set at least 100 years forward or backwards in time from the events of Apollo Justice, which took place in 2026. I decided to do a trial set in the future.
This is a trial-only case (with an extremely short mini-mini-investigation at the beginning). For those who may or may not be worrying about it, this trial does not spoil the events of ANY of the Ace Attorney games, aside from a couple of indirect non-spoilery references.
Features:
Play as the prosecution rather than the defense!
Unique Penalty Conversations for presenting the Prosecutor's Badge at any point. That's right, it now has a purpose! Present it whenever you can for a variety of different results.
Made by possibly the most well-known roleplayer on the site! (What a narcissist!)
Complete!
A healthy amount of humor.
Over 3600 frames long.
Synopsis:
Quote:
The year is 2196. Zodow Zark is someone who's searching for his purpose in life, though he hasn't had much luck so far. It's not as though he's hopeless or anything. He did well in school, and for a while, he was a prosecutor. But nothing feels right to him. After a long break, Zodow's uncle calls in a favor and asks him to prosecute a trial.
Somewhat reluctantly, Zodow decides to comply. This is his 10th case, and a rather odd one at that. The case should be simple. It's mostly the controversy and debates surrounding it, which Zodow doesn't want to be a part of, that bothers him. Still, maybe he'll finally find his purpose? At the very least, it'll definitely be an interesting experience...
Prosecutor's Lobby - Just exhaust the talk options. That's all.
Optional examination points: Plant, Painting of Judge, Security Guards/Door, Couch. All pieces of evidence and profiles have unique conversations if you present them.
Marian's First Testimony - Choosing to object or not does not matter for the first statement. - When Arron asks why Marian chose to hurry, raise an objection. - When Arron asks about how the door was forced open, don't raise an objection. - Present the Gun when you need to prove that the killer used gloves. - Choose to raise an objection when Arron asks if there were any signs of a struggle. - Object when Arron simply asks "The gun, correct?". It's a rather redundant question. - Don't raise an objection when Arron asks about where the defendant was found.
Marian's Second Testimony - When Arron tries to argue that the motive presented is kind of shallow, raise an objection. - When Arron makes a ridiculous theory about "forbidden love", object.
Lyle's Testimony - Don't raise an objection when Arron asks about how Lyle could have known about the time. - Present the Door Report when you have to show what the noise Lyle heard was.
Arthur Byron's Testimony - Press the statement saying "I can tell you right now that I never even got close to that witch's house.". - Present the Newspaper at the statement saying "The victim and I got into plenty of debates, but that's it! I would never have harmed her.". - When you need to show what page shows the contradiction, choose page 2.
- Present the Newspaper again when you have to show Evelyn is a biased witness.
Evelyn's Testimony (Counter Cross-Examination) - When Arron asks what Evelyn thinks about the defendant, raise an objection. - Don't raise an objection when Arron asks how long the meeting was. - Raise an objection when Arron asks if Byron was really that well-known. - Object when Arron asks how being yelled at made Evelyn feel. - Don't raise an objection when Arron asks if the defendant was doing anything strenuous before the meeting.
Evelyn's Testimony (Cross-Examination) - Press the statement saying "Now that I think about 't, his entire appearance, like, really made 'im seem exhausted." and choose to have the additional information added to the testimony. - Present the Gun at the statement saying "His suit was all ruffled up, and he was wearin' gloves that didn't match each other.".
Arron's Argument - Press the statement saying "This also explains the mystery of the hacking device." and when asked whether or not the additional important was important, choose to "Go for it.". - Present the Hacking Report at the statement saying "The hacking device was likely some sort of attachment for transhumans that isn't well-known.".
*Confession - Press the statement that says "I kind of froze for a while. Murder is still murder, after all." - Present Lyle's profile on the statement that says "I'm not sure how long I stood around. Everything was silent. Nothing happened."
*: Failing at this testimony will get you a special "Bad Ending" Game Over sequence.
Thanks/Credits/Acknowledgments: - To LunchPolice, for making Zodow's sprites, which were originally part of the Jack Sundae sprites on the "Random Characters For Everyone To Use" topic. - To Godot Mango, for being the one who flipped the original Jack Sundae sprites in the Random Characters thread for prosecution-use. - To the community of AAO in general, especially the users that I've befriended. It sounds cheesy, but I'm glad to be a part of this forum. - To you, the player. This also sounds cheesy, but I really do appreciate anyone who takes the time to play this trial.
... Well, I'm really nervous now, but hopefully this will go well. I'm just going to go in that corner over there and have a nervous breakdown. Comments are appreciated.
Alright, let's do this mono e mono maker v maker, I'ma do a playthrough and give my running monolouge as I play.
Spoiler : This will be long :
Wow, so I'm gonna guess right off the bat the killer is a guy due to the intro. But he's doing it for some kind of good reason, maybe for that little lady? Well let's find out.
Wow the prosecutions lobby looks a lot like the defense lobby...
WAIT That Badge IS A DA BADGE O.o WHY GD WHHHHHHHY!?
Ema's great great great grandaughter?
JACK SUNDA... I mean... Zodow Zark! I can't wit to see how you play this guy out!
Hmm 10 Trials eh? Then he should be decent I hope, why is he amateur, I'd consider him... decent now :p
New Ema is a pianist eh? I have a feeling she's related to our friend Phoenix Wright(probbly not though ^.^)
OOOOOOOH OK, now I get why the badge is different.
Nice Music btw I like it
Examines Judge: Awwww... poor Zodow... you'll get a hobby and friends...
