[T]Angela Light: Ace Attorney ☆○○○○ [Case 2 Part 2 BETA]

[Gamer2002]

Found time to update part one.

* Fixed errors, but didn't bother with capitalizing every instance of "boss" ;P

Spoiler : spoiler updates :

*After presenting AC to Oldbag Angela says "Why, grandma, what big lies you say? You didn't leave the security post hour before the murder?" "You already have testified about being then in the back room and seeing the state of AC unit!"
* Decided to allow presenting Carter's profile instead of AC. In that case Angela says "You already have testified about being then in the classroom and talking with the victim!"

I still didn't do anything about floors thing, will cover that in later updates. I think I'll change it to American first floor/second floor/third floor version, considering that the game takes place in US.
So I will have to edit security logs, but that shouldn't be any problem.

EDIT:
*Fixed floor thing and security log in part 1 and part 2.

[Gamer2002]

Updates in part 1.
* Added info about apng so you should either play on Firefox or on Chrome with apng extension. Added info on possibility of Firefox causing you to see 4 liners.

Updates in part 2.

* Before 2nd CE, the Judge tells Angela to just not ask her questions in aggressive way.
* Before 3rd CE, the Judge no longer tells Angela that she can ask her questions directly.
* Angela's name is visible during her narration.
* Fixed error

Spoiler : spoiler updates :

* After presenting Photo when solving Stepladder contradiction Angela says "Your lie breaks apart because you didn't know the state of stepladder from before the murder."
* During Bobby 3rd CE, in press conversation about hearing the sound Angela thinks "(Actually, granny didn't hear it on the 3rd floor. But there is no point to argue about this.)" instead of just "(Actually, granny didn't hear it on the 3rd floor.)"
* When the Judge reads the affidavit, the word "ultimatum" is orange.
* In final CE you see 100% penalty warning when you have to decide if you should press further or present Coke can without making Bobby testify about it.
* If you cause special game over during final CE, Angela receives 100% penalty after Bobby says "It's a very valuable lesson, wouldn't you agree?"
* If you cause special game over on final CE and return to its beginning, you start at 60 HP instead of regaining lost HP on normal penalties. I've changed it because of full penalty during special game over that breaks the previous system of regaining HP ;P
* In final CE, for a first contradiction you can present Evan instead of Carter. You still will have to present Carter after this.

[cesar26100]

Just played through this trial,and I have to say,it was really well done! The characters were pretty good,and the twists at the end left me really looking forward to case 2.

[Gamer2002]

Thanks for playing, glad you liked it.

Confessed Turnabout went through basic planning stage and undergoes detailed planning. Still, for a part 1 alone, I also need to make custom graphics
- 3 animated OC poses
- 2 profiles
- 2 original locations.
- all intro graphics
At last after Part 1 investigation we have Part 2 in court, what gives me more time for draw other custom graphics.
Still, I also have second secret project that I'm currently working on together with my friends. And I'm busy IRL



Anyway, Bad Player, I think I've covered all your points. If I missed something, please tell me.

[Blizdi]

Thanks for playing, glad you liked it.

Confessed Turnabout went through basic planning stage and undergoes detailed planning. Still, for a part 1 alone, I also need to make custom graphics
- 3 animated OC poses
- 2 profiles
- 2 original locations.
- all intro graphics
At last after Part 1 investigation we have Part 2 in court, what gives me more time for draw other custom graphics.
Still, I also have second secret project that I'm currently working on together with my friends. And I'm busy IRL



Anyway, Bad Player, I think I've covered all your points. If I missed something, please tell me.

Ah... and like my friends who make trials that wish not to be named due to them not wanting to be associated with my horrible self: There's nothing like making the first two cases, thinking you got this, then realizing that making multiple day cases is very difficult, and is one of the reasons you only ever see 2 cases in a series.

... I don't even know where my point was with this post and decided to submit it anyways.

[Enthalpy]

I feel the need to open this review with a disclaimer: the purpose of this review, as always, is to help the author improve by giving an accurate representation of my thoughts, with special attention to possible fixes for the primary negative aspects. Unfortunately, this review will lean heavily on the "negative" side. Since this trial is seriously being considered for featured status, I am being harsher than usual.

That said, this post is almost 6500 words, an absurd length. I would not spend so much time writing this if I did not think that both Gamer and Turnabout Siblings could benefit from it.

I understand that you’ve gotten several largely positive reviews, including a featured review. I am not here to argue with them, and I am not asking you to disregard them. I am asking that you not rush to assuming I must be wrong for having such a negative view of Angela Light.

Spoiler : Review Core :

Normally after finishing a game worthy of serious attention, I would give it a full, comprehensive review. I cannot do so for this case. Before the end of Part One, I found myself saying “I just don’t care anymore.” The problem is not my attention span, nor an uninteresting case. The problem is that the mystery was so consistently frustrating that I had no mental energy left for anything else. Under such circumstances, I cannot judge the case fairly, except for the mystery and certain miscellanea. I will instead focus on those.

Let me be clear: I think that Angela Light isn’t a bad trial. It was a bad experience to play, but many of the problems are superficial and fixable. The core is mostly fine. Yet, I do not believe this trial is featurable until those problems are resolved.

My problems with the mystery always return to this quote from renowned psychologist Steven Pinker: “[T]he mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like unlinked pages on the Web: They might as well not exist.”

As a trial author, you need to make sure that the player has that narrative, that conceptual fabric with all the facts they need to know, so they can progress through the case and understand everything that’s going on. Otherwise, they’re won’t enjoy the case fully. This means that facts need clear explanation, things in the trial need a reason to be there, and all arguments must make sense.

Breaking this rule is how the game becomes genuinely unpleasant to play.

This problem first appears in the opening statement. This is critical because in Ace Attorney, the prosecution’s opening statement exists to give the player a rudimentary but clear knowledge of the case, with any additional details being settled in the first testimony or two. Since the player hasn’t had a benefit of an investigation, clear communication here is critical. It is not enough here to give all the facts; you must also weave them into that narrative so the player can recall and comprehend the facts.

But it doesn’t happen. The opening statement leaves open all of the following problems:

Major Problems

• Payne needs to explain that the Holter monitor couldn’t have contributed to the victim’s death. Otherwise, “accident” becomes viable!
• Because you never explain this, it’s unclear why the victim is messing with the air conditioning at all! That is not normal for Literature teachers. This is very confusing.
• It’s unclear why there was water or a hanging lamp’s electrical cable in the first place. You simply say they are there, show us a picture, and move on. I want an explanation as to why they were there, or at least for Payne to acknowledge that this is new information. You cannot say “the water was leaking on the floor even after the victim's death” before you’ve explained why water is leaking, or even that water was leaking. The player can figure this out, but it’s needlessly confusing. Similarly, you say “What exactly killed him was a hanging lamp's electric cable that was touching the water around him.” You haven’t explained that the cable was there, that there was water around him and touching him, or why the lamp was hanging. Even if you have a picture, Payne should explain it as well.
• “It's obvious that if the victim was standing on the ladder, he was doing so with his back towards it.” That the victim had his back to the ladder at all is very strange and deserves some explanation (like that he was climbing down, or facing somebody in the room.) Because there was no explanation, I misread this line as a clue that having his back to the ladder was the strange thing.
• Payne’s explanation of being pushed onto the ladder has some unclear lines that muddle the rest of it. For example:
  “It couldn't just fall from the ceiling panels. Two screws had to be unscrewed for it to be removed.” This frame doesn’t add anything to your explanation, but breaks the flow of it. Since this is a plot point, I’d recommend simply moving this frame.
  “With what was nearly a water leak, Mr. Carter had to take the lamp away, so he put the ladder under it.” You need to explain the water leak and how this relates to the lamp, both of which need more explanation in general. Rather than fit into a story of what the victim did, the lamp still seems to just be “this thing the defendant fiddled with” because it’s so divorced from motivations.
  “somebody interrupted his work. And after a brief talk,” (from two frames) is also vague. You never explicitly say what you mean to say: The victim talked with the defendant.
• You needed to follow up how the victim was knocked out with a clear explanation of how the victim was killed! Your prosecutor never says “then the victim killed the defendant” in his opening statement, nor does he clearly explain the murder method. By the end of the opening, this still hasn’t been explained properly.
• Explicit is better than implicit! Just look at this (abridged) dialogue:
  Payne: Since Mr. Carter was removing the lamp due to a leak, we can assume it was turned off before his fall. Not to mention, when the police found the body, the lamp was turned off. Given the switch being in use and the victim being pushed, this crime is clear.
  Kristoph: So, Mr. Payne, you are suggesting the culprit pushed the victim and turned the lamp on and off?
  What you MEAN to say is that “the light must have initially been turned off, and we found it off, but it had to have been turned on for us to end up with an electrocuted victim. So our killer turned the light on after pushing the victim over. It’s clear what happened: a deliberate murder.” This latter version makes explicit all the key points. Your script does not.

Nitpicking Problems

• Talk about the body being in “one of the victim’s classrooms” is strange. Normally, a high school teacher would only have one classroom. This may simply be a cultural difference, or confusion over the word “classroom.” As written, this makes the player wonder about other classrooms, but you never go anywhere with it. I recommend changing to “the victim’s classroom.”
• You say the victim had a Holter monitor, but you don’t explain what this uncommon device is. I was wondering if it did more than just serve as a heart monitor. I’m also confused as to why the victim even had one.

Are these problems resolved soon after? No. We never return to the facts of the crime scene. The facts were not presented clearly, so the player does not clearly understand the case. What Carter was doing, what the prosecution believes the killer did, how exactly Carter died, and what this lamp and water was doing. That information is all there, just as vague, disconnected facts.

