Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition results

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Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition results

Post by Unas »

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Community news
TBAOTL Case and Tutorial competition results !

Hi everyone,

First things first, I should probably apologise about these competition results coming very, very late. They were due on October originally, but well... Sometimes things just do not go as planned.
You've waited long enough for that, so without further ado, let's proceed, shall we ?


TBAOTL - Case competition

In the French section, the TBAOTL case competition gave birth to some of the best cases ever made on the site, not only in terms of story, but also in terms gameplay and overall quality. I wanted TBAOTL to showcase what AAOv6 was capable of, and it did : the result were clearly "next-gen AAO" productions.
Of course, I also had high expectations for the English section, seeing as it hosts great authors and great "AAO-engineers" that like to push the system to its limits.

Competition winner
A Turnabout Called Justice (Parts 1 and 2), by mercurialSK and drvonkitty


Winning entry is that of MercurialSK and drvonkitty, a sequel to Ace Attorney 5. While investigating what looks like a tragic accident, Apollo and Athena find enough evidence to bring the matter to trial and dive into a very dark case.
Unfortunately, the case was not finished at the time of the competition closing, so I can't very fairly judge the story - these first two parts already showed obvious qualities in terms of writing, smooth difficulty, and overall storytelling, but still, you might be surprised that an unfinished entry made it first place.

This entry also has other arguments in its favour though.

First, I should mention the overall look & feel of the case, which is a clear step up from old AAO productions, making good use of the V6 engine. This case claims to be a sequel from AA5, and it lives up to that : it actually looks almost as clean as an actual AA game. Multiple on-screen characters, clean transitions... Everything conveys a high quality feeling to this case.

But what had me truly sold was not just the story nor the quality of the case. The focus of this competition was on innovation and showing what V6 could do : a full blown implementation of Perceive from AA4, and Widget from AA5, was what truly convinced me that this work deserved to win the competition.
To be fair, the Perceive thing is almost cheating, as it does not only rely on AAO itself : instead, it uses AAO runtime expressions to fetch customised graphics from Ferdielance's server dynamically... A bit of magic that not everyone on AAO could pull off, clearly. Ironically, even though he's not credited as an author, Ferdie's work as a "consultant" on this case is actually its most amazing feature. :-)
In any case, it's a really amazing feat that such gameplay features were implemented seamlessly into an AAO case.

Because of all this, I name mercurialSK and drvonkitty winners of this competition, and I invite them to release at least the beginning of this case as soon as possible for everyone to enjoy !
A link to the showcase thread for this case will be added when the authors have created it. Stay tuned !

Runner up
A Study in Turnabout, by enigma and hershel_layton


Enigma and Layton's case is very different from the above, as it's an interesting dive in the world of fanfiction writing. And when I say "fanfiction writing", it means what it means : Phoenix Wright is not called to court merely to defend an innocent suspect, but to find a fitting conclusion to an unfinished fanfiction.

To be perfectly honest, this story was a little hard to follow and some of the "contradictions" were far from obvious; however, the interesting choice of universe kept it entertaining through the end. Indeed, the story makes clever use of some typical rules in the world of fanfiction and roleplay, and it does make sense in the end ! (Well... mostly :mrgreen: )
The conclusion is fitting, well written, and presents an original and engaging way of interacting with the player.

Another notable point is the good integration of foreign sprites. Indeed, this "fanfiction" is a crossover of many different universes, thus using sprites from lots of different sources and in lots of different styles. It makes quite a bif of a patchwork, but it looks good in the end.

This case is an entertaining case to play, and its major selling point is its very original story - even though it took me a little while to get into it (I'm not particularly familiar with the fanfiction world nor many of the universes referenced in this cross over).
However, it is very classical from a technical point of view : the finition is typically that of a V5 trial and it hardly uses any V6 feature. The very end of the epilogue features a very innovative use of the editor (though here again somewhat "cheating", relying not only on AAO but an external server - Ferdie strikes again !), but the concept while very good seems not exploited to its full potential. Because of that, it loses the competition against mercurialSK and drvonkitty's work.

Still, it's a very entertaining case : I thank enigma and hershel_layton for their work, and invite them to release the game as soon as possible for all to play. It wasn't entirely finished when I played (some game breaking bugs and some missing conversations here and there) but it should not take long to fix. :-)
A link to the showcase thread for this case will be added when the authors have created it. Stay tuned !


TBAOTL - Tutorial competition

I organised this tutorial competition for one reason : I foresaw that I would never had enough time to write a proper guide or documentation for AAOv6.
I didn't know how true this would actually become, and how little time I would actually have...

Anyway, time to review the entries !

Competition winner
Getting Started with AAO V6, by drvonkitty


drvonkitty's tutorial is pretty much what I expected from this competition : a clear and concise starting point, for people to learn their ways around the editor. The many screenshot references are good, and the guide is useful for both newbies and AAOv5 vererans, thanks to its focused "v5 veteran tips". Actually it has helped quite a few people get started already.

While the formatting should be improved to make it more pleasant to read and navigate, I believe this is the most useful guide to get started with V6, and therefore name drvonkitty the winner of this competition. Thanks a lot and congratulations !