Examines Gaurds: Yeah they do have easy jobs :p
Examines Plant: Wow Zodow seems like a philosopher...
Well it's good to know we got TV's in the future. PHILOSOPHY TV!
A Hack in huh? I suppose technology is still in danger of getting hacked now a days
I wonder what kind of pistol we got in the future?
YAAAY EVIDENCE !!
Androids!? YAAAY I have a feeling Lisa Basil will be in this trial somewhere
Noble Aura eh? I don't think I like this guy... he and his fancy suits... and sunglasses... HAwke's nephew... sounds interesting... I really don't like this guy at all... he's a jerk! Calling me a fool every freaking second This guy is so full of himself... but I had to listen to what he had to say...
P-Puppet shows...*Looks at Turabout Through Time* >_>"
THAT JERK BLINDED HIMSELF!?
Yeah why does he give tutorials? "No You didn't" I laughed at this part at that part XD
The Judge is such a traditionalist.
Hmm... you seem to be missing a few speech bubbles...
Lifebar is still flashing! OH NOES
Testimony seemed simple enough:p
Zodow Looks like a thug AWWWWRIIIIGHT
Oh god He's going to testify... *Sighs*
SO That's where the 30 statement testimony idea came from....
RECESS YAAAY
So he could have gotten a gun... I'm starting to think he killed her so that they could incriminate that dude... just based off what I hear and what the prologue said...
HE'S dERANGED!
AND A LIAR I PRESENT TO YOU A NEWSPAPER Crap... not good enough...
I KNEW IT! I KNEW THERE WOULD BE LISA BASIL HERE! SO CALLED IT! She's a pirate robot! YAYZ but she talks like... Ini... great ._."
So she was playing the music he? Pretty cool if say so myself.
Yay double corss examination!
CONSPIRACY!
Aww.... the door notes arn't the answer? That saddens me... ah well easy contradiction is easy> : D
Change of plans, that girl hacked the security system and the guy killed her EASY PEAZY~
How many times will he say truth before getting on to something relevant >_<"
YAY ARGUMENT!
Damn I hate this guy and his vague testimony...
WAIT WHAT!? HE CONFESSES!? There's got to be more to this... RIGHT!?
It's over just like that...?
Well... that was... weird I suppose....
So she wasn't helping him, she was trying to convince him to stop or something like that. Ah well... I wasn't close but no matter.
For a first case it's not bad to be honest. Not the best but hey, that's what first trials are for. There are certainly some point in which I believe that could be improved upon(such as remembering to put TAKE THAT in some presenting areas and making the text green when presenting evidence) The case I feel needed a bit more explanation it seemed to vague to me as to what happened.
The characters and music were good in my opinion though. I hated some(good hate not bad hate) and some I loved, such as that GOd DANG LYLE, thinking he's good as everyone else...
And for some reason I keep imagining Arron Ruth as a higher class Glass Cannon
So in short, it could use a touch up, I thought the ending as rather... anti-climactic... but that's just my opinion. Anyway, remember this is a first trial, it's ok for you to make error's so long as you use them as steeping stones to your next great work. So keep at it GD!
Yes, that's exactly correct. The purpose of the test is to test whether you have an understanding of the material, not if you've simply memorized it and can regurgitate it. In fact, I'm sure the reason he put the 'trick questions' on the test was in order to see who understood the material and was paying attention and who was simply memorizing facts without taking the time and effort to actually understand them.
Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:12 am
Master Of Chaos
Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2010 11:04 pm Posts: 3410 Location: Raccoon City
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English
I need to put this on my to do list for when I get back to the states.
I look foward to playing this.
_________________ ShadowEdgeworth and GuardianDreamer are the coolest bros in town~
Creator of Dimensional Chaos, and user of Norman Jayden,Albert Wesker, and Shiki Nanaya. Creator of Yasui Yuko from Requiem Of The Shadows ~ Overture To Creation. Creator of Kokushi Yuko from The Othersiders. Also created Kurt Miera,Alexis Miera,Leon Coder,Dominic Cortez, and Kazushige Kakinomoto. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ #TerumiForHypePresident
Thu Mar 15, 2012 8:13 am
Lind
Joined: Sat Nov 27, 2010 8:20 pm Posts: 1534
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English
Blargh, my internet went down for about three hours shortly after that message. Playing it now, will post thoughts as I go along:
Spoiler : :
Female Voice and Male Voice? What weird names.
Justice will prevail? More like ATHENA JUSTICE will prevail, BIRCH! (Or probably not.)
They still have Snackoos in the future?
Calling it right now, Marian is the killer. The whole pianist detail will enter the picture. There's no reason for it otherwise.
They changed the design of the badge? Why didn't you just grab the picture from CR and swap it in? Seems incredibly lazy. Like it would have taken much less time than coming up with an in-universe excuse.
A single pistol shot, UPSIDE HER HEAD.
So... why did she only just give you the reports now if this was a recap that YOU asked for?
Ooh, androids! I was wondering when something futuristic would happen.
...You mean cyborgs? Well, crap. I'm doing that as well. Not gonna look very original.
Why am I imagining Lyle with the voice of Eric Idle?
CYBORG REPLACEMENT EYES. STOP STEALING MY IDEAS YOU BASTARD.
Treading dangerously close to the fourth wall there, Judge...
Why does that door report have "Passport" written on it?
Foe Yay all up in this birch.
I'm more of an otter person myself.
DOUBLE PENALTRATION. ...That's what you call a double penalty, isn't it?
So... if she's the co-council for the prosecution, what is she doing over there?