Enter our first witness, Wendy Oldbag. To quote Ferdielance, “[The player has a right n]ot to have to spend too long dealing with truly obnoxious characters. The canonically obnoxious characters have some limits to their awfulness. AAO fancases just don't know when to stop. Oldbag will go on for TEN pages of dialogue, rather than three.” 70 frames pass between Oldbag’s first line of dialogue and the start of her testimony, with nothing to show for it but Angela trolling the court. That should tell you everything.

When the first testimony finally starts, the player struggles to understand the testimony because it does not clearly relate to the opening statement we just heard. This witness talks about what she saw, which has nothing to do with what Payne just talked about. This requires transition between the two to not be confusing, but there is no transition at all.

This effect is lessened because the testimony has little to be confused about. All Oldbag says is “Only myself, Carter and Evan were in the building. I found the body on my hourly patrol.” This isn’t getting in many new facts. Sure there are the press conversations, but because of the really obvious contradiction, most players won’t get to those. (If they do, they will likely be confused by the lack of any explanation for what the security system does, only talking about Oldbag’s route as a forgettable technical detail, and why Oldbag is so convinced nobody else was in-school.)

Because of that, the testimony is pointless. It doesn’t get out enough information for the prosecution to want this, and you as designer have no reason to write it. The contradiction isn’t useful; just start with testimony two! This cross-examination does nothing for tone, character, and narrative. The case would be better off if this waste-of-frames cross-examination was gone.

Now we have testimony two, which is a classic “press-to-continue” that gets the player more information about the crime. The explanations here are also unclear. Going statement by statement:

• It’s still unclear why the victim was handling the air conditioning at all. Rather than saying “the air conditioner was loud,” say “the air conditioner was so loud that it disrupted Mr. Carter’s class.”
• In statement two, you talk about a first floor and a third floor before the player even knows there are floors! I was confused for quite a while about which floor was where. You also don’t explain Oldbag’s security in great detail, so it’s unclear if she was only ever on the the third floor, just there once, or something else. To a player who hadn’t pressed anything last testimony, the existence of a security system at all is quite confusing.
• Statement three is fine.
• Statement four’s press conversation is long, rambling, and forgettable. Presses in a press-to-continue conversation should have mostly short conversations with the longer ones being dramatic and memotable! You still don’t explain the security system clearly.
• In statement five, the prosecution refuses to get to the point and say, “This places the defendant at the crime scene at around the time of the murder!” Payne needs to tell us his NARRATIVE of how this soda business happened. When I played through this case, all I thought was, “Something with the defendant’s fingerprints ended up at the crime scene, and the timing is bad.” Having Payne dramatize this would get your tone moving, clarify the evidence, and make the cross-examination less boring.
  The press conversation for statement five-A should be cut down a bit due to length.
• Statement six leaves Oldbag’s patrol route unclear. Also, explicitly say that uses of the card key are recorded, and this means her patrols on the third floor are recorded. Remember to clarify the floor issue, and Payne tie Oldbag’s alibi to the defendant’s guilt. Otherwise, I'm left wondering why exactly I care.
• Statement six-A is fantastic! We have an explicit view of how things work.

Angela’s argument with Payne between cross-examinations two and three feels like a pointless technical argument. Show us why this matters! Make it into Angela’s lifelines getting cut. It may help to talk about the motive first, then Carter’s ID card, and then ask for the security system cross-examination. Going from ID to motive to security feels disjointed.

Now for cross-examination three. Again, this feels unclear, so I’ll go statement by statement.

• Statement one is short and straightforward. Good job!
• Statement two is terrible. Angela asking specifically about windows in a place of no particular importance is technical, hard-to-follow and boring. Ask about windows in general! Oldbag saying the windows weren’t open and can’t be closed from the outside also feels technical. It would be easier and simpler to say, “the windows also auto-lock and can’t be used at all.”
• Statement three is good. I’d personally shorten it to, “And according to the logs, only my card was used that night.”
• Statement four is fine.
• Statement five is also fine. The joke is lost because “the victim was well-organized, and such things happen” doesn’t clearly connect to “I lost to a rookie on occasion” because “such things” syntactically means “uncharacteristically losing unimportant things.”
• Now comes statement six, the big problem. For “Oldbag’s movement.” It’s strange that Oldbag knows the time of death so exactly. Did the prosecution show her the autopsy? Was this said in court? You need the player to unequivocally know the answer for this, but I was too bogged down with other details to remember clearly! It would also be easier if we had the floor issue settled. “Before activation” is a long, unclear technical explanation that bores the player to death. Rewrite that entire prompt.

Now comes the contradiction itself. It’s great that it is a contradiction, but it’s unclear. The thing to contradict is a side-point. Oldbag mentions “hourly patrols” in the middle of a conversation about how this is a PERFECT LOCKED ROOM, and we need to contradict her on the hourly patrols. That’s really hard to spot. It’s even worse when we need to do an impeachment by omission from already confusing evidence. Looking at the security log, my first thoughts are “Where is this security post? What is Oldbag’s route? Why is it only the third floor that has a note on it? What happened at 7:55? What happened with gym, post, and main entry after 8? If there’s a gym out, why not a gym in?” Looking at it now, I see a new question: how was Evan POSSIBLY supposed to have gotten out of the gym and then back in?! You’ve explained some of these before, but the explanations have not been very clear and memorable, and should be noted in the Court Record. Others haven’t been explained at all. I have an idea in the back of my head about what I think you said, but I do not have it clearly enough in my head for me to look past that and see “what Oldbah said implies some entries exist that don’t exist.” This is a huge problem, and made this contradiction unfindable for me.

Only at this cross-examination did I realize this was a locked room case. Payne needs to have at least talked about this “only opportunity” argument by now! He hasn’t done that yet. In fact, the testimonies barely focus on Evan! I also note that this testimony in particular feels disjointed and uninteresting to the court as-is. “The defense wants it” is not a good reason for a testimony. You need to either make the court care, or make the judge impatient to raise the stakes. You can solve both problems about an motivated testimony and a lack of explanation for the locked room, with the contradiction preserved, by reframing this testimony around the locked room.

The present of the air conditioner makes sense, though. Good there. However, in the explanation of the contradiction,Angela needs to directly says the important line, that the evidence just discredited was a pillar of the prosecution’s case.

Even worse, Oldbag’s reason for lying is just glossed over. That perjury just happened requires more of a response than for everybody to brush it aside after a frame or two. When I played through this, I was confused on why Oldbag lied, and why it mattered to the case was unclear.

Now for cross-examination four. This was one of your stronger testimonies. (Though as a side point, why doesn’t he talk about what he was doing buying a soda, or how he left the gym?) It doesn’t clearly flow to or from everything else, we find the contradiction very quickly, and there are no points that grab the player’s interest. It’s also worth mentioning the residual frustration from the rest of the case.

Underneath that, however, is a huge problem. Why is the court even listening to this testimony? Why did Payne want this? Angela was right to call this a waste of time. Since you already have a fairly long case, consider simply cutting this cross-examination and putting the important information in a simple conversation. This would also resolve the problem with an awkward transition. If you can improve the transition and make the court care, cutting this cross-examination is no longer a priority.

Unfortunately, Payne’s conversation after Angela’s explanation is still confusing. The transition is bad, it’s a hypothetical argument, and I’ve lost the sense of why it matters. If Angela means “there could still be a person who took the card and escaped,” she should say so. Cut the hypotheticals and be more direct.

We then get to the silly thought route. It’s arbitrary to say the key question is that “Why was Mr. Carter waiting,” arbitrary to say it was waiting, and arbitrary to say it was Bobby Dark. Why does that have to be the question? Why can’t it be that Carter just had work to do? If he had a meeting at 7:30, why did he stay for four hours before that? (The point about teachers all having an alibi is easily forgotten by the player because it was mentioned briefly in a press conversation as part of some hypothetical argument.) You aren’t guiding the player to a logical deduction, but to nonsense.

Here’s one possible fix: If possible, have Carter leave school and then return. That makes “working on stuff” less likely, and waiting more likely. Make a much bigger deal of all teachers having an alibi, rather than burying it as a minor detail in a press conversation. Now at the thought route, start with “What is the biggest unanswered question right now?”, and have “What was Carter doing?” be that. You can then get to the deduction that he was probably waiting for somebody, and from there you can reasonably deduce that it was a student. Don’t start with the ID card at all.

We now move on to Part Two.

I now have to ask myself what you got out of not just having Bobby Dark testify from the start, with the prosecution having the actualized log. You could have a testimony or two from Oldbag to explain how things occurred. Sure, you lose the drama of PERFECT LOCKED ROOM, but you were never playing that up in the first place. If you meant for that drama to be a key factor, you should have played it up.

Why is the first testimony of part two here? The obvious reason is to characterize the witness as neurotic, but he never appears awkward in this trial again. So character-wise, this cross-examination simply seems out of place. This makes it hard to add to the narrative in my mind, and I don’t understand it clearly.

Does it get in key facts, though? Well, press conversation one can be chopped down a ton. The only key information from this is that Carter stayed to revise the entry, which had to be done that day, and at such a strange time. Statement two’s press is just that he entered around 7 and left around 7:15. Statement three is useless.

Note that all of the key points come in very easily for the next testimony. I would say they belong there instead, as the fragmented nature of this testimony makes the facts hard to add to our “mental model” of what happened. Given that this serves no narrative point, either get rid of this cross-examination, or make the rest of this trial support what you’re trying to do in presenting Bobby as neurotic here.

Now we come to testimony two. The glaring problem here is that the contradiction, as written, isn’t a contradiction. You need Bobby to say, before we present the ladder, that what he saw was NOT a stepladder. Nothing else will change the problem. You don’t do that right now. You could fix this by making Bobby say “It was just a normal ladder! Put it against the wall and climb up!” That would be a legitimate contradiction, because Bobby has said, before we’ve shown the contradiction, that it was not a stepladder.

