[T] Turnabout Christmas Party ☆

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ineia
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[T] Turnabout Christmas Party ☆

Post by ineia »

Hi all! This is my first case ever, and it's a gift for a friend of mine in a Secret Santa exchange who loves AA. I'm pretty proud of it, so let me know what you think! Or if you spot any typos :maya:. Feel free to critique too, but I don't plan on making any major changes since it's all done.

Play here:
http://www.aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=136436

Summary:
A holiday party gone wrong! When Maya reveals to Phoenix they'll be hosting a Christmas Party just a couple hours before said party begins, he's ready for a disastrous evening. Despite his doubts, the party starts off great! Phoenix is even in the middle of a long needed heart-to-heart with Edgeworth when tragedy strikes... Charley the plant is "murdered"! It's up to Phoenix and his friends to find the culprit.
Spoilers for the original Ace Attorney trilogy. There's a brief cameo of characters from Apollo Justice, but no actual spoilers.
Warnings for mild alcohol use and mention.


I also made a trailer for the case you can watch here, if you'd like to see some gameplay!:
https://youtu.be/esxJje-JLWI
(I would embed it, but I don't think I can with the BBCode.)

Playtime:
1-2 hrs

Other tips:
  • There are no penalties because I want you to be able to present the wrong thing and see character's reactions if you'd like.
  • Examine everything and present your badge wherever you go for some funny interactions.
  • Let me know if you get stuck. I can write a walkthrough if need be, but I think it's pretty straightforward.

Thanks so much!
Last edited by ineia on Sun Feb 07, 2021 5:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ●

Post by trialdude »

I don't have much to say but I just want to mention that this is the cutest thing I've played in a long time. Had a goofy smile all along.
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ineia
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ●

Post by ineia »

That is the best compliment oh my gosh! :nod: Thanks for playing!!
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ●

Post by risefromtheashes »

WELL NOW THAT WAS THE MOST WHOLESOME LITTLE THING WASN'T IT.
Spoiler : :
AND WRIGHT AND EDGEY KISSED!!!
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ineia
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ●

Post by ineia »

I'm all about wholesomeness! I'm glad you enjoyed :D
Spoiler : :
And you bet they did! :wink:
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ●

Post by Awsome2464 »

Great story! The perfect blend between well-written fan fiction and a fun, enjoyable trial. Nice work!
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ineia
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ●

Post by ineia »

Thank you!! I'm glad it was a good balance of those two things :D
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ●

Post by Enthalpy »

☆ This case is pending a QA inspection to be featured.
I'll be doing this one myself. I'll post back with the status of the inspection in a week. Hopefully it won't take much longer than that.
[D]isordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. ~ Ben Jonson
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ●

Post by Enthalpy »

Status Update: I spent a long (so far fruitless) while battling an AAO bug development side, so I wasn't able to make as much progress with the QA as I've hoped. I've played the case a first time, but I want to go through it a second time before I post my final review.

Full disclosure that
Spoiler : :
I don't ship Narumitsu. Still, this somehow isn't my first time QAing an Edgeworth shipping case, so I'm not as flustered as I would otherwise be.
[D]isordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. ~ Ben Jonson
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ●

Post by Darwn »

ineia wrote: Mon Feb 01, 2021 4:01 pm Hi all! This is my first case ever, and it's a gift for a friend of mine in a Secret Santa exchange who loves AA. I'm pretty proud of it, so let me know what you think! Or if you spot any typos :maya:. Feel free to critique too, but I don't plan on making any major changes since it's all done.

Play here:
http://www.aaonline.fr/player.php?trial_id=136436

Summary:
A holiday party gone wrong! When Maya reveals to Phoenix they'll be hosting a Christmas Party just a couple hours before said party begins, he's ready for a disastrous evening. Despite his doubts, the party starts off great! Phoenix is even in the middle of a long needed heart-to-heart with Edgeworth when tragedy strikes... Charley the plant is "murdered"! It's up to Phoenix and his friends to find the culprit.
Spoilers for the original Ace Attorney trilogy. There's a brief cameo of characters from Apollo Justice, but no actual spoilers.
Warnings for mild alcohol use and mention.