A pirate? Shouldn't she be Olga Orly instead? I mean, there is the whole Transhuman thing, but... ah, screw it.
HAVE TWILIGHT SPARKLE EXPLAIN IT.
OK, by this point he has had HOW MANY penalties? In your shoes I would have Game Over'd 5 times already.
GET ON WITH IT! Stop beating around the flocking bush already!
That was... anticlimactic.
The accent is a lie.
Which is to say, this trial was meaningless.
Ehhh, I'm going to give you my honest opinion here... this trial wasn't very good. Playing it from the prosecution's side removed any sense of mystery in this trial. The characters, while amusing at first, get quite annoying after 3200 frames, and a lot of the dialogue feels extremely drawn out. A lot of the character aspects feel like they were hammered in for flavour's sake. The law system was still totally ridiculous to a distracting and annoying degree no matter how many times it got lampshaded.
Sorry, just saying it as I call it.
_________________
Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:25 am
SwagmaWampyr
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 2:15 pm Posts: 6273 Location: The mucky muck castle made of clouds
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Basic 1337
Don't really have a long, wordy, report for you, just general thoughts on everything.
Spoiler : :
I have to say, I really love your writing style. Arron and Zodow bounce off each other the entire damn trial and it's all hilarious. That dynamic REALLY steals the show here, although I loved Nu the Space Pirate. Only then she wasn't a space pirate. AND I HAD SUCH A GOOD NAME FOR HER TOO. Nu. One Eye. Ditzy. Pirate. IT ALL WORKED AND THEN YOU RUINED IT. WHY.
A minor issue would be sprites. I don't understand why you used Sundae for Zodow. It's a pretty bad fit IMO. The read I get from Zodow is that he's calm, confident, and well... awkward, and Sundae only really works when he's being confident. It got better as time went on, but still... something about it just feels weird to me. I think Polly would have been a better choice.
Lyle... well, Machi is really all you can use but it does feel weird when he has this bored look on his face talking about how great he is. Don't get me wrong, I think he's hilarious, but it is something that affects the interpretation of the character. It's not too bad, though.
Another thing I had a pretty big problem with is the ending... I just feel like it would have been a lot more satisfactory if Arthur tried to twist everything on Nu (IM STILL CALLING HER THAT I DONT CARE IF THE NICKNAME DOESNT WORK ANYMORE) before confessing. It would have done things for his character, too; I sorta feel like he's the character who got the least attention in the case, but there's a lot you could have done with him. Don't mean to say he's a bad character, at all, but everyone else in the case was doing a lot more for me.
Still, I find your writing absolutely hilarious. You should make a series out of this. I'd totally play it.
Also, you said you were open to death threats.
Enjoy~
_________________
Engaged to Gumpei <3
Bad Player wrote:
Yes, that's exactly correct. The purpose of the test is to test whether you have an understanding of the material, not if you've simply memorized it and can regurgitate it. In fact, I'm sure the reason he put the 'trick questions' on the test was in order to see who understood the material and was paying attention and who was simply memorizing facts without taking the time and effort to actually understand them.
Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:39 am
Gumpei
Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2011 12:39 am Posts: 2790 Location: Gynos, the Queen's Capital
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Al Bhed
Hm. Well first off, I'd like to remark that this is a very unique trial, for a number of reasons. For one, your writing style. It's quite fresh and unique. There are a lot of things to it that... I'm not sure if you intended or not, (Much of the dialogue seems dry, in the vein of something like Scott Pilgrim. Zodow's dialogue is the one that most exemplifies traits of it.) but they do make it stand out if nothing else. For two, you made a case where you play as the prosecution that I didn't totally suck at. That in itself is a huge accomplishment. For three, the characters, which I am going to go further into in this spoiler tag.
Spoiler : Characters :
Zodow - He's an odd fellow, but I like him. I'd actually say he's probably the best OC attorney player character I've seen in any fangame. He's just... different. In my opinion, his best dialogue was at the start, in the lobby. Examining things and presenting things... the dialogue there was priceless and really showcased his weirdness, and I think the chemistry between Marian and him worked well. They don't really seem like friends, but those two people who just kinda talk to each other... it's a bit difficult to explain what I mean. Basically I liked how Marian was like "Ok you're weird let's talk about something else" rather than "Ok you're a freak I'm leaving now". The way Zodow responds to everything as a whole kind of interests me, because he always does it in a weird sort of way. He still seems like a decently competent attorney, however, and I think it's still believable enough to work. I'm not sure how I feel about the use of Sundae's sprites, though, to be honest. In a way he sort of works since Sundae does have a strange look about him, but in general I'm not sure if the poses match to his full personality. However, I know you're kind of limited here.
Marian - I don't really have much to say about her. I think she can be an interesting character, but as of now I really don't think she's that different from Ema. I liked her chemistry with Zodow, as I already said, but her actual character doesn't stand out much. The fact that she's a detective obviously doesn't help either.
Arron - I LOVE THIS GUY. Favorite character in the trial, easily. He just... it's a little hard to explain why I like him so much. Everything he says makes me laugh. Zodow works great with him. I think Zeta really nailed it, he's a high class Canon. And it just WORKS.
Lyle - Well Blader STOLE that comment on the use of Machi's sprites for me, so I guess I shouldn't bother mentioning now. Except I kind of just did. WHATEVER. Lyle himself seemed interesting, but he just seemed... irrelevant. Completely irrelevant. His blindness didn't really come into play at all other than giving the defense a reason not to accuse him, and... I didn't even understand why everyone made such a big deal about his disappearance from the courtroom. Nothing came of it. He just... showed up again. It was odd. I liked how he called everyone peons.
