[T] Maya Fey: Spiritual Successor ●●○○ (Case 2 Remake Out!)

[ApolloGrimoire]

[Bad Player]

☆ This case is pending a QA inspection to be featured.


Btw, I took out one of the dots in the thread title... In order to get a series featured, each successive case much be featured. So if the prologue isn't going to be QA'd, it has to not count as a "case," and hence doesn't get a dot.

[Bad Player]

Hmm... That didn't take long.

Spoiler : Review :

Because I like to get things out of the way...

☆ The QA inspection is complete. This case is not good enough to be featured. Sorry!

The biggest problem is that it's very rushed and squished. After that, the logic isn't handled too well, and the crime seems like it might not even been strong enough to support a featured trial...

Anyway

Presentation:

There are a few four-liners that you should take care. You can also probably do without the "X Time Later" frames, and just use regular timestamps. You should also take out "improper" 4th-wall breaking elements, like the "#9...#9" joke, your profile, and the "Where do you want to go? XD" in the map description. These presentation problems aren't that big individually, but add up.

Writing and Characterization:

The characters have strong personalities, but everything goes way too fast. Maya sees Nick for the first time in four years, where Maya is now an attorney, and they spend two minutes talking about that. The same for Maya and Pearl. The characters' reactions and conversations should be more fleshed out and developed. The same with Adrian... except that conversation also involves Maya taking Adrian's case. The fact that all these important events and reunions happen so quickly makes the case feel really rushed.

Then there's the logic. There aren't many cross-examinations or presents, and unfortunately, for most of them the question/problem is not stated clearly enough, or the information necessary to solve it is not presented clearly enough. For example, you merely ask about the "problem" with the clock. What problem? The problem that the clock is there at all? The problem that it read 1? (Or the problem of how the clock could have been shot with the golden gun.) And just because the bullet got stuck in the wall doesn't mean that the walls are thick. You also don't explain how the gun is stuck in placing, facing the necessary position to shoot Lotta. And you don't tell us where the clock was--what if it was on the wall behind Lotta, so it was possible to shoot the clock from the golden gun's position?

Finally, in the end, you never really made it clear what happened with the crime. Why was the clock shot? (How would it make an alibi when both the medical report AND two witnesses made it clear the crime happened at 3?) If the power outage (and hence the downtime of the security system) was only 10 seconds, how did he get into and out of the statue before and after the crime? Why was Adrian's fingerprints on the golden gun's trigger? If Lotta wasn't shot at point-blank range and the golden gun was bolted down at point-blank range, why didn't that fact show the golden gun wasn't the assault weapon? Or why didn't ballistic analysis show that? These are all things that need to be resolved and explained.

Proofreading and Clarification:

It's probably best to take out the "ass"s. Also add spaces after ellipses. Not much else to say; pretty good on this front.

Sprites and Graphics:

All the original graphics are fine. You could probably consolidate the two maps into one piece of evidence. Also, you should get court overview sprites, so that we don't get ghost court.

Music and SFX:

Music was good. You could probably use a lot more SFX, though.



From a technical standpoint, this trial is okay. However, if you want it featured, you're going to need to make a lot of changes. You need to flesh out the dialogue and character interactions so that important reunions and events aren't rushed through, make the logic in the trial clearer, and also rethink this crime through so that it actually makes sense.

You said you wanted case 2 reviewed, but in order to have a trial in a series featured the previous trials need to be featured too, and since case 1 didn't pass, there's no way case 2 can be featured anyway at this moment. Also, I suspect that case 2 will share many problems with case 1, so if you're serious about getting the cases featured, I would recommend, after fixing case 1, to go through case 2 looking for and fixing the same problems before asking for it to be featured.

Good luck!