Angela’s interpretation of the contradiction should explain to the player why that has to be the answer. “He saw it after the victim fell on it,” doesn’t explain anything. Much better is “You could only have known about there being a ladder by seeing it. So when could you have seen the ladder without realizing it was a stepladder? Only when it wasn’t a stepladder anymore. Bobby Dark, you saw this stepladder after it broke into two normal ladders, after the victim was already dead! You saw the crime scene!”

Angela’s says the significance is that “The witness stayed in school past the time of the murder.” You know more than that. This proves his “I didn’t know there was a murder” story was a lie, and he in fact is a possible suspect after all. This in turn brings me to the question of why the court cares about this testimony. How does this make Evan Light’s guilt more or less probable? Right now, I don’t know.

It’s also bizarre that Bobby excuses his second testimony being a lie by saying he was protecting Evan. The judge should at least have a harsher reaction, but nobody should buy this anyways. The third testimony incriminates Evan no more than the second did!

Now we go to testimony three, which is unfair because the co-council hint “I should look for evidence that would provide an alternative to a statement's assumption” is a bad hint. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea, but hate the execution. “Look for an alternative to an assumption” is very vague.. “I thought it was before 7:30” is an assumption. He assumed that it was Carter and Oldbag talking. He assumed Carter was being honest when he told Oldbag he was going to fix the AC. Maybe it’s a bad assumption that the sound was from something falling down?

This unclear prompt hides the real thing you want us to point out, that Carter might have been simply unconscious. I recommend asking for something more specific: evidence that shows Bobby jumped to a conclusion. A more explicit hint in the press conversation would probably be better yet. Since this contradiction requires the player to break one of the major assumptions about the case on their own, that the killer also knocked Carter out, adding ambiguity and other difficulty factors is a bad idea. This present is fairly difficult, especially for a first case, as-is.

You’ve also mentioned going “upstairs” for a “contest,” but both of those haven’t been explained. This testimony would be less confusing if you took a few frames to say that it was an essay contest sponsored by city hall, and said something about what the upstairs was like. Of course, this also raises questions about how Oldbag didn’t notice him, and how he left the crime scene, that this examination does not resolve. The reason for messing with the lights and air condition also isn’t clear, and raises the possibility that Bobby killed him on accident. You need a counter for that.

All these clarity problems are augmented by one final factor: the witness has made a huge change to his story now. Before, it was more or less “I went in at 7, talked to Carter, and headed straight out at 7:15.” Now it’s way more complicated! Just getting the player to adapt to all this new information is itself confusing. Since the trial has also been fairly dull up until now, you have a combination of factors that make a much more confusing, undirected cross-examination for the player.

What about Angela’s reasoning afterwards? The point is never made clear that Bobby can’t be the killer because of his ladder slip-up, which complicates the reasoning. Replace Payne’s initial, unfocused rebuttal with, “The defense is bluffing! There was no reason for the victim to fall if the defendant didn’t push him!” This change makes the central issue clear: we need to explain why the victim fell.

Now, the reasoning for why it had to be another person needs to be made explicit. She needs to first say, “The defense believes Evan is innocent. Oldbag has no reason. If Bobby pushed him, he’d know about the stepladder. It has to be Carter himself!” Then Payne can object to bluffing. If you don’t have your attorney explain things first, the player gets confused.

We then need proof something was taken from the crime scene. This present is logically solid. Good job in catching the ID card and missing panels, by the way.

We now get to Angela’s explanation. I would add to Angela’s counter to Payne “According to you, that screwdriver had nothing to do with that crime!” I would also recommend not penalizing the player if they say the screwdriver should be in the backroom without specifying they should be under Carter. “Plant the screws and screwdriver there to indicate it was all an accident” is something almost nobody would ever think of, especially for an improvised crime. Another minor issue here is that the physics is messy. Stepladders are pretty sturdy. It would take more than “guy slips on tools” to knock both Carter and the stepladder over.

Now comes Angela’s theory that Bobby did it. Again, I don’t think anybody would ever look at a scene like this and think “Carter probably tripped on his tools!” If that doesn’t happen, this theory doesn’t really make sense. (This is why I found this argument unpersuasive.) That said, the explanation for this scene is one of your best ones. Unfortunately, it’s hampered down by previous ambiguities and the frustration they caused getting to the player. It also doesn’t help when there were questions about how the previous testimonies fit in to anything, how to find that last contradiction, and why we’re going with such an intensely speculative theory with no proof other than “screws and screwdrivers were taken.” The explanation itself is nice, but because it depends on everything before it making sense, it sadly falls flat. The judge’s recap of her explanation afterwards helps things, however.

The player now proceeds to testimony four. This has an obvious contradiction known as trying to escape a locked room. Why the court cares is dubious, as this doesn’t relate to the defendant’s guilt or innocence, but these are facts of the case, so I’ll give them a pass. If you mean for the contradictability of this cross-examination to be a test of the witness’s credibility, it would be great to say so! As a minor point, the lights in the classroom versus the lights in the backroom remains ambiguous throughout the cross-examination.

That said, it’s a solid and clean contradiction. Accepting either of the relevant pieces of evidences is a great touch. If not for the frustration elsewhere, this could be a satisfying “gotcha.” I said “could” because Angela’s reaction takes the fun out of it. Her gloating like a villainess turns the player’s reaction from “I got you!” to “… Angela is kind of a jerk.” It’s even worse when Angela seems not to just take her treatment of the witness way too far, but also her logic way too far. Everything she says except “you committed perjury” is highly speculative. The main problem here is that I haven’t been able to follow Angela’s prior logic much. As the player, I can’t agree that this “slip on tools” ever happened. I can’t agree that the tools were taken to make it look like an accident. I can’t agree with this motive. I still feel like I don’t get the case. This case doesn’t even seem plausible. What does Angela THINK Carter and Bobby were doing from 7:30 until 8:15 or so?! He planned to kill, but everything proceeded according to chance? Why not try to incriminate Evan yet? This… is a very silly case.

We now get to the final cross-examination, which has its own problems. The first contradiction just isn’t a contradiction. “THE DEFENDANT DISAGREES” is not a contradiction. Continuing through the walkthrough, I have no idea why we need to get the statement about seeing the coke bottle out before we can present the soda can. (The fact that the soda was there at 8:16 or not… doesn’t change anything I can think of.) Even then, presenting the soda can is an ambiguous contradiction. The problem here is time. If the victim died at 8:16, then it would be very strange to suppose that what Bobby saw was Evan entering at 8:05. It makes no sense for Bobby to have just been hiding for 11 minutes. I interpreted this instead as Evan entering at more like 8:14, nine minutes after buying the soda. Maybe he got the soda, realized his mistake, waited, and then snuck in. The he finished it off and left it at the scene. Once again, we have a non-contradiction.

There are some clarity problems here. These are primarily due to the clarity problems with everywhere else, and the residual frustration. The statement three press is clear in and of itself, but not in-context. It also doesn’t help that he’s making up a largely new narrative separate from his previous ones… Again. This is extremely confusing for the player to keep in their heads, and when the witness seems to face no consequences, it feels like no progress has been made! The player should know how the case is getting along.

The problems do not end there. For one, the maximal penalty for pressing statement 3a or 3a’ is absurd. That minor detail about seeing him with a soda bottle should not be enough to guarantee a guilty verdict. Even if Bobby was making this all up, he could have easily guessed this. Not even Dahlia Hawthorne had this much leeway with the court after changing her story this much! Also, the press conversations again tend toward being long and overly detailed. Some of this is warranted, see statement three, but the hypothetical argument about Bobby knowing about the system needs to be slashed or clarified.

It’s unclear what a “no way out” kind of thing is, or what questions are safe. I’m still unsure how to know that there was “no way out” from the contradictions we posed. I’m confused on how Bobby knows of the system crash. We certainly never explained that to him, but he seems familiar with that. You also talk about the system being bought a week ago, though it was just implemented that day. That requires more explanation. Bobby has also done a terrible job explaining his story to the court. He should have explained things like what he thinks happened to the contest entry. Then there’s Evan escape, which is just baffling. I can’t follow the explanation at all, and it seems bizarre and contrived. You could get a full testimony out of just that

Continuing on, I’m confused why Bobby can’t at least GUESS about how much time Evan was at the crime scene. Why Evan couldn’t hear the sound is settled. So is the Oldbag present, and the affidavit present.

And in the end, the witness attempts suicide after Angela pushes the mentally ill witness that far. Rather than do the reasonable thing and throw Bobby’s testimony out entirely or demand the defense actually explain all the evidence in a clear “guilty Bobby” theory, or declare mistrial, he acquits Evan.

The final present then asks for the piece of evidence used in an unexpected way. Honestly, it could have been any of them. While none are particularly strong, the intended one isn’t that great either. Bobby could have disposed of the ID Card anywhere.

Thus, thankfully, finally, ends the case. There’s some narrative stuff at the end, but with this much frustration, it can’t end soon enough. I can’t bring myself to care about it.

I have one final miscellaneous point to note before I conclude, and that is the character of Angela Light. I’ve touched on this a couple of times, but it deserves elaboration. Until we leave court, the game seems to revolve around Angela’s every whim. As Angela is a very obnoxious character, it irritates the player that she seems to suffer no consequences for anything she does. Sure, you remedy this somewhat at the end, but the frustration she causes to the player takes away from the enjoyment of a few key moments. Since the game is hard to enjoy as-is, this makes for a massive amount of frustration. By the end, I just said "I didn't care" to the story due to the total frustration, and thus overlooked the fact that things did change at the end after all.

Spoiler : Final Opinion and Quick Hits Summary :

I hate to say it, but I hope this doesn’t get featured before undergoing heavy modifications. The game is downright frustrating. If I was new to Ace Attorney Online and saw this trial, I would leave with a bad impression of the site.