Byron - I really liked him in the press conversations of his testimony, but other than that he didn't really do much... annnnnnnnd that's all I have to say about him.
Pirate Miney (My nickname for her) - She was random. And kind of pointless. But I liked her. The pirate gimmick seemed odd though, thought it'd be more fitting to actually do something with the whole transhuman thing.
Judge - You made his profile visible and that makes you awesome.
Spoiler : Ending :
So as everyone else has said, the ending is... anticlimactic. Very anticlimactic. And it kinda makes the whole thing seem pointless, since he would have been convicted from the start. I know it's a prosecutor's job to get the defendant convicted and all, but it does eliminate that sense of mystery, and if nothing else, I think there should have been a confrontation with Byron. Having him just confess like that is... well... ehhhh.
Another thing I'd like to comment on is your use of music and sound effects (Or lack thereof). There are a lot of places where no music is playing and no sound effects are played, and it really does give off this incredibly awkward vibe... and when the music DOES come on, it feels out-of-place at times and normally doesn't last very long. And as I hinted at, hardly any sound effects are used at all.
Overall? It was ok. It felt kinda short, (Or at least, not like 3200 frames. To me, anyway. Oh, speaking of! The word 'anyway' is said a TON. Like every other few frames.) the story wasn't that engaging, it was pretty easy, there were many general first-timer errors, and the ending definitely leaves much to be desired. BUT! I do like the characters, your dialogue's friggin' hilarious, (Haven't laughed this much at a case since Undecided that case that you can't mention or else you get mauled by lions) and it's fairly well-presented.
Spoiler : :
Also, Blader asked me to do this, too. You DID say you were open to it.
Well, I'm going to respond to all the people that have made comments so far. In purple, of course. I'm glad that it seems like this trial wasn't completely bad, and the criticisms so far have been pretty consistent, so I know what to focus on improving. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to edit the trial yet though, since judging isn't over... and I'm paranoid. But yes, the responses.
ZetaAzuel wrote:
Alright, let's do this mono e mono maker v maker, I'ma do a playthrough and give my running monolouge as I play. Works for me.
Spoiler : This will be long :
Wow, so I'm gonna guess right off the bat the killer is a guy due to the intro. But he's doing it for some kind of good reason, maybe for that little lady? Well let's find out. As you found out, kind of but not really. Sort of. Wow the prosecutions lobby looks a lot like the defense lobby... That's because I'm clueless about anything custom in trials. It took me a long time just to figure out how to put in Zodow's sprites. I more or less justify this with "Trying to unite defense attorneys and prosecutors", but that probably does seem odd. WAIT That Badge IS A DA BADGE O.o WHY GD WHHHHHHHY!? Well, you found out why, so... yeah. Ema's great great great grandaughter? Actually, Marian is an RP character I briefly used, who I decided to use for this trial, since it seemed fitting. The problem being that even in RP's, Marian is similar to Ema, so this probably just seemed odd. JACK SUNDA... I mean... Zodow Zark! I can't wit to see how you play this guy out! I like to think I wrote him decently enough. Hmm 10 Trials eh? Then he should be decent I hope, why is he amateur, I'd consider him... decent now :p Well, "Zodow Zark: Amateur Ace Attorney" has more alliteration than "Zodow Zark: Decent Ace Attorney". And it could have been more alliterative, since his middle name is actually Zacharias. But in general, I consider him an amateur simply because he doesn't have too much passion for his job. New Ema is a pianist eh? I have a feeling she's related to our friend Phoenix Wright(probbly not though ^.^) It's actually just a reference no one will possibly ever get. OOOOOOOH OK, now I get why the badge is different. Exactly, it's because I fail at using custom content! ... I mean, unity or whatever. Yeah. Nice Music btw I like it Just used the track from the list that seemed most fitting. Examines Judge: Awwww... poor Zodow... you'll get a hobby and friends... Maybe one day he will. Examines Gaurds: Yeah they do have easy jobs :p The guards just standing around in AA games has always frightened me for some reason. Examines Plant: Wow Zodow seems like a philosopher... Poor plant. Well it's good to know we got TV's in the future. PHILOSOPHY TV! I have no idea why I decided to go with Philosophy TV. I just did. A Hack in huh? I suppose technology is still in danger of getting hacked now a days Your technology will never be safe. I wonder what kind of pistol we got in the future? I don't know. Pistols that fire green lasers while automatically playing battle music? It COULD happen. YAAAY EVIDENCE !! But none are as important as the Badge. Androids!? YAAAY I have a feeling Lisa Basil will be in this trial somewhere You found out the answer to this. Good guess. Noble Aura eh? I don't think I like this guy... he and his fancy suits... and sunglasses... HAwke's nephew... sounds interesting... I really don't like this guy at all... he's a jerk! Calling me a fool every freaking second This guy is so full of himself... but I had to listen to what he had to say... Well, you're not really supposed to like him. But I wasn't sure if people would find him to be an amusing kind of annoying, or just annoying. That's why I made his rant skippable. P-Puppet shows...