[Phantom]

Sorry to hear you didn't pass Pi. Don't get discouraged though, and work on the suggestions provided by enthalpy/BP

[256 Pi]

[I've removed the contents of this post. Really embarassed about posting this. Let's just say I was being unnecessarily whiny about all the criticism I was receiving, and any details are in response posts to this. ]

[Phantom]

Hmm, I think I need to make a reply if you don't mind Pi. I will speak to you as a fellow trial author. Just note I haven't played any of your cases either, so I'll be relying on BP/Enthalpy's reports.

-Enthalpy is someone I'd consider essential to have as a trial author. You WANT someone picking out all the flaws they can find as much as possible, and Enthalpy is your man for that. He did you a favor by taking the time to point out what he felt had a bunch of issues. You don't get many honest people like him around here.
That being said, his report was definitely constructive in his criticisms. His assessment, although sounding harsh at first, is backed up by the varying issues that he's presented.
But again, don't get discouraged at this
Tackle each issue one at a time, starting with ones that can be easily addressable.

----
As for the spoiler replies:

-I don't think it's a matter of rushed, but moreso a matter of the trial parts not being fleshed out enough (both BP and Enthalpy have implied/explicitly stated this). It may give the illusion of the case being rushed though.

-For future reference, if you know that there is a section of poor quality, then you shouldn't take the risk of a QA inspection, *until* you polish up the scene a little bit.

-Actually, if you look at the QA, BP didn't comment on the sprites. Enthalpy pointed these out because (presumably) he has expectations for the quality of the sprites, and making this assessment on what the average player might think.
Don't get discouraged by them. Custom sprites are hard to come by in general, and shouldn't affect the QA all too much

-I can't comment on the OC's since I haven't played them myself.

-Ah, you had the "frame quota" subconsciously in your head.

-Look at it from Enthalpy's POV. A player that has played through all of the AA series (at least, most of them), only to see that a main character he's very familiar with being taken in a completely unlikely direction (Maya being a lawyer), additionally with a lack of a trace of the original characterization.
I think the best way to fix this 256 Pi, is simply make your series an "Alternate Universe" (if you haven't already). I assume Enthalpy has played this case under the assumption you're trying to fit it into canon pre-DD
Problem solved on the characterization/plot direction with Maya and all.
--------------------------

-Yes, anything regarding case/plot/trial errors are harder to fix than the developer errors.
It's not as bad as you think if you go at each issue one at a time (at least the easily addressable ones)

-To be fair, the "hundreds of people" working on the real games are getting paid and assigned to work on this project from higher-ups. You're doing a fanmade work for free

-I don't think anyone said you were a crappy writer/had horrible ideas. I think they were saying that you have potential, but you just need to figure out how to execute/flesh out the cases better.


-Now this is where I must disagree with you, the last bit: "I didn't think people would expect me to be as good as Capcom simply by me asking for a QA inspection."

The point of a QA inspection is to ensure that a fancase is as top-quality as possible, using the real games as a model to determine how the case is in terms of quality.
So your case really DOES have to at least to meet a certain *standard* for a QA inspection to pass.

I get the feeling you were using a QA inspection to have your worked improved/double-checked. If so, then there's a misunderstanding. You need betatesters for what you're looking for.

[Enthalpy]

Putin did a great job, but there's one thing I'd like to add.

In my experience as a trial writer, running into major errors and obstacles can often improve the case over all. My featured case Turnabout Proxy had this happen twice. First, I couldn't find sprites that worked with the witness I wanted. This forced me to think about my character design for the witness a bit more and eventually change her into something that worked a lot better for the case. Then, when I was half-way through writing the second part, I realized that I had accidentally created a massive error in the logic of my case. The way in which I got around that turned out to be one of the final twists. Even in joining gotMLK7's Justice Riders roleplay, I noticed problems with the character I had created and then built a better character to circumvent that.

Spoiler : For those who don't mind Proxy spoilers :

I'm referring to Dee Jordur's bipolar character (my solution to how to work with Ini Miney's sprites) and that Phoenix had been manipulating Edgeworth the whole time (my solution to the logic error of Phoenix not telling Edgeworth about Trucy's prop gun being stolen, despite Phoenix knowing that).