... Other competition winner
AAO's Truly Comprehensive Guide for New Authors,
Psyche Locks for v6: Comprehensive Edition, by E.D.Revolution


I was hesitating at first on which to name as a competition winner.
On the one hand, drvonkitty's tutorial, which was quite exactly what I had in mind for the competition.
On the other hand, ED's tutorial, a revamp of an existing guide and not really specific to V6, so not in the original scope of the competition... but so incredibly useful it is for newbies to understand how to make quality work on AAO.
On the other other hand, ED's other tutorial about the V6 psyche locks interface, smaller in scope than the original competition (presenting only one feature) but so well detailed as well...

The choice is made : in fact, I believe all of those tutorials should become part of the official AAO documentation on V6, as they are complementary. ED's tutorials in particular are a massive contribution to the community !

Because of that, and because of the massive work it must have represented, I've decided to grant ED the title of winner as well. After all, I never said there should only be one winner, did I ? :-P
Thanks a lot E.D.Revolution, and congratulations for getting the unexpected title of "other winner" :wink:



Conclusion

As a conclusion, I would like to thank all the entrants for their contribution to AAO through this Bright Age of the Law competitions. It's guys like you that make the site live - even when I'm too busy to do it myself !
In particular, I'll address my congratulations to the winners :
  • mercurialSK, Case competition winner (and Sprite competition runner-up)
  • drvonkitty, Tutorial competition winner and Case competition winner
  • E.D. Revolution, Tutorial competition winner
I'll get in touch with all three of you to know where to ship the precious AAO mugs over the next few days !


That's all for today, thanks again everyone for participating in this Bright Age of the Law ! :D
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by gotMLK7 »

Congratulations to all the entrants and all the winners! Congrats to drvonkitty in particular on your double victory.
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Hersh/Fiendy has credit for the amazing GiGi pics and enigma has credit for the adorable Kenshin Mega Man sprite!

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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by mercurialSK »

Cool. Awesome, that's really cool. Thanks!
Unas wrote:To be fair, the Perceive thing is almost cheating, as it does not only rely on AAO itself : instead, it uses AAO runtime expressions to fetch customised graphics from Ferdielance's server dynamically... A bit of magic that not everyone on AAO could pull off, clearly. Ironically, even though he's not credited as an author, Ferdie's work as a "consultant" on this case is actually its most amazing feature. :-)
Heh, I actually plan to re-implement it using AAO features entirely :) The current solution is... regretfully bulky, though it was quick to write. And it's very demanding on Ferdie's server XD (and completely unplayable on low-spec devices...)

A question... what's the status of v6's release now then?
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by Enthalpy »

Congratulations to all.

And yes, the Ferdie magic was great.
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by enigma »

Um... Hold on. I just checked something and I can't see how you reached the end of the case, since according to this it should be impossible. :/

(Basically, I can check that certain Ferdie magic hasn't been triggered apparently?)
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by Unas »

Ah, I just checked and I see what you mean. I'm quite sure I had finished A Study In Turnabout, but I may have missed the epilogue Final Enigma since it's in a separate part - I don't remember exactly since it was a month ago. Is that what you're talking about ?
I'll play that epilogue again (or for the first time, if I had actually missed it ^^) as soon as possible ;-)

However, it will probably not overturn the result anyway :-)
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by enigma »

But that's where our ace was left... :(
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by Kroki »

Congrats guys. :armstrong:
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by Unas »

All done, I've played the epilogue of enigma's case (sorry again for missing it !) and updated my critics accordingly.
It does not change the outcome of the competition, but it does show a really innovative idea, for a more engaging interaction with the player. Not used to its full potential yet, but it's a great idea.

Thanks enigma :-)


Also, mercurial, as for your question : I can't really commit about anything regarding V6 release, but since it seems to be running fine now, I might just make the switch to default during the two-week holiday I'm taking for Christmas. Hopefully I will get a little time to work on it :-P
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by drvonkitty »

Thank you very much! I'm honored!! I hope SK and I will be able to get the first part out ASAP :D

And great job to both enigma and hershel_layton! I look forward to being able to play your entry in the near future :mrgreen:
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by Ferdielance »

A quick correction to the announcement: Although I consulted heavily, it was mostly on matters of writing and caselogic. The Perceive engine was SK's work from bottom to top! Hosting it on my server was a last-minute fix for stability.

Study In Turnabout's epilogue trick, on the other hand, was me.
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by drvonkitty »

Yup. Ferdie didn't make the perceive but he was instrumental in helping us both in terms of the plot and singlehandedly saving everything by letting us use his servers when everything crashed on our end 30 minutes before the dead line! So many many thanks to Ferdie for helping us as much as he did :larry:
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by Unas »

Really ?
I honestly thought that Ferdie was behind all of that. Wow, so SK is becoming an AAO magician as well ?

O joy, a generation of AAO magicians is rising ! :-D
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by clcman »

Congratulations all winners! (And not winners, too, you all worked very hard).
drvonkitty and SK, I'll post my beta-testing review on your showcase thread once you have one. Good job to both of you!
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Re: Community news: TBAOTL case and tutorial competition res

Post by DWaM »

Oh, wow, I actually noticed this just now. (Maybe Unas could make an exception and double post in the comp thread, because I didn't even consider to check back later for an edit... and the Announcements section gets posted in rarely enough as it does... XP)

Anyway, congrats to the winners. I'm looking forward to seeing both the entries and the tricks they came up with. no i dont believe in magic shuttup
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