[T] A Game of Turnabouts ★

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Gizmological
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Re: [T] A Game of Turnabouts ★

Post by Gizmological »

@m1ndl3ss

Thank you for the very kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed yourself!

@Tonoso2

Huh. As I say, not really something I know anything about.
Igniam
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Re: [T] A Game of Turnabouts ★

Post by Igniam »

Spoiler : My messy notes while playing :
Right-o.

Important detail about the envelopes handed out: I believe they were pink/green/darker lavender?/orange.

(Strater gives the light lime/light blue envelope.) He says he wasn't prepped for Athena but that's a double colored envelope.

Oh I just got Arkus Strater = Orchestrator pun.

'I've sent away the staff. The only ones currently inside the manor are myself and you six guests.'
We'll all gather here again once the game is finished at 10 PM sharp.
'Please finish before 10, or...'
...I might just have to reveal your roles to everyone on the outside.
Apparently that guy is Forza.

Did like, the rest of the people get messages like "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID", meanwhile we got an ordinary looking one? [Future me after finishing it: Okay I love how accurate this turned out to be.]

Athena: 'It's just turned 8 PM.'

My gosh this game has 5 places to go to in one room.

We left the knife in the study after finding it.
Totally a good idea...

The game *still* hasn't shown the character's names so I'm going back to properly check the 'velopes.

Red/pink = (Apollo-looking guy)
Green = (joker with wine glass)
Dark purple = (woman with red shirt)
Orange = Ken Forza (black shirt samurai guy)

"Ronald Barre", the wine glass joker, flashes his green envelope then steals ours. Apparently we are the detective. Not that two killers 'sharing' the same role would make sense. Is he swapping the thing in our envelopes anyway?

Barre seems like a Zuckerturd, he made a 'social media' thing.

Now a note from the GM. Wouldn't it be great to steal this note away if you were the Killer? I think the suspicious point is,

I stood at the base of the stairs.
because that means they're someone involved with the group, not a narrative perspective.

You gotta wonder if the roles mean anything, like if you're the killer, is the goal for you to 'kill' someone else now?

-3y: ~Ken~ He 'broke up' with Strater's daughter. And by that he means dead.

"It was just a small party. I was invited. So were the other three." God damn! And her name is "Isla Strater" (Illustrator?). Also I wonder if it'll come into play that Mr. Strater is darker skinned while Isla is very white-skinned.

Ken: The three of them [Isla, Arkus, and Arkus' wife] were in a traffic accident when Isla was 13 years old.
If he already knows who did it, why bring a third party (POV) in? Now I'm feeling he never gave anyone The Killer role just yet.

Apollo looking guy is Connor Iving. (Con arriving? I almost thought his last name looked like Lying honestly. I don't get "Ronald Barre" though. The last name sounds like Bar, but...)

Connor: ...but it was discovered that the data {(of Barre-Link)} of our customers was bein' leaked to third parties illegally.

That was -4y. Wait that's old news!

The woman's name is Grace Barre.

Connor: Grace's maiden name was Gilding.

Ronald: ...but there is another party that has not been so subtle with their illicit methods.

I love how Grace Barre is conversing freely with Connor instead of her husband. Great.

Arkus: How do you know that I didn't just assign the roles at random, hm?
Yeah right.

New info, "She worked closely with Barre-Link as a journalist." She better not have been The Thief... Oh, that name "The Thief" came up.

Arkus acts like he had no idea about the secret passage and he hates going into the library.

"My wife died a year later. She would have told me had she found that passage before then."

It's already 9:20.

Aw yeah, Phoenix searching the top floor and us splitting up, totally no issues happening here. It's 9:22 and Athena is in the main hall.

Connor: We split up about 10m ago.

9:44. (Iving has just been sitting down the whole time, staring at nothing in particular.)
Grace comes out of the lounge door (important?)
Ronald out the lounge. Ken out the library.