My point is that you have the opportunity to do the same thing here. If you think about it, there are a ways to get around these problems without an absolute rewrite. The problem of how Maya's character could work as a defense attorney is a great example! Perhaps you can give Maya some traumatic backstory that forces her to be more serious, and there's a conflict between her new and old personalities. You could also make this backstory tie into why she left Kurain Village. Maybe you can nuance Maya's character and have her be more herself out of court, but more serious in court itself. I can see characters asking Maya about this, which would lead Maya to explain who she is as a person. This is character development. In fact, I can't see any way to get around this problem without further developing Maya Fey as a character, which is without a doubt going to make your case better if it resolves the original problem.

The cases when complete rewrites are needed are very few, and in my opinion, they're far more common in the experienced authors than the newer authors. I recently had to do this to one of my cases because I had made it so elaborate that I had completely forgotten the fundamentals and needed to restructure my case around them. You just need to strengthen and polish your fundamentals. You can deal with the problems I pointed out without a complete rewrite, but in dealing with them, you'll be forced to improve the Spiritual Successor series.

[Phantom]

Yep, all of that sounds about right.

I think that because your report was so "long" in terms of the items you listed, it just seems to give the illusion that it would take forever to address all of them.

Pi can come up with some workarounds for sure. Worse-case scenario Pi, if you don't want to invest in the time to figure out a way to flesh/get creative with some of the aspects of the case that needs worked on (which seems to be the logic/characterization errors), just call it a day and claim "AU".

At least that way, you don't have to be pressured into extrapolating on the characterization of the main protagonist, Maya so soon/quick into the series.


Also, I assume this is your first time delving into fangame development. I do need to note that it's not as ALL easy as it seems to be sometimes to make your own fangame. Considering you're doing this alone, I think you've made a good attempt into your first forway.

It sounds like there were absolutely no gamebreaking bugs/major bugs, or any type of noticeable bugs at all (excluding spelling issues and all), unless Enthalpy/BP didn't really go out of their way to mention them
Just the fact you have a good grasp on the editor means you're on the right track of things

[256 Pi]

Alright, well thanks for clarifying all that. That makes me feel a lot better about this. I do kind of wish Enthalpy had mentioned this in his review (as-is it almost felt like trolling, no offense), but at least I know this shouldn't be as hard to tackle as he initially made it sound.

Also, yes, Putin, you are right about my misunderstanding of the QA inspection's purpose. I always thought that beta testers were only there to help solve technical issues (though, given AAO's mostly intuitive engine, I have no idea why I didn't think beta testers didn't also help with writing issues... ).

That being said...

Spoiler : :

Making the series AU would solve this problem in one go, but I tried hard earlier NOT to make it such, so I don't want to do that. I'm sure the series could be a lot better if I figured out a way to develop Maya's character, so I'll see if I can do that.

Thing is, I did not mean to make Maya as serious as she ended up being. In the original form of the script, Maya was supposed to retain her original personality, except she was a lot better at figuring things out. In the current version, as you mentioned, she became more serious than I expected. My guess is this is because of the Maya sprites I used. If things had gone exactly the way I wanted, I'd have been using SilentBobX's Maya sprites (well, an edited version, at least). If you've seen those, they fit the personality I had in mind for Maya a heck of a lot better than the Heartbreaking Turnabout ones. But SilentBobX turned down permission to use them, so Tap recommended the ones you currently see in the case. Unfortunately for me, The Heartbreaking Turnabout is almost exactly opposite in tone to what I intended for this series, so a little was rubbed off onto my series, and...well...you know.

I could give Maya the same kind of development I gave Pearl in this series (as you may have noticed in Case 1, she was supposed to be the center of attention development-wise originally). That'd actually be a nice idea, although it might be tough thinking a good story up. Maybe I should completely redo the prologue and make it better explain Maya's story. This still would take a long time, but it'd be a lot better than redoing both Case 1 and Case 2.