That said, this thing does have potential to be featured without a complete rewrite. The problems here don’t require changing the facts much, or even the core outline of the case. Explain everything better, rewrite the Thought Route, slash pointless cross-examinations, and rework the bad contradictions. Work a conceptual narrative for the player.

I wouldn’t have bothered writing a review just shy of 6500 words if I didn’t think this case could somehow be worthwhile.

Summary:

Opening Statement: Payne needs to explain everything better! What did the defendant do? How did the victim die? What was going on with that air conditioner? Be explicit!
First Cross-Examination: As written, this does nothing. Either get rid of it, or rewrite it to explicitly explain the security system and Oldbag’s route. The first seems like the better option.
Second Cross-Examination: Almost everything needs to be explained better. You don’t just want to give out facts, you want to do it in a memorable way, and make it fit into that narrative.
Whatever the first testimony is, you need to transition into it better and clearly explain the issues that I mentioned for the first cross-examination.
Third Cross-Examination: Statements two and six need their press conversations rewritten to be understandable by the reader. Make the problem with the case more explicit in Oldbag’s testimony. Make it clear how this testimony relates to everything else. Clarify and dramatize Angela’s argument against Oldbag, and Oldbag’s point. Most lingering questions about the case by now should be answered.
Fourth Cross-Examination: One of your better cross-examinations. Give the court a reason to listen to this, or cut it. If you keep it, make it memorable by including some emotional variety and drama, rather than just getting facts. Also, the post-contradiction dialogue needs revisions for clarity.
Thought Route: Just… rewrite this.
First Cross-Examination: Either keep consistent with Bobby as neurotic, or scrap this cross-examination and move the important parts to the next testimony.
Second Cross-Examination: Make this contradiction an actual contradiction. Make Angela’s explanation of the relevance of the contradiction matter, and have it get to the important parts. Make it explicitly clear why the court is wasting their time on a testimony like “I didn’t see anything.”
Third Cross-Examination: Get rid of the line that Darke lied to cover up for Evan; that makes no sense when this testimony is no more incriminating than the previous one. Make it clearer what the player is supposed to be looking for, since this is a very difficult cross-examination, and what you have right now is extremely vague. Make things like the “contest” and “upstairs” more fleshed out. Explain the additional unanswered questions. Removing everything frustrating before this would also go a long way. Clarify what happened with Bobby and the electricity.
Post-Third Cross-Examination: Clarify all of Angela’s arguments. If you can, have Angela address the problems in the strange physics of the situation, and the strangeness about how anybody would ever think of this. That last one alone means that I don’t believe this argument.
Fourth Cross-Examination: This could be a great contradiction, but Angela’s handling of it ruins the moment for the player. Try to think of how you can improve this, in light of what you want to do with Angela.
Fifth Cross-Examination: Make your contradictions actual contradictions. Trim your press conversations. Get rid of the fake drama from unlimited penalties for no reason. Get rid of the need to press the other statement. Many of these changes involve simplifying the final confrontation, so you may need to introduce other factors to raise the difficulty back up. Have Have the player see that they’re making actual progress on the case, even before this. Clear up points of ambiguity.

NOTE: The original paragraph on Angela herself has since been revised.

[Gamer2002]

Enth, I'm not going to answer all of this in one get-go. When I feel tired I will make a break.

Replies in bold.

Spoiler : Review Core :

Normally after finishing a game worthy of serious attention, I would give it a full, comprehensive review. I cannot do so for this case. Before the end of Part One, I found myself saying “I just don’t care anymore.” The problem is not my attention span, nor an uninteresting case. The problem is that the mystery was so consistently frustrating that I had no mental energy left for anything else. Under such circumstances, I cannot judge the case fairly, except for the mystery and certain miscellanea. I will instead focus on those.

Let me be clear: I think that Angela Light isn’t a bad trial. It was a bad experience to play, but many of the problems are superficial and fixable. The core is mostly fine. Yet, I do not believe this trial is featurable until those problems are resolved.

My problems with the mystery always return to this quote from renowned psychologist Steven Pinker: “[T]he mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like unlinked pages on the Web: They might as well not exist.”

As a trial author, you need to make sure that the player has that narrative, that conceptual fabric with all the facts they need to know, so they can progress through the case and understand everything that’s going on. Otherwise, they’re won’t enjoy the case fully. This means that facts need clear explanation, things in the trial need a reason to be there, and all arguments must make sense.

Breaking this rule is how the game becomes genuinely unpleasant to play.

This problem first appears in the opening statement. This is critical because in Ace Attorney, the prosecution’s opening statement exists to give the player a rudimentary but clear knowledge of the case, with any additional details being settled in the first testimony or two. Since the player hasn’t had a benefit of an investigation, clear communication here is critical. It is not enough here to give all the facts; you must also weave them into that narrative so the player can recall and comprehend the facts.
I myself I'm not perfectly happy with opening statement, but my reason is because of it's length. I can think of rewriting it, but requiring more information will make it longer.

But it doesn’t happen. The opening statement leaves open all of the following problems:

Major Problems

• Payne needs to explain that the Holter monitor couldn’t have contributed to the victim’s death. Otherwise, “accident” becomes viable! OK, but something like this can be written in the Autopsy Report.
• Because you never explain this, it’s unclear why the victim is messing with the air conditioning at all! That is not normal for Literature teachers. This is very confusing. Victim's motives is the kind of information I've purposely left for later.
• It’s unclear why there was water or a hanging lamp’s electrical cable in the first place. You simply say they are there, show us a picture, and move on. I want an explanation as to why they were there, or at least for Payne to acknowledge that this is new information. You cannot say “the water was leaking on the floor even after the victim's death” before you’ve explained why water is leaking, or even that water was leaking. The player can figure this out, but it’s needlessly confusing. Similarly, you say “What exactly killed him was a hanging lamp's electric cable that was touching the water around him.” You haven’t explained that the cable was there, that there was water around him and touching him, or why the lamp was hanging. Even if you have a picture, Payne should explain it as well. Okay, this part could be more cleared up, including addressing that AC was old and broken.
• “It's obvious that if the victim was standing on the ladder, he was doing so with his back towards it.” That the victim had his back to the ladder at all is very strange and deserves some explanation (like that he was climbing down, or facing somebody in the room.) Because there was no explanation, I misread this line as a clue that having his back to the ladder was the strange thing. This was Angela pointing out first obviously strange thing in wrong Judge's theory, the player is supposed to point out the other problem. Explanation for why he had his back towards it comes up later in the opening statement when Payne explains his theory.
• Payne’s explanation of being pushed onto the ladder has some unclear lines that muddle the rest of it. For example:
  “It couldn't just fall from the ceiling panels. Two screws had to be unscrewed for it to be removed.” This frame doesn’t add anything to your explanation, but breaks the flow of it. Since this is a plot point, I’d recommend simply moving this frame. Okay
  “With what was nearly a water leak, Mr. Carter had to take the lamp away, so he put the ladder under it.” You need to explain the water leak and how this relates to the lamp, both of which need more explanation in general. Rather than fit into a story of what the victim did, the lamp still seems to just be “this thing the defendant fiddled with” because it’s so divorced from motivations. Having electric device right near a water leak is potential danger, but I can point this out.
  “somebody interrupted his work. And after a brief talk,” (from two frames) is also vague. You never explicitly say what you mean to say: The victim talked with the defendant.
• You needed to follow up how the victim was knocked out with a clear explanation of how the victim was killed! Your prosecutor never says “then the victim killed the defendant” in his opening statement, nor does he clearly explain the murder method. By the end of the opening, this still hasn’t been explained properly. It just turned out I've written Payne less absolute. I didn't want to make him too much of a jerk when dealing with a minor defended by an older sibling (after all, he is an older sibling himself and can relate), but you are right, he should clearly form his accusation. I can change that.
• Explicit is better than implicit! Just look at this (abridged) dialogue:
  Payne: Since Mr. Carter was removing the lamp due to a leak, we can assume it was turned off before his fall. Not to mention, when the police found the body, the lamp was turned off. Given the switch being in use and the victim being pushed, this crime is clear.
  Kristoph: So, Mr. Payne, you are suggesting the culprit pushed the victim and turned the lamp on and off?
  What you MEAN to say is that “the light must have initially been turned off, and we found it off, but it had to have been turned on for us to end up with an electrocuted victim. So our killer turned the light on after pushing the victim over. It’s clear what happened: a deliberate murder.” This latter version makes explicit all the key points. Your script does not. Alright.

Nitpicking Problems

• Talk about the body being in “one of the victim’s classrooms” is strange. Normally, a high school teacher would only have one classroom. This may simply be a cultural difference, or confusion over the word “classroom.” As written, this makes the player wonder about other classrooms, but you never go anywhere with it. I recommend changing to “the victim’s classroom.” Okay
• You say the victim had a Holter monitor, but you don’t explain what this uncommon device is. I was wondering if it did more than just serve as a heart monitor. I’m also confused as to why the victim even had one. Well, I can bring up the reason of him being diagnosed with hearth problems.

Are these problems resolved soon after? No. We never return to the facts of the crime scene. The facts were not presented clearly, so the player does not clearly understand the case. What Carter was doing, what the prosecution believes the killer did, how exactly Carter died, and what this lamp and water was doing. That information is all there, just as vague, disconnected facts.
Actually Oldbag does say why he was fixing the lamp. Carter was fixing the AC to do something while he was waiting for his student. AC was broken and was annoyingly loud, the school itself did nothing about it. Water leak wasn't initial problem with AC, but it was the result of Carter's attempt to fix it (this is also brought again in Evan's testimony). I can see if this can be cleared up more earlier

Enter our first witness, Wendy Oldbag. To quote Ferdielance, “[The player has a right n]ot to have to spend too long dealing with truly obnoxious characters. The canonically obnoxious characters have some limits to their awfulness. AAO fancases just don't know when to stop. Oldbag will go on for TEN pages of dialogue, rather than three.” 70 frames pass between Oldbag’s first line of dialogue and the start of her testimony, with nothing to show for it but Angela trolling the court. That should tell you everything.
I'm purposefully letting Angela to constantly massacre others in part one to make her overly confident for part two. Though Angela was surprised that somebody was attempting to outdo her in bringing calamity to the court. And Oldbag showed how she is going to be bossy over Payne. Not to mention Kristoph calming down Oldbag and putting Angela in her place. One thing I like how it turned out with Oldbag was more lively relationship dynamic between the defense, the witness and the prosecution. This doesn't happen with Evan because Payne doesn't involve himself. Neither it does in part 2 because Bobby pretty much doesn't interact with Payne besides required bare minimum.