*Looks at Turabout Through Time* >_>" Haven't played that, so I don't really understand this comment. THAT JERK BLINDED HIMSELF!? Internet Wars Are Serious Business. Yeah why does he give tutorials? "No You didn't" I laughed at this part at that part XD I felt like I HAD to lampshade the habit of giving tutorials in AA games. The Judge is such a traditionalist. Tradition must be respected. Hmm... you seem to be missing a few speech bubbles... I noticed that during my playtests, but I couldn't find the exact problem. I'll definitely have to take a closer look at it later. Lifebar is still flashing! OH NOES I'm a bit confused by this. Do you mean you got a penalty, or that it kept flashing when you made the right choice? Because during my playtest, there was one point where it kept flashing, but I thought I had fixed that. Maybe I didn't. Testimony seemed simple enough:p Better simple than nonsensical. Zodow Looks like a thug AWWWWRIIIIGHT I just thought it would be in-character for Arron to make a comment about it. Oh god He's going to testify... *Sighs* It isn't that bad, as you saw. SO That's where the 30 statement testimony idea came from.... Actually, no. It's a reference to a TBP I was a part of, where my character gave a testimony that was about 35 statements long. Don't remember the exact number. RECESS YAAAY Yes, run from school and have a bit of fun outside! ... Wait. Different recess. So he could have gotten a gun... I'm starting to think he killed her so that they could incriminate that dude... just based off what I hear and what the prologue said... Guns old enough to be considered relics, yay! HE'S dERANGED! What do you mean? He's obviously friendly. AND A LIAR I PRESENT TO YOU A NEWSPAPER Crap... not good enough... Throw the newspaper for justice! I KNEW IT! I KNEW THERE WOULD BE LISA BASIL HERE! SO CALLED IT! She's a pirate robot! YAYZ but she talks like... Ini... great ._." She's a pirate-valley girl-robot, to be more specific. I don't know why. So she was playing the music he? Pretty cool if say so myself. More or less a moment of Leaning on the fourth wall. Yay double corss examination! Almost as good as the triple cross-examination. Which doesn't exist. But maybe it will some day. CONSPIRACY! There's always one going around. Aww.... the door notes arn't the answer? That saddens me... ah well easy contradiction is easy> : D I was kind of worried for a while that the contradictions wouldn't make sense, so that's a relief to hear. Change of plans, that girl hacked the security system and the guy killed her EASY PEAZY~ I realized I probably shouldn't have, but for a moment, I thought you were saying that Evelyn hacked the security system, and then Byron killed her for no reason. And her ghost was now testifying or something. How many times will he say truth before getting on to something relevant >_<" Pay him no attention. He just likes talking. YAY ARGUMENT! It seemed like the natural final challenge at the time. Damn I hate this guy and his vague testimony... He's mocking you and all of your attempts. WAIT WHAT!? HE CONFESSES!? There's got to be more to this... RIGHT!? This seems like a common criticism. And honestly, I had a "Let's get this over with or this will go on for a long time" mentality. Still, I probably should add in a final Present Evidence action, to make it less anti-climactic. It's over just like that...? Yeah. Well... that was... weird I suppose.... I really should touch up the ending parts. So she wasn't helping him, she was trying to convince him to stop or something like that. Ah well... I wasn't close but no matter.
For a first case it's not bad to be honest. Not the best but hey, that's what first trials are for. There are certainly some point in which I believe that could be improved upon(such as remembering to put TAKE THAT in some presenting areas and making the text green when presenting evidence) The case I feel needed a bit more explanation it seemed to vague to me as to what happened. I honestly completely forgot that I had to make the text green. Oh well, that should be easy to fix. And yeah, the crime was kind of vague... mostly I was just being overly paranoid and thinking I'd mess up badly if I tried going too in detail. The characters and music were good in my opinion though. I hated some(good hate not bad hate) and some I loved, such as that GOd DANG LYLE, thinking he's good as everyone else... Lyle feeds off your annoyances! And thanks. And for some reason I keep imagining Arron Ruth as a higher class Glass Cannon Well, when coming up with Arron's personality, I pretty much sat down and thought about what kind of character would most annoy Zodow. And that's how Arron was created. So in short, it could use a touch up, I thought the ending as rather... anti-climactic... but that's just my opinion. Anyway, remember this is a first trial, it's ok for you to make error's so long as you use them as steeping stones to your next great work. So keep at it GD! Thank you for playing and commenting!
Lind wrote:
Blargh, my internet went down for about three hours shortly after that message. Playing it now, will post thoughts as I go along: I appreciate it.