I also made a trailer for the case you can watch here, if you'd like to see some gameplay!:
https://youtu.be/esxJje-JLWI
(I would embed it, but I don't think I can with the BBCode.)

Playtime:
1-2 hrs

Other tips:
  • There are no penalties because I want you to be able to present the wrong thing and see character's reactions if you'd like.
  • Examine everything and present your badge wherever you go for some funny interactions.
  • Let me know if you get stuck. I can write a walkthrough if need be, but I think it's pretty straightforward.

Thanks so much!
Hello! :)
I recently played your case and I just loved it! It was fun to see the old characters again: Larry, Will, Lotta and the others. Having Franziska by your side during the trial was awesome, too! :fran: Now I'll give a detailed description of what I liked or not (even though everything was so cute and all!)

Investigation Part:
Spoiler : :
Awesome! At first, I didn't there was going to be a "plant-icide" (as would say Phoenix). I was so surprised and that was so funny to have Charley as a victim and to investigate its herbicide. The investigation part was cool and you did great with it :D . Cool background too, liked the Christmas decorations.


Trial Part:
Spoiler : :
So funny! I knew Pearl was innocent (I mean... that was easy to understand) and I knew that Larry was gonna be the murderer! :larry: Maya was funny as a judge. Fran was great too, of good help. I was stuck only two times however: when you had to explain who Lotta was taking a photo of (I forgot about the flash lol) and when you had to give an answer about where were the shoes of Larry (I tried every answer... unsuccessfully :lol:) The cross-examinations were easy though, but that was still fun.
And the last scene... When they were both talking about their feeling. Honestly, I got the chills! :redtruth: You even chosed the ending theme of JfA and it was sincerely a great choice of music.
In a nutshell : great choice of characters and music. Funny and interesting case. Loved it and recommend it! Great job, again :takethat:
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ●

Post by Enthalpy »

QA Review: Turnabout Christmas Party

Image
Get in the Christmas spirit, Edgeworth. Somebody needs to be prosecuted in a court of law!

As far as cases go, Turnabout Christmas Party is a humble one. For context, the last three cases I've played featured:
  • A cast of seven original characters that inhabit a fantasy world - all of which needs to be introduced
  • An Ace Attorney crossover with Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC). If you're at all familiar with DDLC, you can guess that the case is going to get meta.
  • A trial of over 7000 frames that attempts to go with the standard Ace Attorney formula (already ambitious!), but adding in a custom puzzle mechanic during the investigations.
In comparison, this case is one part "Narumitsu will-they-or-won't-they" and one part "low-stakes comedy trial". The Narumitsu is for people who already ship it, and the story isn't interested in bringing new people aboard. (Which makes perfect sense, since this was a Secret Santa gift.) The trial doesn't try to adhere to the strict form you'd need in a compelling, tense AA mystery. There are no new characters to introduce, nor are there deep character studies. Nothing in this concept is exceptionally ambitious.

This is not a bad thing. I've said in previous QA reviews that an author had an ambitious idea, but the execution faltered for lack of experience. When it comes to QA, a humble case executed well is better than a lofty case with deep problems. While I endorse giving yourself projects that stretch you, don't expect a star until the stretching is done.

So even though I've been critical of some high-effort cases lately, this one still stands a shot at that featured star. As for how well it does as its goals... Well, the review is below.