When the first testimony finally starts, the player struggles to understand the testimony because it does not clearly relate to the opening statement we just heard. This witness talks about what she saw, which has nothing to do with what Payne just talked about. This requires transition between the two to not be confusing, but there is no transition at all. Well, actually there is a reason for disconnection between opening statement and the first testimony. Payne initial plan was to bring up Evan first, prove him being on the crime scene, bring up the thing with security system himself and then bring up Oldbag for final confirmation that nobody else was in the school. Angela didn't go along, what he took as lack of confidence and made him overly confident, so he kinda forget about required clarification and didn't warn Oldbag. This is brought up after pointing the contradiction with Angela mocking Payne for badly prepared testimony. I can also make Kristoph notice this disconnection after the testimony.

This effect is lessened because the testimony has little to be confused about. All Oldbag says is “Only myself, Carter and Evan were in the building. I found the body on my hourly patrol.” This isn’t getting in many new facts. Sure there are the press conversations, but because of the really obvious contradiction, most players won’t get to those. (If they do, they will likely be confused by the lack of any explanation for what the security system does, only talking about Oldbag’s route as a forgettable technical detail, and why Oldbag is so convinced nobody else was in-school.)

Because of that, the testimony is pointless. It doesn’t get out enough information for the prosecution to want this, and you as designer have no reason to write it. The contradiction isn’t useful; just start with testimony two! This cross-examination does nothing for tone, character, and narrative. The case would be better off if this waste-of-frames cross-examination was gone.
Oh come on, accusing the witness in the very first CE is funny. Not to mention, it shows that Angela is here only to get the Not Guilty verdict and doesn't bother with anything else. And Kristoph encourages her to think that way.

Now we have testimony two, which is a classic “press-to-continue” that gets the player more information about the crime. The explanations here are also unclear. Going statement by statement:

• It’s still unclear why the victim was handling the air conditioning at all. Rather than saying “the air conditioner was loud,” say “the air conditioner was so loud that it disrupted Mr. Carter’s class.” Okay, but seems obvious.
• In statement two, you talk about a first floor and a third floor before the player even knows there are floors! I was confused for quite a while about which floor was where. You also don’t explain Oldbag’s security in great detail, so it’s unclear if she was only ever on the the third floor, just there once, or something else. To a player who hadn’t pressed anything last testimony, the existence of a security system at all is quite confusing. I'll try to think of something to bring up security in between of testimonies. Maybe I'll make it optional, have the Judge asks for things the player didn't.
• Statement three is fine.
• Statement four’s press conversation is long, rambling, and forgettable. Presses in a press-to-continue conversation should have mostly short conversations with the longer ones being dramatic and memotable! You still don’t explain the security system clearly. Will see what can do to short this one down
• In statement five, the prosecution refuses to get to the point and say, “This places the defendant at the crime scene at around the time of the murder!” Payne needs to tell us his NARRATIVE of how this soda business happened. When I played through this case, all I thought was, “Something with the defendant’s fingerprints ended up at the crime scene, and the timing is bad.” Having Payne dramatize this would get your tone moving, clarify the evidence, and make the cross-examination less boring.
  The press conversation for statement five-A should be cut down a bit due to length.
• Statement six leaves Oldbag’s patrol route unclear. Also, explicitly say that uses of the card key are recorded, and this means her patrols on the third floor are recorded. Remember to clarify the floor issue, and Payne tie Oldbag’s alibi to the defendant’s guilt. Otherwise, I'm left wondering why exactly I care. Okay, I'll think about those two statments
• Statement six-A is fantastic! We have an explicit view of how things work.

Okay, that's enough for today.

Went to the end of 2nd CE.

[Bad Player]

I watched Enth stream it, and (assuming you didn't make drastic changes after that) I also think this case still needs some work before it can be featured. As you can probably tell, I don't think the case is quite as problematic as Enth does, but I'll try to have a specific list of problems/changes... soon-ish. Maybe. In the meanwhile, using Enth's feedback isn't a bad idea.

[Gamer2002]

GAMER2002 VS ENTHALPY FACE-OFF, ROUND TWO

Spoiler : Review Core :

Angela’s argument with Payne between cross-examinations two and three feels like a pointless technical argument. Show us why this matters! Make it into Angela’s lifelines getting cut. It may help to talk about the motive first, then Carter’s ID card, and then ask for the security system cross-examination. Going from ID to motive to security feels disjointed.
Like I've said before - I'm avoiding putting too much of pressure on Angela during part 1. As for motive in between of ID Card and system - it's Angela's regular strategy. Angela keeps in mind especially hard questions and asks them when she needs to disturb the thought process of opponent. She does same thing in Part 2.

Now for cross-examination three. Again, this feels unclear, so I’ll go statement by statement.

• Statement one is short and straightforward. Good job!
• Statement two is terrible. Angela asking specifically about windows in a place of no particular importance is technical, hard-to-follow and boring. Ask about windows in general! Oldbag saying the windows weren’t open and can’t be closed from the outside also feels technical. It would be easier and simpler to say, “the windows also auto-lock and can’t be used at all.”
  I can shorten it, but I prefer to keep bars and the fact that windows can't be closed from outside, instead of bringing up auto-lock. This security system is ridiculous enough ;P
• Statement three is good. I’d personally shorten it to, “And according to the logs, only my card was used that night.”
• Statement four is fine.
• Statement five is also fine. The joke is lost because “the victim was well-organized, and such things happen” doesn’t clearly connect to “I lost to a rookie on occasion” because “such things” syntactically means “uncharacteristically losing unimportant things.”
  Try to change it to make it more clear that Payne talks about not living up to reputation
• Now comes statement six, the big problem. For “Oldbag’s movement.” It’s strange that Oldbag knows the time of death so exactly. Did the prosecution show her the autopsy? Was this said in court? You need the player to unequivocally know the answer for this, but I was too bogged down with other details to remember clearly! It would also be easier if we had the floor issue settled. “Before activation” is a long, unclear technical explanation that bores the player to death. Rewrite that entire prompt.

Okay, okay

Now comes the contradiction itself. It’s great that it is a contradiction, but it’s unclear. The thing to contradict is a side-point. Oldbag mentions “hourly patrols” in the middle of a conversation about how this is a PERFECT LOCKED ROOM, and we need to contradict her on the hourly patrols. That’s really hard to spot. It’s even worse when we need to do an impeachment by omission from already confusing evidence. Looking at the security log, my first thoughts are “Where is this security post? What is Oldbag’s route? Why is it only the third floor that has a note on it? What happened at 7:55? What happened with gym, post, and main entry after 8? If there’s a gym out, why not a gym in?” Looking at it now, I see a new question: how was Evan POSSIBLY supposed to have gotten out of the gym and then back in?! You’ve explained some of these before, but the explanations have not been very clear and memorable, and should be noted in the Court Record. Others haven’t been explained at all. I have an idea in the back of my head about what I think you said, but I do not have it clearly enough in my head for me to look past that and see “what Oldbah said implies some entries exist that don’t exist.” This is a huge problem, and made this contradiction unfindable for me.
Gym - yeah, should be more clear that the door were unlocked for good, not just opened once. The third floor - Oldbag explain this in 2nd CE before presenting the log, it has especially valuable equipment so they locked it for additional security.

Only at this cross-examination did I realize this was a locked room case. Payne needs to have at least talked about this “only opportunity” argument by now! He hasn’t done that yet. In fact, the testimonies barely focus on Evan! I also note that this testimony in particular feels disjointed and uninteresting to the court as-is. “The defense wants it” is not a good reason for a testimony. You need to either make the court care, or make the judge impatient to raise the stakes. You can solve both problems about an motivated testimony and a lack of explanation for the locked room, with the contradiction preserved, by reframing this testimony around the locked room.
Technically, it's a locked school, not room . But yeah, I can make Payne more direct with his accusations.
The present of the air conditioner makes sense, though. Good there. However, in the explanation of the contradiction,Angela needs to directly says the important line, that the evidence just discredited was a pillar of the prosecution’s case.
Well, can have her bragging more

Even worse, Oldbag’s reason for lying is just glossed over. That perjury just happened requires more of a response than for everybody to brush it aside after a frame or two. When I played through this, I was confused on why Oldbag lied, and why it mattered to the case was unclear.
Well, everybody brushing it aside was the joke on how parjury often happens. But I can stress more on her reasons to hide shameful but for her still irrelevant flaw in system.

Now for cross-examination four. This was one of your stronger testimonies. (Though as a side point, why doesn’t he talk about what he was doing buying a soda, or how he left the gym?) It doesn’t clearly flow to or from everything else, we find the contradiction very quickly, and there are no points that grab the player’s interest. It’s also worth mentioning the residual frustration from the rest of the case.
He says he was simply thirsty, what's to say more? As for leaving gym, see above.

