[CE][T] Turnabout Tennis ●

[Ana_]

Entry to the Keeping It Simple comp, hosted by Southern Corn and Cesar.
Click the above image to play!

Turnabout Tennis sees Phoenix face off against his longest-standing rival Winston Payne once again, this time tasked with solving the murder of a professional tennis player. There's not much to it at all, in fact it's not even that much about tennis, but if you like stuff like The Lost Turnabout then this may be the case for you!

"I give this case a ten out of tennis!" - SC

Spoiler : Credits :

John Brown: DragonTrainer
Courtney Master: Lind
Confetti: FenrirDarkWolf

Also Southern Corn and Cesar for hosting the comp.

Spoiler : Screenshots :

Spoiler : Walkthrough :

---TRIAL FORMER---
Testimony 1: Motive For Murder
Present the Newspaper Article on Statement 4

Testimony 2: Special Witness
Present the Crime Scene Diagram on Statement 5
Point to the door next to the victim

Testimony 3: Decisive Evidence
Present the Security Footage on Statement 3
'2:04 PM'

Recess: Ask about everything

---TRIAL LATTER---
Testimony 4: Justice is Served
Present the Security Footage on Statement 4
Point to the seats nearest to the wall
'He was there'
Point to the Mysterious TP (The green man on the tennis court)
'Dennis is the Mysterious TP'
Present the Crime Scene Diagram
Point to the lounge next to the victim

Testimony 5: Deuce
Present the Tennis Racquet on Statement 5
Present Dennis' profile (he was the one who moved it)
'Prove he was wearing gloves'
Present the Newspaper Article OR the Security Footage
(IF Newspaper was presented: Point to "full body suit"
IF Security Footage presented: Point to the Mysterious T.P's hands.)
Present the Key Card

Testimony 6: Match Point
Press Statement 3
Present the Security Footage on Statement 3
'1:55 PM'
Point to the Mysterious T.P.'s racquet
Present John Brown's profile
Present the Key Card
Present John's Testimony

Post-trial: Present the Tennis Racquet.

[cesar26100]

Can confirm the "inspired by" is a lie and the review quote is true, go play this.

[Southern Corn]

Yay! The case is finally out now! I definitely recommend this case, it's very good. Here are the awards it won during the Keeping It Simple comp if any of you out there are interested:

Spoiler : :

Second Place Award- While you didn't make it, the battle was closer than expected. Good job either way!

Understands Deadlines Award- For submitting your cases by the deadline- that too complete!

Powerful Presentation- Custom art is a most powerful thing. For appropriate fades, good music choices and "MTP".

Rubix's Dodecahedron- Quite puzzling, indeed. For the "Video of Victory".

Obligatory Oldton- But where's Newton? For jokes so unfunny that they loop around and become funny anyway. For the title drop of the century.

Also, while we're here, here are both me and Cesar's individual SoCs for this case.

Spoiler : Cesar :

Played it, one SoC and review coming right up
The judge is making too many mistakes despite enjoying Tennis, totally sus.

A chance to abuse Gumshoe and make him scared yay

Well that was a pretty simple mistake

Time to intentionally get p e n a l i z e d before proceeding

2/10 not enough bad jokes

wow what a simple short case, definitely no more twists after it, ez didn't even have to find the killer.

nvm

wow TP more like the other kind of TP

"I'm gonna serve ya an ace, attorney!" making SC look funny now wow

frame 1817: Phoenix's line doesn't have a name tag.

wow TP exposed Phoenix's nervous sprite

the wording on that question made me think it was asking for a method for moving the weapon and not who did it, that's probably on me though

Hemlock saves the day!

Welp that was nice. It was a pretty short but sweet case which I could totally see working as a canon tutorial. The presentation was good, all the graphics worked (and the custom graphics it had were good) and I didn't catch any typos or anything of the sort.

The puzzles were good and the part where you can see the theme relevance the most, using evidence like the security footage multiple times for different contradictions is pretty much the kind of gameplay I expected in this comp's cases. The story was simple yet interesting enough.

So yeah the case is a great execution of the comp's theme, and just a good case overall. Turnabout Tennis gets an elevennis as far as I'm concerned.

Spoiler : Mine :