_____________________________________________________

I'm using my standard Check #1 format, but modifying the criteria I'm assessing to be more in-line with what this case wants to be.
Enthalpy wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2015 5:33 amThey check that it has an overall story and gameplay of astounding quality; it should be really engaging, have interesting contradictions and be really fun.
– The Sparkling Feature Star is given for an aspect that makes your trial stand out even among the featured trials. Getting a Sparkling Feature Star means your trial is pretty much guaranteed to be featured after implementing the changes from check 2, unless it gets a Hollow Star.
+ – The Great Plus means that this aspect makes your good trial great. You don't need a Great Plus in every category, but you should have at least one Great Plus or Sparkling Feature Star for the trial to be featured.
✓✓ – The Double Check Mark means that this aspect is good enough for a featured trial. Almost everything in this area works solidly, but it lacks a "wow" factor. An otherwise great aspect that requires some non-trivial tweaking falls in here.
– The Single Check Mark means that this aspect can be good enough for a featured trial, but requires not major, but non-trivial modifications to make it truly solid. You must not have any Single Check Marks in order to pass Check 2.
– The Hollow Star marks a problem that can't be fixed without a major rewrite. A trial must not have any Hollow Stars in order to pass Check 1. If you get one, don't be discouraged! Remember that a Hollow Star is only a star that hasn't been filled yet. It's something you can work on when improving this trial or writing your next one, and once you've worked on it, go for another QA review!

Unlike the other marks, the Hollow Star and Single Check Mark only talk about how large of a rewrite is needed to be featured-trial good, not how good that part of the trial is.
Spoiler : Check #1 :
Characterization +
The characterization is honestly great. Will doesn't get much of a chance to shine, but I enjoyed the other characters, when they were on-scene. Let me point out some things I especially liked, that helped push you up from just double-check.
  • The Phoenix-Maya dynamic is especially well-written here. I appreciate that you're willing to have some friendly conflict between the two. Friendship, it turns out, is not agreeing all the time.
  • I really like Pearl blaming herself for Charley's death. Pearl is still a child, but we see her try to take on a lot of responsibility in the canon games. (Due, no doubt, to Morgan's parenting.) We see both the childishness and the responsibility in this statement, so well done!
  • I also enjoy Franziska's disapproval of the idea of the Charley-trial.
  • The Larry writing is a high point of this trial. This is still clearly Larry, but he's not flanderized to the point of only being his ridiculous self. He's exaggerated as always, but is able to tone it down at dramatically appropriate methods. (His "I probably deserve that." line in particular.)
  • While the Ace Attorney Investigations games also flanderized Gumshoe's investigative competence, it's in-character for him to be good at some analysis gizmo. Giving him that moment with the soil analysis was a very nice touch.
I should add that I don't understand why Franziska is playing co-counsel to Phoenix. Accordingly, her dialogue feels a bit out-of-character throughout. I can't be much more specific until I have her motivation clarified. What I can say now is that Franziska likes her dramatics and to bring attention to herself. I don't see this part of her personality coming out anywhere. Her obsessive competitiveness is somewhat here, but seems muted.

Tone +
This trial wants to be a comedy that's low-stakes and subdued. It's not going the plotless route, nor the route of madcap courtroom antics. I think you hit this very well. This is another job for the bullet point format.
  • "Charley's plot gets shattered at an office Christmas party" is an extremely good setup for this. It's surprisingly easy to have a case concept that fundamentally does not work with the tone you're trying to set, but these two go together excellently.
  • The story pacing is spot-on, which helps with the "low-stakes and subdued" part. Things are always happening, so the story never drags. By the time we get to Edgeworth and Phoenix's first talk outside, I feel like I really have spent some time at the party, and that we're not just rushing to get to the next plot point that the author wants to hit.
  • The jokes fairly consistently hit their mark. Nothing is forced, and it uses the shared history between these characters to great advantage. The best gag is definitely Apollo asking why Trucy told him all this.
  • Maya was a fantastic choice to take the judge role. I understand there weren't many alternatives, but it must have been tempting to keep her in her usual co-counsel role. A gossip-y judge works great when so much of the trial logic is about Lotta being Lotta and Larry being Larry. Her banter with Phoenix has her take up some authority as the judge, but not enough to change the way the trial works. In contrast, Franziska or Will as judge would not have worked nearly as well.
Romance +
Let me start with a disclaimer that this is hard for me to evaluate. First, I'm not familiar with romantic writing or shipfics in the first place. Second, the dialogue between Edgeworth and Phoenix here explicitly casts their relationship throughout the series as motivated by the two being "hopelessly in love" with each other. I don't see how the psychology is plausible (the Edgeworth we see in 2-4 seems rather severe for that, and those "unnecessary feelings" are guilt and uncertainty), but this is standard in Narumitsu shipping. Third, the childhood crush storyline doesn't resonate with me, which is another thing that is standard in Narumitsu shipping. Fourth, this is not a pairing I can personally support, for religious reasons. The best I can do for this section is to imagine I am sympathetic to this spin on their relationship and go from there.