Underneath that, however, is a huge problem. Why is the court even listening to this testimony? Why did Payne want this? Angela was right to call this a waste of time. Since you already have a fairly long case, consider simply cutting this cross-examination and putting the important information in a simple conversation. This would also resolve the problem with an awkward transition. If you can improve the transition and make the court care, cutting this cross-examination is no longer a priority.
Payne wanted this testimony, because he had no reason to not. For him, soon they would confirm that the log is reliable and won't be any proof of Carter's card being used. Hearing details on defendant's movement couldn't hurt. Evan could say something that could be used against him. Plus, reminding the judge that Evan has very poor alibi that sums up to "I was there at strange hour, but I didn't do anything".
This testimony is strange by design, similarly to the other testimony with ID Card being presented evidence. Not to mention, it is good to have more interactions between Evan and Angela.

Unfortunately, Payne’s conversation after Angela’s explanation is still confusing. The transition is bad, it’s a hypothetical argument, and I’ve lost the sense of why it matters. If Angela means “there could still be a person who took the card and escaped,” she should say so. Cut the hypotheticals and be more direct.
Okay, I see I need to be more explicit.

We then get to the silly thought route. It’s arbitrary to say the key question is that “Why was Mr. Carter waiting,” arbitrary to say it was waiting, and arbitrary to say it was Bobby Dark. Why does that have to be the question? Why can’t it be that Carter just had work to do? If he had a meeting at 7:30, why did he stay for four hours before that? (The point about teachers all having an alibi is easily forgotten by the player because it was mentioned briefly in a press conversation as part of some hypothetical argument.) You aren’t guiding the player to a logical deduction, but to nonsense.

Here’s one possible fix: If possible, have Carter leave school and then return. That makes “working on stuff” less likely, and waiting more likely. Make a much bigger deal of all teachers having an alibi, rather than burying it as a minor detail in a press conversation. Now at the thought route, start with “What is the biggest unanswered question right now?”, and have “What was Carter doing?” be that. You can then get to the deduction that he was probably waiting for somebody, and from there you can reasonably deduce that it was a student. Don’t start with the ID card at all.
Will think on something. You gave me idea that I could have some kind of teacher's meeting outside of school (something arranged by principal for whatever reason, would make it his birthday but I already have one at that day) and Carter went there and then returned to the school.

We now move on to Part Two.

I now have to ask myself what you got out of not just having Bobby Dark testify from the start, with the prosecution having the actualized log. You could have a testimony or two from Oldbag to explain how things occurred. Sure, you lose the drama of PERFECT LOCKED ROOM, but you were never playing that up in the first place. If you meant for that drama to be a key factor, you should have played it up.


Why is the first testimony of part two here? The obvious reason is to characterize the witness as neurotic, but he never appears awkward in this trial again. So character-wise, this cross-examination simply seems out of place. This makes it hard to add to the narrative in my mind, and I don’t understand it clearly.
It was for lulz, did you try to make a wrong present at it? Plus, I had to cover some things and just straight-forward exposition would be too boring. It is also trolling on Bobby's part, he knows Angela's past and wants to see how she will treat him if he acts vulnerable. I can make Angela later point out that Bobby was massing with her here, though she won't figure out his reasons.

Does it get in key facts, though? Well, press conversation one can be chopped down a ton. The only key information from this is that Carter stayed to revise the entry, which had to be done that day, and at such a strange time. Statement two’s press is just that he entered around 7 and left around 7:15. Statement three is useless.

Note that all of the key points come in very easily for the next testimony. I would say they belong there instead, as the fragmented nature of this testimony makes the facts hard to add to our “mental model” of what happened. Given that this serves no narrative point, either get rid of this cross-examination, or make the rest of this trial support what you’re trying to do in presenting Bobby as neurotic here.
I can make those statements shorter, but like I say - I have to set up some things. For a future.

Now we come to testimony two. The glaring problem here is that the contradiction, as written, isn’t a contradiction. You need Bobby to say, before we present the ladder, that what he saw was NOT a stepladder. Nothing else will change the problem. You don’t do that right now. You could fix this by making Bobby say “It was just a normal ladder! Put it against the wall and climb up!” That would be a legitimate contradiction, because Bobby has said, before we’ve shown the contradiction, that it was not a stepladder.
How about something along the lines "Mr. Carter already brought things to fix the AC, like a ladder ready to put against the wall."?

Angela’s interpretation of the contradiction should explain to the player why that has to be the answer. “He saw it after the victim fell on it,” doesn’t explain anything. Much better is “You could only have known about there being a ladder by seeing it. So when could you have seen the ladder without realizing it was a stepladder? Only when it wasn’t a stepladder anymore. Bobby Dark, you saw this stepladder after it broke into two normal ladders, after the victim was already dead! You saw the crime scene!”
Can work more on this, but don't forget the "you saw the victim after he was already dead" point goes over Angela's head.

Angela’s says the significance is that “The witness stayed in school past the time of the murder.” You know more than that. This proves his “I didn’t know there was a murder” story was a lie, and he in fact is a possible suspect after all. This in turn brings me to the question of why the court cares about this testimony. How does this make Evan Light’s guilt more or less probable? Right now, I don’t know.

It’s also bizarre that Bobby excuses his second testimony being a lie by saying he was protecting Evan. The judge should at least have a harsher reaction, but nobody should buy this anyways.
See above - Angela made mistake. She herself established that Bobby had seen Carter after he already was dead, and now it is too late to back down on this. Evan is a suspect because Bobby, the only other person with potential opportunity to kill, was proven to only discover already dead body. I can make this more clear, and also make the judge harsher on Bobby.

The third testimony incriminates Evan no more than the second did!
He says what he saw, he doesn't want to incriminate Evan.


Now we go to testimony three, which is unfair because the co-council hint “I should look for evidence that would provide an alternative to a statement's assumption” is a bad hint. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea, but hate the execution. “Look for an alternative to an assumption” is very vague.. “I thought it was before 7:30” is an assumption. He assumed that it was Carter and Oldbag talking. He assumed Carter was being honest when he told Oldbag he was going to fix the AC. Maybe it’s a bad assumption that the sound was from something falling down?

This unclear prompt hides the real thing you want us to point out, that Carter might have been simply unconscious. I recommend asking for something more specific: evidence that shows Bobby jumped to a conclusion. A more explicit hint in the press conversation would probably be better yet. Since this contradiction requires the player to break one of the major assumptions about the case on their own, that the killer also knocked Carter out, adding ambiguity and other difficulty factors is a bad idea. This present is fairly difficult, especially for a first case, as-is.
Okay, it's just about changing "assumption" to "jump to conclusion".

You’ve also mentioned going “upstairs” for a “contest,” but both of those haven’t been explained. This testimony would be less confusing if you took a few frames to say that it was an essay contest sponsored by city hall, and said something about what the upstairs was like. Of course, this also raises questions about how Oldbag didn’t notice him, and how he left the crime scene, that this examination does not resolve. The reason for messing with the lights and air condition also isn’t clear, and raises the possibility that Bobby killed him on accident. You need a counter for that.
Okay, will cover that.

All these clarity problems are augmented by one final factor: the witness has made a huge change to his story now. Before, it was more or less “I went in at 7, talked to Carter, and headed straight out at 7:15.” Now it’s way more complicated! Just getting the player to adapt to all this new information is itself confusing. Since the trial has also been fairly dull up until now, you have a combination of factors that make a much more confusing, undirected cross-examination for the player.

What about Angela’s reasoning afterwards? The point is never made clear that Bobby can’t be the killer because of his ladder slip-up, which complicates the reasoning. Replace Payne’s initial, unfocused rebuttal with, “The defense is bluffing! There was no reason for the victim to fall if the defendant didn’t push him!” This change makes the central issue clear: we need to explain why the victim fell.

Now, the reasoning for why it had to be another person needs to be made explicit. She needs to first say, “The defense believes Evan is innocent. Oldbag has no reason. If Bobby pushed him, he’d know about the stepladder. It has to be Carter himself!” Then Payne can object to bluffing. If you don’t have your attorney explain things first, the player gets confused.
Good points.
We then need proof something was taken from the crime scene. This present is logically solid. Good job in catching the ID card and missing panels, by the way.

We now get to Angela’s explanation. I would add to Angela’s counter to Payne “According to you, that screwdriver had nothing to do with that crime!” I would also recommend not penalizing the player if they say the screwdriver should be in the backroom without specifying they should be under Carter. “Plant the screws and screwdriver there to indicate it was all an accident” is something almost nobody would ever think of, especially for an improvised crime. Another minor issue here is that the physics is messy. Stepladders are pretty sturdy. It would take more than “guy slips on tools” to knock both Carter and the stepladder over.
I can change Angela's explanation and allow to present entire backroom with explanation that any other place is unnecessary trouble. As for physic, I can make Bobby point it out.

Now comes Angela’s theory that Bobby did it. Again, I don’t think anybody would ever look at a scene like this and think “Carter probably tripped on his tools!” If that doesn’t happen, this theory doesn’t really make sense. (This is why I found this argument unpersuasive.) That said, the explanation for this scene is one of your best ones. Unfortunately, it’s hampered down by previous ambiguities and the frustration they caused getting to the player. It also doesn’t help when there were questions about how the previous testimonies fit in to anything, how to find that last contradiction, and why we’re going with such an intensely speculative theory with no proof other than “screws and screwdrivers were taken.” The explanation itself is nice, but because it depends on everything before it making sense, it sadly falls flat. The judge’s recap of her explanation afterwards helps things, however.
Can fix the rest, as for theory itself - I'm making Bobby pointing how this is all is stupid for a reason.

The player now proceeds to testimony four. This has an obvious contradiction known as trying to escape a locked room. Why the court cares is dubious, as this doesn’t relate to the defendant’s guilt or innocence, but these are facts of the case, so I’ll give them a pass. If you mean for the contradictability of this cross-examination to be a test of the witness’s credibility, it would be great to say so! As a minor point, the lights in the classroom versus the lights in the backroom remains ambiguous throughout the cross-examination.
At this point Angela would gladly go brutal on Bobby by asking harsher question for testimony, but goes easy on him because of Evan. So she just asks "what happened next", because having "Bobby couldn't kill Carter if he was already dead" solved, she can move on proving "Bobby couldn't leave the school without ID Card". And this is the other testimony that is strange by design, because Bobby really had no idea about the system.