Spoiler : :
Female Voice and Male Voice? What weird names. Well, I wasn't sure what else to call them. Justice will prevail? More like ATHENA JUSTICE will prevail, BIRCH! (Or probably not.) Can't comment on this, seeing as I haven't played your case. They still have Snackoos in the future? Of course they do! Try out the newest flavor, metal-flavor! Calling it right now, Marian is the killer. The whole pianist detail will enter the picture. There's no reason for it otherwise. It's just a reference. And in-joke no one except maybe two people will get. They changed the design of the badge? Why didn't you just grab the picture from CR and swap it in? Seems incredibly lazy. Like it would have taken much less time than coming up with an in-universe excuse. Because I fail at using custom content. And honestly, I have grown fond of the explanation I've given, so I'm not sure if I would actually swap it even if I did stop failing at using custom content. A single pistol shot, UPSIDE HER HEAD. I'm guessing that's a reference to something I don't know about. So... why did she only just give you the reports now if this was a recap that YOU asked for? Marian was just trying to hoard all the evidence for herself. But honestly, I imagined it as Zodow not accepting the reports until he was sure the trial was going to start soon, since he's somewhat nervous. Ooh, androids! I was wondering when something futuristic would happen. I'm definitely not going to get too many points for "Theme" in the competition, since I didn't emphasize the "Future" aspect too much. ...You mean cyborgs? Well, crap. I'm doing that as well. Not gonna look very original. If it's any consolation, I'm pretty sure that's one of the first things anyone thinks of when thinking about the future. Why am I imagining Lyle with the voice of Eric Idle? Who? *Googles* Oh. I have no clue. CYBORG REPLACEMENT EYES. STOP STEALING MY IDEAS YOU BASTARD. Never. It's too much fun stealing ideas while not being aware of it. INTERNET WAR, you say? Serious Business. Treading dangerously close to the fourth wall there, Judge... Leaning on the fourth wall is too much fun. Why does that door report have "Passport" written on it? It's the Passport to the Report! ... Yeah, that doesn't make sense. You have a point. I thought it'd be odd to just use the standard "Document" evidence, since that was being used for the standard Autopsy Report, but I probably should change it. At least it should be easy to change. Foe Yay all up in this birch. Foe Yay is the best Yay. I'm more of an otter person myself. The Badger Rangers will be disappointed. DOUBLE PENALTRATION. ...That's what you call a double penalty, isn't it? I don't know. That sounds more like giving someone a penalty, and then giving that same person another penalty immediately after it. So... if she's the co-council for the prosecution, what is she doing over there? Uh... yeah, I have no excuse for this. And I've used the "I fail at using custom content" thing too much already. A pirate? Shouldn't she be Olga Orly instead? I mean, there is the whole Transhuman thing, but... ah, screw it. Well, as you found out, she was faking it, so using Olga wouldn't make sense. HAVE TWILIGHT SPARKLE EXPLAIN IT. I have no clue what you're referring to when you said this. OK, by this point he has had HOW MANY penalties? In your shoes I would have Game Over'd 5 times already. Defense attorneys can take a lot more penalties in the future. ... That's actually canon for this trial. GET ON WITH IT! Stop beating around the flocking bush already! I'm guessing you're referring to Arron? In which case, that was supposed to be frustrating, so I guess I succeeded there. That was... anticlimactic. Yeah, I've gotten that a lot so far, and I agree. I really need to do something about it. The accent is a lie. Sadness. Which is to say, this trial was meaningless. Well, not quite. If Zodow's Truth Bar runs out, a Not Guilty is given, since everyone thinks that since he didn't present the case well enough, obviously the accusation makes no case and Byron should be acquitted. And honestly, the trial was more supposed to be about Zodow finding a sort of purpose, instead of focusing on the mystery. Which doesn't really make up for it, now that I think about it.
Ehhh, I'm going to give you my honest opinion here... this trial wasn't very good. Playing it from the prosecution's side removed any sense of mystery in this trial. The characters, while amusing at first, get quite annoying after 3200 frames, and a lot of the dialogue feels extremely drawn out. A lot of the character aspects feel like they were hammered in for flavour's sake. The law system was still totally ridiculous to a distracting and annoying degree no matter how many times it got lampshaded. Well, this was a prosecution case because it was supposed to fit in with the original theme, which required the trial to be both a prosecution case and set 1000 years in the future or past. The latter condition got shortened to only 100 years(which I appreciated, since I realized how weird this trial would be, since technology hasn't advanced too much), and the "Prosecution" part was removed entirely from the conditions. But I still wanted to use this idea. And some of the others mentioned that the case felt kind of short, so I'm not sure how to take your comment on the dialogue feeling drawn out, but I'll definitely think about it. As for the law system... well, this is a future where the Law System has changed, along with humanity's values, but I can understand why it'd be so distracting. Sorry, just saying it as I call it. No need to apologize. I'm grateful for the comments. Thank you.
Ohai again. Hi Blader, how are the wife and kids? Don't really have a long, wordy, report for you, just general thoughts on everything. Always appreciated.
Spoiler : :
I have to say, I really love your writing style. Arron and Zodow bounce off each other the entire damn trial and it's all hilarious. That dynamic REALLY steals the show here, although I loved Nu the Space Pirate. Only then she wasn't a space pirate. AND I HAD SUCH A GOOD NAME FOR HER TOO. Nu. One Eye. Ditzy. Pirate. IT ALL WORKED AND THEN YOU RUINED IT. WHY. I came up with the idea for Evelyn's gimmick before even playing BlazBlue. Which made it more hilarious when I finally did play CSII, and got Ragna's Joke Ending. And because... uh... toast. Glad you like my writing style though. A minor issue would be sprites. I don't understand why you used Sundae for Zodow. It's a pretty bad fit IMO. The read I get from Zodow is that he's calm, confident, and well... awkward, and Sundae only really works when he's being confident. It got better as time went on, but still... something about it just feels weird to me. I think Polly would have been a better choice. Paranoia can be blamed here. I thought that Zodow wouldn't be "different" enough, and if I used Apollo's sprites, he'd just seem like a clone. And Phoenix didn't fit him. Looking over the Random Characters thread, I thought Sundae fit him best. Zodow is supposed to be one of those characters who has a completely different personality than their appearance suggests, but I can definitely see what you mean. Lyle... well, Machi is really all you can use but it does feel weird when he has this bored look on his face talking about how great he is. Don't get me wrong, I think he's hilarious, but it is something that affects the interpretation of the character. It's not too bad, though. I was going for the "I'm bored and feel like I'm wasting time, so instead I'll talk about how awesome I am." approach with Lyle. He's supposed to seem bored in general. But I probably didn't make that clear enough. Another thing I had a pretty big problem with is the ending... I just feel like it would have been a lot more satisfactory if Arthur tried to twist everything on Nu (IM STILL CALLING HER THAT I DONT CARE IF THE NICKNAME DOESNT WORK ANYMORE) before confessing. It would have done things for his character, too; I sorta feel like he's the character who got the least attention in the case, but there's a lot you could have done with him. Don't mean to say he's a bad character, at all, but everyone else in the case was doing a lot more for me. I'm definitely taking this suggestion to heart. It seems like the main problem everyone has is the anti-climactic ending, so I'm going to do something about it later. A final Present Evidence of some sort (need to think of one), and since it seems like this case is lacking suspense, I'll probably add a special Game Over scene for failing at that point. Sort of like a Bad Ending, maybe. Still, I find your writing absolutely hilarious. You should make a series out of this. I'd totally play it. I definitely want to use Zodow again if I ever make another case in the future, but I'm not sure about a series. For now, I'll just focus on improving what I have so far. Also, you said you were open to death threats.