Until the epilogue, this ship is heavily teased, and Edgeworth makes vague allusions to being "saved" by Phoenix, but we don't see much romantic chemistry between the two. We see Edgeworth play along with this silly Charley trial at Phoenix's bequest. You certainly can read that as "because they love each other!", but I don't see anything deeper there.

This all changes in the epilogue confession scene where "we’re standing together in the cold on Christmas talking about our feelings for each other," doing the aforementioned casting of their relationship throughout the series. You have a good sense of when to interrupt the flow to prevent the story from becoming cloying, and also how to inject some self-awareness about how cheesy the setup could be. Given points two and three, it still gets an eyeroll from me, but I was expecting a lot worse.

I'm going to give this the plus in the end, extrapolating how the case would go for somebody, again, more sympathetic to this most popular of AA ships.

Gameplay ✓✓
In most other games, my analysis of "gameplay" would be more involved, but given what this case is trying to be, the things I think it's fair to evaluate are that the gameplay is fair, interesting, and recognizably AA.

With the investigation followed by cross-examination structure alone, the gameplay is recognizably AA. The trial is also enough to keep the player's interest. Our first two witnesses get one cross-examination each, while Larry gets two. Each cross-examination makes progress on the case, as we peel back what all the witnesses are hiding. I think that including any more cross-examinations than that would be dragging the trial out, so I'll commend you on your sense of pacing. In my early days, I made some mistakes there.

The trial is mostly fair, but I have three complaints.
  1. Lotta's first photo should be accepted as contradicting "The first was just a test I did early in the night," since the logic goes:
    Lotta's first photo was taken at 7:57. (Lotta's First Photo evidence description)
    7:57 was when the time of the crime. (Lotta's Second Photo evidence description)
    Therefore, Lotta's first photo was not taken early in the night, relative to the crime.

    Both photographs appear in the logic. If nothing else, don't penalize the player if they present the first photo, but say there's better evidence for it.
  2. There isn't much reason to conclude Lotta was photographing Edgeworth and Phoenix. It wasn't midnight-black out. Photographing a talk like this doesn't fit Lotta's usual sensationalist M.O. very well. The player could have easily forgotten or explained away the flash. My recommendation is that you change Lotta's photograph to be a blurred and distorted version of the background for that talk. Throw in AAI overworld minis to represent Edegworth and Phoenix, if you want. Then the player can recognize the scene and make the conclusion from there.
  3. The evidence description is vague about how much vodka is left. The evidence says it's mostly full, which I took to mean >50%. But based on how Phoenix presents the contradiction, you mean more like >90%. If this is correct, please make the evidence description more specific.
Spoiler : Check #2 :
Scene 1:
Frame 33, use female voice blips for Maya.
Frame 40, why capitalize "party"?
Frame 53: it, since
Consider having Maya respond to more profile presents here. I don't insist on this, but it makes sense to me to have Maya react to Phoenix, herself, and Mia.
Maya trusting somebody else to be in charge of her beloved food seems like a missed opportunity for a joke.

Scene 2:
I tried to talk to a guest by presenting their profile. Please catch the player if they try something like that.

Scene 3:
F269: get to talk
If I click on Charley repeatedly, he gets added to the CR repeatedly. That should only happen repeatedly.
If I click on Charley before the bottle of vodka, I still get the message that something else seems off. That threw me off on my first playthrough.

Scene 4:
I think special dialogue is in order if you try to present Larry with the vodka.
Franziska saying her group is "the happiest of campers" sounds off to me. I can't find record of Franziska using any American idioms in Justice for All, and she struggles with American idioms (getting "beat a dead horse" completely wrong) in Trials and Tribulations. I'm revising the script for a Franziska case myself, so please tell me if I'm mistaken on this.