That said, it’s a solid and clean contradiction. Accepting either of the relevant pieces of evidences is a great touch. If not for the frustration elsewhere, this could be a satisfying “gotcha.” I said “could” because Angela’s reaction takes the fun out of it. Her gloating like a villainess turns the player’s reaction from “I got you!” to “… Angela is kind of a jerk.” It’s even worse when Angela seems not to just take her treatment of the witness way too far, but also her logic way too far. Everything she says except “you committed perjury” is highly speculative. The main problem here is that I haven’t been able to follow Angela’s prior logic much. As the player, I can’t agree that this “slip on tools” ever happened. I can’t agree that the tools were taken to make it look like an accident. I can’t agree with this motive. I still feel like I don’t get the case. This case doesn’t even seem plausible. What does Angela THINK Carter and Bobby were doing from 7:30 until 8:15 or so?! He planned to kill, but everything proceeded according to chance? Why not try to incriminate Evan yet? This… is a very silly case.
Anti-hero, yo. You are disturbed by design (and you have yet the best ahead of you). And surprised that the ID Card contradiction was so easy. And also surprised by how conveniently Bobby's homework wasn't found by the police and his mother provided his possible motive. And yes, you are right on all questionable points of Angela's theory. I can have her brag more that Payne's main point of the case was that only Evan had the opportunity and now they have other one with it who was constantly lying.

We now get to the final cross-examination, which has its own problems. The first contradiction just isn’t a contradiction. “THE DEFENDANT DISAGREES” is not a contradiction. Continuing through the walkthrough, I have no idea why we need to get the statement about seeing the coke bottle out before we can present the soda can. (The fact that the soda was there at 8:16 or not… doesn’t change anything I can think of.) Even then, presenting the soda can is an ambiguous contradiction. The problem here is time. If the victim died at 8:16, then it would be very strange to suppose that what Bobby saw was Evan entering at 8:05. It makes no sense for Bobby to have just been hiding for 11 minutes. I interpreted this instead as Evan entering at more like 8:14, nine minutes after buying the soda. Maybe he got the soda, realized his mistake, waited, and then snuck in. The he finished it off and left it at the scene. Once again, we have a non-contradiction.

There are some clarity problems here. These are primarily due to the clarity problems with everywhere else, and the residual frustration. The statement three press is clear in and of itself, but not in-context. It also doesn’t help that he’s making up a largely new narrative separate from his previous ones… Again. This is extremely confusing for the player to keep in their heads, and when the witness seems to face no consequences, it feels like no progress has been made! The player should know how the case is getting along.

The problems do not end there. For one, the maximal penalty for pressing statement 3a or 3a’ is absurd. That minor detail about seeing him with a soda bottle should not be enough to guarantee a guilty verdict. Even if Bobby was making this all up, he could have easily guessed this. Not even Dahlia Hawthorne had this much leeway with the court after changing her story this much! Also, the press conversations again tend toward being long and overly detailed. Some of this is warranted, see statement three, but the hypothetical argument about Bobby knowing about the system needs to be slashed or clarified.
Of course he is making up entire different narrative, now he is set up on incriminating Evan. And he was facing consequences, the Judge likely wouldn't listen to him if he didn't provoke Angela into demanding one final testimony, and even now he is skeptical. And Bobby could easily make his testimony unbreakable if he kept "I had seen Evan" part out. He could keep his past narrative and focus solely on how Evan could open the doors for him, but he thought it's better to at last also explain why he didn't report body discovery. Because of one proven lie, his still valid theory is completely overlooked by everybody.

One valid point you make is timing. In one of special game overs 11 minutes is referenced, and Angela also asks about it after you go the right path. Timing is screeched between "Evan buys Coke" and "Carter dies", and the player can realize this himself, what makes a mess with the design of CE. I'll think about it.

But aside from that, why game overs - I wanted Bobby to be memorable, because he is important character. Plus, he is innocent, and once he sorted things out himself, he could prove Evan's guilt. This is why rules to take down his final testimony are harsher.
The player is warned - Bobby can see through your direct questions. Bobby can counter your contradiction if you present it too soon.
Two presses are necessary, one is bad. At first the choice is between just two preses - "How you had seen him" and "What else you saw inside", and both are good. Player should be aware that he has to make his choice and any will be good.
It's funny to debate which one is better to choose first. Former introduces yet another possible trap, latter leaves up a safe question as a potential trap. Still, former points you already towards the issue being with Bobby seeing Evan, while latter stops being additional dilemma if it's pressed first.
I think that performing second press makes it harder, because now you have to figure out that you still can't present anything and you should check out the first one.

Either way, we have our trap - "Describe Evan". There are few reasons why the player should be aware about this question being a trap.
- It is a follow-up to previously good press, makes pressing it pushing own luck. Especially in 3-a, where it is "give me EVEN MORE details".
- Evan reacts to hearing that he entered the class on his own. It shows that this is the important and potentially dangerous subject.
- Unlike two other presses, this one makes Evan question you right before the decision. This is another warning sign.
- The question itself is you typical "tell me something that will be contradicting significant detail" and three above warning sings make this question more special than the other one. Normally in AA the witness is supposed to make mistake on such a press, and now the player can guess it will be related to the Coke Can. But you are warned beforehand that the witness won't make such a mistake, so if you figure this out, you know this will be too good to be true.
This is why the player can see the trap coming. If he doesn't, Bobby fixes the only inconsistency in his story and Angela has no way to win her own bet of proving him lying. Bobby's final testimony stands and covers that Evan killed Carter, why Bobby didn't report this and how Bobby escaped the school.

Now, presenting Carter (BP made me into adding also Evan, but I was "eh" on that) who called Evan to the class. You are guided towards this being a problem, Evan reacts every times Bobby testifies about him entering on his own. Yes, it is weak contradiction, and Bobby answers to it right away. Still, it makes its job - forces him to tell more about Evan's supposed behavior. It it the "going around" part.

Now, the "no way out" part. If you present Coke can before making Bobby testify about seeing it inside, you are warned from presenting the contradiction. This doesn't happen if you already pressed "What you saw inside". Even if before you still believed that the other question was a trap, now you should be fully aware you have the right answer and asking it is the only thing left. After all, you were warned that you must not expose the contradiction too early.
If you still go with presenting the Can despite that, then you are make a decision without thinking twice. So Angela, also without thinking twice, tells too many things and Bobby explains her contradiction. Game over again, Angela failed to prove Bobby lying, his final testimony stands.

As for contradiction itself - believe your client, Evan testified about entering the class once. Even if you already figured out that he was lying to you, believe that he doesn't want to get found Guilty and you have to stand on his "entered only once" claim. So, the only time Evan entered was when he bought Coke nearby the class and got called in. Even if Evan lied about being called in, how Bobby could not know about wending machine being used and call this sneaking in? Not to mention, if you figured out the trap, you also are directed to the Can.

I say it is hard, but fair design. Aside from the timing bit and other issues covered next.

It’s unclear what a “no way out” kind of thing is, or what questions are safe. I’m still unsure how to know that there was “no way out” from the contradictions we posed.
See above.
I’m confused on how Bobby knows of the system crash. We certainly never explained that to him, but he seems familiar with that.
Angela brags about it herself after previous CE, one of her oh so many mistakes.
You also talk about the system being bought a week ago, though it was just implemented that day. That requires more explanation.
Okay, I'll say that the installation obviously takes time.
Bobby has also done a terrible job explaining his story to the court. He should have explained things like what he thinks happened to the contest entry.
He has no idea himself, his explanation on this is weak.
Then there’s Evan escape, which is just baffling. I can’t follow the explanation at all, and it seems bizarre and contrived. You could get a full testimony out of just that.
I can make a gif showing Bobby's and Evan's movement. It's strange point, but yes, he is partially lying and partially guessing here.

Continuing on, I’m confused why Bobby can’t at least GUESS about how much time Evan was at the crime scene.
He knows he doesn't know, and he is falling apart from previous pointed out problems.
Why Evan couldn’t hear the sound is settled. So is the Oldbag present, and the affidavit present.

And in the end, the witness attempts suicide after Angela pushes the mentally ill witness that far. Rather than do the reasonable thing and throw Bobby’s testimony out entirely or demand the defense actually explain all the evidence in a clear “guilty Bobby” theory, or declare mistrial, he acquits Evan.

The final present then asks for the piece of evidence used in an unexpected way. Honestly, it could have been any of them. While none are particularly strong, the intended one isn’t that great either. Bobby could have disposed of the ID Card anywhere.
Actually, this one is on proofreader Originally the first line was "The never found ID Card" instead of "They never found ID Card". It being easy to dispose is pointed out right away. But the real issues is - if Bobby was lying for entire time, why he made such a stupid lie about leaving the school without use of necessary ID Card. Especially when his explanation behind this still stands.

Thus, thankfully, finally, ends the case. There’s some narrative stuff at the end, but with this much frustration, it can’t end soon enough. I can’t bring myself to care about it.