Okay cool, my lame SoC/review coming up now as well.
Could you call this a deuce?
Okay, Turnabout Tennis time, let’s go!
Oh cool, is this the Zheng Fa music thing from I2-1? Weirdly fitting somehow XD
You know, I wonder if the victim died because everyone was making too much of a…racket. …I’m not sorry.
Oh my god did Brown do it??
sees Court Record Oh wait never mind.
“Courtney Master” lol nice.
Can Spark Brushel testify this case please.
Oh hi Wocky- I mean, Brown.
Is there a pun in John’s name?
Oh huh, pleading guilty now? Interesting.
Yay Payne as the prosecutor!
“Seven years” wow.
Also fun fact I actually was a tennis player once but I kind of sucked at it so yeah.
Oh dang, Gaspen tutoring Winston? This is intense, hopefully Phoenix makes it through alive.
“Cool” Okay this is hilarious.
Oh huh, it’s Gumshoe. Surprised it wasn’t Meekins tbh
The map diagram thing was pretty neat.
“Tragic…” Okay first actual error noticed- Frame #177, the line is apparently spoken by Phoenix whoops.
Okay, starting CE 1 now.
Lol get rekt Payne. So this takes place between 2-4 and 3-2, huh?
Noo Gumshoe! You poor thing nobody would ever think of killing you.
Okay just saw the alternate choice, that was mildly amusing.
Okay wow that first contradiction was pretty simple.
Wait, really? Did none of the police notice something like that? Typical AA police, I guess.
That security footage is quality stuff. My bet is the mystery guy in the audience who randomly disappeared did it.
Okay cool I actually instantly figured out that second contradiction, nice.
Hmmmm @the map thing. I think the door thing is fair but pointing to the door behind the door behind the door you’re supposed to point to also makes sense.
Also wow, the victim really did die because the killer made a huge racket wow.
Okay, that video tape contradiction was neat. Took me a little while to figure out.
Frame #373 feels weirdly timed to me with the Desk Slam. Might be worth looking into.
Lol nice, we have Payne cornered.
Oh wow, the revelations in the lobby scene sure are something.
Interesting trial flow so far. Wish there was a way we could’ve exposed the defendant as bribing the umpire during TP’s match in the trial itself but this is okay.
“Dennis Plair” okay wow.
Okay the double “court” meaning joke was pretty good.
“I’m gonna serve you an ace, attorney” “Justice is served” This case just keeps on giving XD
Testimony 4 contradiction is simple and easy, good stuff. Also another good use of the video tape.
Frame #615- I could be wrong but it doesn’t look like Phoenix is supposed to be in front of the map screen there.
Oh okay huh. It took me till now to realise the green figure in the tape is TP and not Courtney for some reason. It makes sense actually. Was it clarified? It probably was I might’ve just missed that. But yeah good contradiction.
Testimony 5 contradiction is also good, making use of a clever contradiction. I thought it would just be “oh the defendant says it went missing” but I like it.
Frame #755- See my issue with #373 earlier.
Haha nice, this last testimony was something. Good stuff overall (though I’m disappointed there was only one you actually had to press).
Oh nice, was that a custom breakdown?
Frame #1182- Typo, “If you didn’t have your racquet with your”.
Huh. Interesting that Brown actually did quit for real.
Anyway, now that I’m done- decent case, overall! I liked the nature of this case, and it fit the theme very well! I liked the use of evidence well enough. In terms of complaints, there’s very little here. I think the evidence spoke very well for itself overall and was also used nicely. Couple typos here and there and some frames which could use sound effects. Other than that, well done, simple case with a good trial flow and good usage of its evidence. Cesar pretty much said everything for me. I'll also say I really liked the ending and that it could actually fit JfA pretty well, replace 2-1 with this please.
I give this case a ten out of tennis!

[Enthalpy]

Just finished playing. It was a bit rough in a couple places, but I liked this overall! I'll post my thoughts up within the next week.

[Enthalpy]

Actually, could you elaborate on how The Lost Turnabout inspired this case? I think I can see in a couple places, and I'd like to sanity check before I post my thoughts.

[Ana_]

The Lost Turnabout inspiration is mainly in the structural details, i.e. the two testimony blocks (one to gather information/find flaws in the case from Gumshoe, one for breaking the witness), the quick pace, the logic flow, small stuff like that. Other short tutorials like 1-1 and I-1 are similarly strong in terms of Simple cases, they're just all structured a little differently, and 2-1's got the general structure I went with.

[DWaM]

I liked this. It was short and pretty straightforward, but definitely on-theme for the competition. There is a certain satisfaction to catching the more "obvious" contradictions that one doesn't get to have quite so often among the plethora of AAO Difficulty (TM) cases.

I think having cases like these around is also important because it shows to anyone that might be interested in doing this stuff at some point (y'know, all of like 3 lurkers at this point) that they don't need to go for something as bold and ambitious, and that keeping things on more simple terms is also an option; both for the sake of getting to terms with the editor and a general idea on how to structure their trials and mysteries.

[Enthalpy]

Spoiler : Notes :

Thanks for bearing with me! I received a rather urgent request to beta another case that took priority, hence the delay here.

I like the case logic here overall, but I do have one recommendation. In The Lost Turnabout, the topics of the testimonies flow tightly into each other. In the first half, Gumshoe testifies about the victim's dying message incriminating Maggey. Phoenix points out that Maggey's name is misspelled, which Maggey's boyfriend should have gotten right, so Gumshoe testifies to their relationship. Once that's done, we stay considering that dying message, and Phoenix points out that the victim could not have written it. The detective testimony in this case isn't so tightly consistent. Gumshoe first testifies about motive, which Phoenix invalidates. Payne then has Gumshoe switch topic completely to the meeting between victim and defendant. Phoenix mentions a third person could have gotten through by means of the Mysterious Tennis Player's room. Payne switches topics again to talk about the murder weapon. Phoenix proceeds to point out that the victim isn't seen with the murder weapon when he goes to the meeting... These kinds of topic changes aren't something Takumi uses, and I struggled a bit to follow this on my first playthrough.

All that said, I like the ideas for contradictions and presents that the case has. I always appreciate when we can use the prosecution's own evidence against them, and you pull that off a few times here! When showing the racket wasn't in the security lounge, using the racket in Brown's office to show it shouldn't have been at the scene... Being able to reinterpret evidence with a sudden burst of clarity is one of my favorite parts of an AA trial, and you even deliver that when we learn whose tennis racket the Mysterious Tennis Player used. Well done! And then I also like the post-trial present. I could see that being in a canon case, easily.

As a final note, Phoenix's dialogue felt off. I can elaborate on that if you want. I'm not sure how much attention you put into getting Phoenix's voice right.

So overall, CE structure can use refining, but these are some really good contradictions! I had fun with this!