Scene 5:
F446: There's an extra space at the start of this frame. Did you mean to merge to previous?
F513-F514: Edgeworth says that in contrast to when Edgeworth saved Phoenix, "saving" Edgeworth was more than just saving him from a death sentence. But even when Edgeworth "saved" Phoenix, it wasn't just about a death sentence either. In 2-4, Edgeworth explicitly draws a parallel between his journey of transformation after PW:AA and Phoenix's need to find his principles as a defense attorney. That was doing more than averting a bad verdict, and Edgeworth should know this. I understand what you mean, but it's too mistaken for Edgeworth. Is there a way to reword this?
F483: To me, "old friend" sounds like Edgeworth is 'friendzoning' Phoenix. I won't insist on this change, but maybe Edgeworth should choose a different word.

Scene 6:
F522: door, since
You might want to reword the first talk conversation. It sounds to me like Maya is implying there should be something to find.

Scene 7:
As before, present the soil from being added to the Court Record twice.

Pre-Trial:
It looks like these Franziska co-counsel sprites were made by editing Franziska's head from main-game sprites onto Investigations sprite. I can tell it looks a bit off, especially the size of Franziska's neck and head. You can try to edit those sprites a bit more, but they're good enough for QA.

Cross-Examination 1:
F936: Not "hearing noise". "hearing a noise" or "hearing noises" are both fine
F958: left, Mr. Nick
F954: late, so
F957: whomever ... Pearl is a child, but she's Morgan's child, so I leave it to you to decide whether Pearl should have gotten that correct or not.
During the dramatic pause when Gumshoe bursts on scene, there's a panning effect going from Phoenix to Edgeworth. I don't think you want that.

Cross-Examination 2:
F1092: think she should
F1296: later, Maya

Cross-Examination 3:
F1514: drunk
F1517: claims of being
F1398: might need to

Cross-Examination 4:
F1543, F1565: drinking, I
After the cross-examination, have Phoenix elaborate on his logic for why his shoes have to be in the dumpster. At present, that's the simplest explanation for why he was by the dumpster.

Epilogue:
F1790: I don't know how you intended this to read, but this is a garbled sentence. The simplest fix is to add a colon after the word "joke."
Spoiler : VERDICT :
★ The case is good enough to be featured. Please make the requested changes.

This was the sort of case that Ferdielance and I were hoping to get in the Short and Sweet case competition. It's a very well-done, solid case. Is it an epic case? No, but it doesn't have to be.

Feel free to post if there are any points you disagree about and want to talk over. I'm perfectly happy to do that. Otheriwse, post when things are changed, and I'll give it a last lookover.
[D]isordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. ~ Ben Jonson
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Enthalpy
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ☆

Post by Enthalpy »

I haven't heard anything in the week since my review, so I just wanted to check that things were alright on your end? If you have any questions/comments/objections etc., feel free to post here or send me a PM.
[D]isordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. ~ Ben Jonson
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ineia
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ☆

Post by ineia »

Hi! I read through all your comments, and I'm grateful that you did such a thorough review. Thank you so much. Very excited it is feature worthy (with a few adjustments)! I'm planning to go ahead and make most of the changes you recommend--there's a few I might post some questions about here--but I'm currently a bit swamped at university, so it might be a couple weeks before I have the chance. I will let you know though with any questions and when it should be ready to be played one more time before getting featured. Thanks again!
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ☆

Post by mAc Chaos »

OK, this is actually amazing. And it's your first trial? I love how in-character they all feel.
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Re: [T] Turnabout Christmas Party ☆

Post by Diyarhan »

Wow man, what a case!
Spoiler : :
I really loved it. It was funny, had a really good mystery(lol charley is ded) and sweet. Loved the relationship between Wright and Edgeworth. I am not a fan of Wrightworth but loved it anyway. You can do other cases. It would be really good.
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