Enjoy~ That's adorable. I feel so loved. Oh, and my thanks for commenting.
Gumpei wrote:
Hm. Well first off, I'd like to remark that this is a very unique trial, for a number of reasons. For one, your writing style. It's quite fresh and unique. There are a lot of things to it that... I'm not sure if you intended or not, (Much of the dialogue seems dry, in the vein of something like Scott Pilgrim. Zodow's dialogue is the one that most exemplifies traits of it.) but they do make it stand out if nothing else. For two, you made a case where you play as the prosecution that I didn't totally suck at. That in itself is a huge accomplishment. For three, the characters, which I am going to go further into in this spoiler tag. Haven't seen/read Scott Pilgrim, but I kind of get what you mean. I honestly just went with what I felt was most natural, which seems to have worked out pretty well.
Spoiler : Characters :
Zodow - He's an odd fellow, but I like him. I'd actually say he's probably the best OC attorney player character I've seen in any fangame. He's just... different. In my opinion, his best dialogue was at the start, in the lobby. Examining things and presenting things... the dialogue there was priceless and really showcased his weirdness, and I think the chemistry between Marian and him worked well. They don't really seem like friends, but those two people who just kinda talk to each other... it's a bit difficult to explain what I mean. Basically I liked how Marian was like "Ok you're weird let's talk about something else" rather than "Ok you're a freak I'm leaving now". The way Zodow responds to everything as a whole kind of interests me, because he always does it in a weird sort of way. He still seems like a decently competent attorney, however, and I think it's still believable enough to work. I'm not sure how I feel about the use of Sundae's sprites, though, to be honest. In a way he sort of works since Sundae does have a strange look about him, but in general I'm not sure if the poses match to his full personality. However, I know you're kind of limited here. Wow... I'm flattered. Well, I thought using Apollo's sprites would make him seem like a clone, honestly. And like I said in Blader's comments, Zodow is supposed to be the kind of person who has a different personality than his appearance suggests. But I'll consider this. It seems like he isn't being seen as a generic clone. It would take a really long time to change all of his poses to something else... but maybe it'd be worth it. In a revision, maybe.
Marian - I don't really have much to say about her. I think she can be an interesting character, but as of now I really don't think she's that different from Ema. I liked her chemistry with Zodow, as I already said, but her actual character doesn't stand out much. The fact that she's a detective obviously doesn't help either. Marian was the character who was both the easiest and most difficult for me to write. She's a character I briefly used in an RP before, so I felt comfortable writing as her... but at the same time, I had to constantly remind myself that just because I knew a lot about her didn't mean the player did.
Arron - I LOVE THIS GUY. Favorite character in the trial, easily. He just... it's a little hard to explain why I like him so much. Everything he says makes me laugh. Zodow works great with him. I think Zeta really nailed it, he's a high class Canon. And it just WORKS. Glad to see he seems like a favorite. His personality seemed like the type that would most annoy Zodow while still being fun to write, so I went with it.
Lyle - Well Blader STOLE that comment on the use of Machi's sprites for me, so I guess I shouldn't bother mentioning now. Except I kind of just did. WHATEVER. Lyle himself seemed interesting, but he just seemed... irrelevant. Completely irrelevant. His blindness didn't really come into play at all other than giving the defense a reason not to accuse him, and... I didn't even understand why everyone made such a big deal about his disappearance from the courtroom. Nothing came of it. He just... showed up again. It was odd. I liked how he called everyone peons. I can't really think of a solution to that. He's supposed to be a red herring character, but that doesn't really justify it too much. I need to think of a way to make him do something.
Byron - I really liked him in the press conversations of his testimony, but other than that he didn't really do much... annnnnnnnd that's all I have to say about him. Hopefully he'll seem more interesting in the revised ending/new final present that I'm thinking about, then.
Pirate Miney (My nickname for her) - She was random. And kind of pointless. But I liked her. The pirate gimmick seemed odd though, thought it'd be more fitting to actually do something with the whole transhuman thing. I don't know why, but I felt like basing her personality around being a transhuman would just be kind of tasteless for some reason. And since I do plan on making the ending less anti-climactic, hopefully she'll seem a lot less pointless when that's done.
Judge - You made his profile visible and that makes you awesome. The Judge is a character too and he deserves the same representation as everyone else.
Spoiler : Ending :
So as everyone else has said, the ending is... anticlimactic. Very anticlimactic. And it kinda makes the whole thing seem pointless, since he would have been convicted from the start. I know it's a prosecutor's job to get the defendant convicted and all, but it does eliminate that sense of mystery, and if nothing else, I think there should have been a confrontation with Byron. Having him just confess like that is... well... ehhhh. Agreed. That's the most common criticism so far, which has to mean something. I think I'm going to follow Blader's suggestion... a final Present Evidence opportunity, where Byron tries to pin the blame on Evelyn. I just need to think of one. And then obviously implement it.