I have one final miscellaneous point to note before I conclude, and that is the character of Angela Light. I’ve touched on this a couple of times, but it deserves elaboration. Until we leave court, the game seems to revolve around Angela’s every whim.
"Seems" is a good way to put it. Angela makes plenty of mistakes, the instantly apparent ones being establishing that Bobby saw Carter already dead and allowing for his final testimony, culminating in jumping into 2-4 bad end scenario without realizing anything until it is too late. And making Winston Payne hero of the day.
As Angela is a very obnoxious character, it irritates the player that she seems to suffer no consequences for anything she does.
Anti-hero, by the design such possible reaction is acknowledged.
Sure, you remedy this somewhat at the end, but the frustration she causes to the player takes away from the enjoyment of a few key moments.
The key moments being her blindly jumping on way to easy contradiction and forcing a confession out of innocent person.
I did take precautions to not make Angela too unlikable. Aside from two examples above, she is mostly mischievous and some may find her funny. Also, she never attacks the Judge, because she realized his nobility. Initially, she does go easy on Bobby after hearing about his problems, even if she tries to convince herself this suits her more. She genuinely cares about Evan. You don't have to know Kristoph that much to realize his toxic influence over her. And even if this all doesn't work out - right at the beginning I'm telling you that she will horribly crash down.
And you still have Angela's genuine good moment - her solving final testimony. By the design I kept her from pointing her finger (aside from joke failure convo on Oldbag 3rd CE, where she attempts to pull Phoenix's MvC hyper).
Since the game is hard to enjoy as-is, this makes for a massive amount of frustration. By the end, I just said "I didn't care" to the story due to the total frustration, and thus overlooked the fact that things did change at the end after all.

Spoiler : Final Opinion and Quick Hits Summary :

I hate to say it, but I hope this doesn’t get featured before undergoing heavy modifications. The game is downright frustrating. If I was new to Ace Attorney Online and saw this trial, I would leave with a bad impression of the site.

That said, this thing does have potential to be featured without a complete rewrite. The problems here don’t require changing the facts much, or even the core outline of the case. Explain everything better, rewrite the Thought Route, slash pointless cross-examinations, and rework the bad contradictions. Work a conceptual narrative for the player.

I wouldn’t have bothered writing a review just shy of 6500 words if I didn’t think this case could somehow be worthwhile.

Summary:

Opening Statement: Payne needs to explain everything better! What did the defendant do? How did the victim die? What was going on with that air conditioner? Be explicit!
Okay
First Cross-Examination: As written, this does nothing. Either get rid of it, or rewrite it to explicitly explain the security system and Oldbag’s route. The first seems like the better option.
Will provide more information, make the Judge ask additional questions, and point out this testimony doesn't connect much with opening statement.
Second Cross-Examination: Almost everything needs to be explained better. You don’t just want to give out facts, you want to do it in a memorable way, and make it fit into that narrative.
Okay.
Whatever the first testimony is, you need to transition into it better and clearly explain the issues that I mentioned for the first cross-examination.
Third Cross-Examination: Statements two and six need their press conversations rewritten to be understandable by the reader. Make the problem with the case more explicit in Oldbag’s testimony. Make it clear how this testimony relates to everything else. Clarify and dramatize Angela’s argument against Oldbag, and Oldbag’s point. Most lingering questions about the case by now should be answered.
Okay, but remember, we are going into WRONG direction.
Fourth Cross-Examination: One of your better cross-examinations. Give the court a reason to listen to this, or cut it. If you keep it, make it memorable by including some emotional variety and drama, rather than just getting facts. Also, the post-contradiction dialogue needs revisions for clarity.
Some changes will be made, mostly regarding clarifying the reasons.
Thought Route: Just… rewrite this.
First Cross-Examination: Either keep consistent with Bobby as neurotic, or scrap this cross-examination and move the important parts to the next testimony.
I will try to shorten it, but I will keep it for lulz and some other info.
Second Cross-Examination: Make this contradiction an actual contradiction. Make Angela’s explanation of the relevance of the contradiction matter, and have it get to the important parts. Make it explicitly clear why the court is wasting their time on a testimony like “I didn’t see anything.”
Will cover
Third Cross-Examination: Get rid of the line that Darke lied to cover up for Evan; that makes no sense when this testimony is no more incriminating than the previous one. Make it clearer what the player is supposed to be looking for, since this is a very difficult cross-examination, and what you have right now is extremely vague. Make things like the “contest” and “upstairs” more fleshed out. Explain the additional unanswered questions. Removing everything frustrating before this would also go a long way. Clarify what happened with Bobby and the electricity.
The reason he makes the lie is that is scared that what he said can be potentially used against Evan. After all, he saw Carter's body and knows it is Evan's trial, so he originally proffered to not say anything.
Post-Third Cross-Examination: Clarify all of Angela’s arguments. If you can, have Angela address the problems in the strange physics of the situation, and the strangeness about how anybody would ever think of this. That last one alone means that I don’t believe this argument.
Bobby will point out problems here.
Fourth Cross-Examination: This could be a great contradiction, but Angela’s handling of it ruins the moment for the player. Try to think of how you can improve this, in light of what you want to do with Angela.
This is by the design.
Fifth Cross-Examination: Make your contradictions actual contradictions. Trim your press conversations. Get rid of the fake drama from unlimited penalties for no reason. Get rid of the need to press the other statement. Many of these changes involve simplifying the final confrontation, so you may need to introduce other factors to raise the difficulty back up. Have Have the player see that they’re making actual progress on the case, even before this. Clear up points of ambiguity.
Will fix issues covered in detailed reply to this.

NOTE: The original paragraph on Angela herself has since been revised.

At last at the same time I can work on case 2 ;P

EDIT: Ah, I noticed I missed one of your points.

Spoiler : :

I now have to ask myself what you got out of not just having Bobby Dark testify from the start, with the prosecution having the actualized log. You could have a testimony or two from Oldbag to explain how things occurred. Sure, you lose the drama of PERFECT LOCKED ROOM, but you were never playing that up in the first place. If you meant for that drama to be a key factor, you should have played it up.
Pointing out what should be obvious at the end - this case isn't about locked rooms. This case is about incriminating innocent person.
During one of presses in final CE Bobby covers it - if the police knew about Carter's card being taken and used to leave the school, Evan wouldn't be arrested without further investigation on who left the school. But they arrested Evan despite badly performed investigation. It turns into another 2-4 where pointing out police's mistakes is good for the culprit, but without Edgeworth generally knowing what is going on and fixing your mistakes. It's Everybody Massed Up Badly, the Case.

Though I think I should add some false locked room drama. People here love spins on locked rooms. And here we have a fake locked room created on pure accident, despite the culprit wanting the room being clearly open. So, breaking the locked room mystery aids the culprit.
I am a locked room genius without even trying xD

[Lind]

Sock:

Spoiler : :

"Like the strong, independent woman I am."

Please tell me that was supposed to sound stupid.

Huh. Angela's profile is visible. I hope there's a reason for that.

EXPOSITIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON

Oh, okay, that clears up why we would be getting exposition now. Nicely done, would've seemed weird otherwise.

ATTACK OF THE WEEABOOS

Aww, no custom Payne?

By the way, your timestamps seem misaligned.

Huh. The benches seem to be lagging. I don't know if that's a problem on my end or yours.



HAVE I MENTIONED THAT I AM A WOMAN TODAY

"Blonde is the master race!" ...Um. That's, uh. Kind of. Not something you want to say. Ever.

OH DEAR GOD NOT HER ANYONE BUT HER

SICKEST OF PAYNE BURNS. I take it back, Oldbag can stay.

Coolest defence in the west, clearly.

I like how Angela seems to be more of a traditional lawyer than your standard AA protagonist.

PLODUCT PRACEMENT

Oh good, ladder arguments.

I somehow suspect that, no matter which of the three Oldbag press options I had picked, it would have led to the same conversation.

"Well, maybe I should randomly start talking about Anime from time to time?"

pls don't

"Those Chinese cartoons of
yours, yes?"

no im pretty sure their korean

"So, are ya Chinese, or Japanse?

"No, forget about it, Angela. The past is the past, what matters is here and now."

There is no way this is the setup for a story arc by any means

Bah. I presented the photo first, thinking that the picture of the cupboard would prove that it wasn't hanging there.

woah thought route

"The Dark One. His real name is Bobby Dark."

CRAAAAAAAAAWLING IIIIIIIIIIIIIIN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN

wow, evan light and bobby dark, no blatant symbolism going on here nosiree

Will play Part 2 later.

[Gamer2002]

Thanks for playing.

Spoiler : :

Well, technically you are right that the player can present Photo instead of ID Card during Evan's testimony. Though on the other hand, you are not seeing both cupboards on the photo, so I dunno.

Somebody else can giver their input on discussed alternative Present?

EDIT: Oh, I discovered that in AAO you can clone your trial.
That's great, because now I can work on improving Siblings without closing the still good enough for some case from the public.

[Gamer2002]

Bump.

Writing for first part of Confessed Turnabout is almost complete. What's left is
- Presents at one scene (should be done today)
- Non required examines at few scenes

I also need to make all graphics for part 1. But getting those done will take time, so at same time I can request proofreaders.

As for fixing Turnabout Siblings - not much has been done so far, but I plan to do something about it. For reasons that are pretty obvious to anybody who played it, this case can't be just simply modified like your average first case. In fact, the second case is the less complex one. Still, I believe Turnabout Siblings will be fixed before Confessed Turnabout will be finished. It's still a smaller case, frames-wise.

Anyway, anybody willing to proofread part 1 of my case?

[Gamer2002]

Two new announcements.

First:
Eatmorepies is proofreading first part of Confessed Turnabout. I still would like to have second proofreader that would go through it after eatmorepies finishes.

Second:
I've copied Turnabout Siblings elsewhere and I fixed the first part. I still have to play through it myself to check if I didn't overlook something, but I need a proofreader. A lot of frames were changed (I've listed them), somebody has to check them.

[eatmorepies]

I finished grammar checking Confessed Turnabout.

If anyone wants to look for mistakes that I have left, please contact Gamer2002.

[Gamer2002]

Well, Blizdi took over after eatmorepies and already finished his work.

It still will take some time before part 1 of Confessed Turnabout is released. I still have to do all the graphics + write Examine dialogs for most of places.

In other news, Ferdie will cover Part 1 of Turnabout Siblings. Part 2 is almost ready, I just need to rewrite special game overs and final question for evidence. So currently I'm looking for a proofreader that will check fixed frames in Siblings Part 2.