And again, I'm sorry about the extremely short length of the cases. I happen to be a YouTube Pooper, so I'm more used to having all the action condensed into one or two minutes. 45 minutes for Case 1 seemed long from my perspective.

But anyway, this seems a lot more doable now, and I'm sorry for completely overreacting again. I'll see what I can do about Maya.

[256 Pi]

I've been thinking long and hard about this series, and now I'm having second thoughts about rewriting big sections of this case. I honestly don't think I'll be doing it until I've finished the rest of the series. I realize the way-below-average length of the cases is irritating some people, but compared to my other work, this is incredibly ambitious. My big mistake in this series was asking for a QA inspection. I really should have thought about the scope of this series versus the scope of, say, The Virtual Turnabout, and let's be honest, there's really no contest. I don't think I could ever extend these cases so that they take a whole afternoon to play through.

I'm probably not going to be working on this series for a while, though, so I can focus on my other work. Really, this series was mostly created for my own enjoyment, but having brought on negative reviews by hyping everyone's expectations through a QA inspection, I'm not finding it fun right now. This obviously doesn't mean the end of the series, since I do plan on eventually finishing it, but those rewrites are going to be tough and time-consuming, and I don't think it's worth it right now.

Since I'm sure the rewrites would make the series way better than it already is, I won't rule them out as never happening, but for now, I'm going to take the wimpy easy way out and call this series AU for now.

Case 3 will eventually be coming...when I feel like making it. I don't know how long that'll be, but it will happen.

[Phantom]

Quality over quantity. You shouldn't be worrying about length too much.

[256 Pi]

Quality over quantity. You shouldn't be worrying about length too much.

Yep. I haven't had a lot of people say this is high quality, but no one ever asked me to do this in the first place, so I'm not complaining anymore.

[pcmkr]

So, I wasn't planning to write a review or anything but I noticed your disappointment:

I took note of the previously mentioned defects as well, however, I liked your case and found it interesting enough to look over those issues. However imperfect, I appreciated the hard work put into the trial, both the custom sprites and non-standard mechanics. Funny enough, I was irked by a relatively small detail rather than everything else mentioned.

Spoiler : :

Namely, the use of photographs instead of artwork in some scenes.

I hope the criticism you received provides a stepping stone rather than discourage you altogether.

[~Dataman~]

Spoiler : :

Usually artwork works better. In this style of game, the main point is in artwork. Some artists around here take their time to make photographs look like artwork.

[256 Pi]

So, I wasn't planning to write a review or anything but I noticed your disappointment:

I took note of the previously mentioned defects as well, however, I liked your case and found it interesting enough to look over those issues. However imperfect, I appreciated the hard work put into the trial, both the custom sprites and non-standard mechanics. Funny enough, I was irked by a relatively small detail rather than everything else mentioned.

Spoiler : :

Namely, the use of photographs instead of artwork in some scenes.

I hope the criticism you received provides a stepping stone rather than discourage you altogether.

Well, thank you. I obviously didn't plan on cancelling the series, after all, by requesting a QA inspection I was pretty much ASKING for an excessively negative review. This is by no means the end of the series. While I doubt Case 3 will be out before a very long time mostly due to school and other projects (such as my YouTube videos and non-AA games), I will eventually be getting around to doing it.

Spoiler : :

Also, sorry about the whole photographs thing. I'm not an artist, and piecing together backgrounds from Google Images was the best I could do since I couldn't find any already-made scenes that I could edit to get the scene I wanted.

I'm at least glad to know that people still like the case. I just set everyone's expectations too high.

Spoiler : :

Usually artwork works better. In this style of game, the main point is in artwork. Some artists around here take their time to make photographs look like artwork.

Yeah, you have a point. Something to keep in mind for Case 3.