Another thing I'd like to comment on is your use of music and sound effects (Or lack thereof). There are a lot of places where no music is playing and no sound effects are played, and it really does give off this incredibly awkward vibe... and when the music DOES come on, it feels out-of-place at times and normally doesn't last very long. And as I hinted at, hardly any sound effects are used at all. I was worried about using too many Sound Effects... so much, that apparently I had the exact opposite problem. I'll definitely keep that in mind. As for music... well, I noticed that during my playtests, but I thought I had fixed it. But I didn't give it an in-depth look, so I probably should. Overall? It was ok. It felt kinda short, (Or at least, not like 3200 frames. To me, anyway. Oh, speaking of! The word 'anyway' is said a TON. Like every other few frames.) the story wasn't that engaging, it was pretty easy, there were many general first-timer errors, and the ending definitely leaves much to be desired. BUT! I do like the characters, your dialogue's friggin' hilarious, (Haven't laughed this much at a case since Undecided that case that you can't mention or else you get mauled by lions) and it's fairly well-presented. A lot of the frames is in optional stuff, including the "wrong" choices made during Counter Cross-Examinations, and the Badge Failure Conversations, so I can definitely understand why it wouldn't feel as long as 3200 frames. As for the story... yeah, I agree. I mostly relied on the characters, rather than the plot. I'll keep that in mind. Also, searching "anyway" in the trial editor reveals... 27 results. Yeah. I probably should do something about it. I think it's because I have a tendency to say "anyway" a lot in chat rooms (probably not noticeable in the AAO xat, for obvious reasons), and that rubbed off on this.
Spoiler : :
Also, Blader asked me to do this, too. You DID say you were open to it.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. And thanks for commenting.
Okay then, I thought about this for a while. As pretty much everyone has said, the current ending to this case is very anti-climactic, and I agree. That's why I've spent some time thinking, and I've thought of a way to make the ending better by a lot. It will make the ending less anti-climactic, and hopefully help with a few characters who have been called kind of pointless, by... well, making them less pointless. The thing is, this will take a while, since I will have to change the ending a LOT, and probably add in either an additional cross-examination, or an additional Present Evidence opportunity. In case I didn't make it clear, I do have the new ending in mind, or at least most of the details.
So, what this means is... well, I'm taking down the link to the case temporarily, so I can work on improving the ending. It won't be taken down just yet. I'll probably take down the link on Saturday or Sunday. Sorry to anyone who was planning on playing this, but I really think the ending needs to be improved. I was going to focus on other issues first (mostly music and sound effects), but I've decided that this is more important. There will be a change in the thread title when I do decide to take down the link, likely just a short note.
Well... I'm not sure what else to say. Oh, right. I'm not sure how long the case will be down. I'm going to try to pace myself so that it doesn't take forever, but I'm honestly not sure. Hopefully not longer than a week and a half (... which already sounds really long to me), but I don't know.
EDIT: And I've taken it down now. I realize this is earlier than I said, but I might as well do it now rather than later. Here's hoping this won't take TOO long.
Yeah. Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. The link to this case is back up, and now the trial has been expanded somewhat, including a new cross-examination. This update includes a Bad Ending, which you can get by failing at the new final cross-examination. Hopefully this will make the ending seem much less anti-climactic. Thank you for your patience. Also, I was thinking about posting a frame skip here for anyone that had played this trial before, but then I realized that it would probably get outdated pretty quickly if I ever added or removed any frames. So if anyone played this trial before, and doesn't want to play through all of it again, then just request a frame skip from me via PM, or ask me on the AAO xat.
Also, in case anyone's wondering...
Spoiler : About the Bad Ending :
I was originally going to have Byron explain what the Hacking Device was, but then I got another idea. Basically, I chose not to explain it since I have a vague idea of a sequel for this trial, and that's more or less a Sequel Hook, and the device will play an important role if a sequel is ever made. Yes, I put the Sequel Hook in the Bad Ending, despite the Good/Normal Ending being canon. I make so much sense. And I may or may not actually create the sequel... basically, I decided that on the off-chance that I do decide to create it, I'll have something to center it around, if that makes sense.
Holy cheddar cheese! What a great trial! Sure there was some bugs here and their and the overall visuals weren't perfect, but I'll be, the story and the writing were worthy of the greatest roleplayer on AAO *shot*
Reading you superb dialog definetly takes me back to the days of ATTR and your beautifully written character, the always humble Detective Roy Dreamer!
_________________
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Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:59 am
Lord Wolfenstein
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2012 9:32 pm Posts: 2140 Location: Canada
Gender: Female
Spoken languages: English, French, Chinese
@Trybien: Heh... I remember Roy Dreamer. That takes me back. First RP character on AAO... anyway, thanks. Though I think the story was rather simple... or at least the crime was. When I make my next serious trial, I'm going to try to make the crime more complex. I'm glad that the characters are getting praised so much though. And that reminds me, I still need to fix the errors that were pointed out. Mostly a few speech bubbles not appearing. Must fix later.
@Wolf Speaker: Given that I was most worried about Zodow's character (since I was worried he'd be seen as Generic Attorney #22) I'm glad to hear that.
Anyway, I've decided to add a poll, so people can vote on their favorite characters. You can vote for 2 characters. I'm interested to see what the results will be. Given that there are only 7 options (Because I'm not adding in the victim), I debated with myself whether to allow one vote or two, but I eventually went with two. I had to resist the urge to add the Prosecutor's Badge as a possible option, because clearly it would get all the votes.
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