Ronald, Connor, then Ken says they don't want a part of this game anymore.

9:51. I guess we aren't going to the kitchen after all.
Connor goes up the stairs, and Phoenix is there, his search didn't really do much. But, Strater's dead.

Connor: I know who did it.
Oh he points at Wright, nice.

Phoenix: I spent around 15 minutes in each room, and I didn't see anyone the whole time.

---
The Witness' account of the murder mystery appears to be a hint about the library... I mean, only The Snoop went there, and could have went to the 2nd floor and back.

---
Oh wow the envelopes got taken! Very interesting... And also funny how "The Thief" was given to the guy that DIDN'T seem to steal an object (rather than Ronald). Connor says it's 'random'... yeah right, when the mystery from -3y involves it.

(I present Witness' Account on the "entirely random" comment... And seriously? It's not it? Why? The identities of it obviously mattered there.)
(I present Phoenix & Athena's Role because it's two colors, and also a fail.)

REALLY? I had to present it on the statement before?!
Oh, that didn't work as I thought.

(I present Witness' account on the statement before, a fail. Then I present "Barre-Link Article", FINALLY works.)

Nice, Connor is a pickpocket and stole a pendant.

I snatched it from Grace's pocket just before the body was found. It was about 9:45 in the main hall.
"Iving pickpocketed it from Grace Barre at 9:45 in the main hall. "With all my love, C." has been engraved on the back." God damn, C for Connor or what?!

Goal: Discover the roles of every other guest.
Really? That's amazing, and the way he does it was so overt it worked on us.

Aww yeah predicted no Killer in the roles. :}

He was trying to find The Killer. I think. I mean that seems obvious. And The Killer is a role held by someone with a role name. (Unless it's Athena which is dumb.)
And why wouldn't The Real Killer try to kill Wright and Athena?

Imagine Wright lied about the library passage, it just leads to a closet lmao. This testimony seems very easy to disprove with the secret passage...

Well... Ken might know about the library passage, but that doesn't fit with The Snoop from 3 years ago also being the same person with the passage. Unless, envelope swap.

Phoenix: But I was searching the two small bedrooms on the west side the whole time.

Really, Ken himself will now confirm? Isn't he the most suspicious?

(I'm gonna present Ken himself on "That means nobody could have used the passage without being seen...")
Yeah that worked.
(I present Barre's Role, which I guess doesn't really work cause I dunno if he actually succeeded in it. And the pendant, but my metaskill failed me.)

Ken gives a sad story about how he also stole a letter from 3 years ago. (Nice thievery. I mean lovery.)

I went straight there, passing by the master bedroom door which was closed at the time.
The strange thing about this setup, if you were in the main hall, couldn't you still see the 2nd story hallway in front of the 2nd floor master bedroom?

HAHAH He took the red painted knife? Genius, you prosecutors are really stupid for saying those were definitely the same knife then.
(Presents Steak Knife.)

Klavier please, someone could have passed by him, he coulda took the knife earlier before the 30 minute "death interval"...

Also looking at the map... god damn the lounge connects to the library. Forgot that. Then more alibis are shattered.

Ronald was in the prosecutor's lobby the whole time, good to know for a "you shouldn't know that" trick.

I had no reason to go wandering around the manor, so I remained there until around 9:50 PM.
Actually his role gives him a reason.

Ronald: '~Grace~: Connor and Grace were in the dining room until they split, Connor remaining in the main hall and Grace entering the lounge from the main hall.'

(I present the obvious contradiction, then I present Barre-Link Article.)
Also the fact that he LOOKED at our envelopes means he cared enough.

Seriously, we are gonna get the important evidence that the prosecution has, withheld from us?

inb4: "You see, I killed Strater and found the things on his body and figured out the roles from tha- oh..."

(I present Pendant and fail. It is the only other 'secret'. And I present Witness' Account and fail.)
Okay got it. Isla, and then Witness' Account.

I think the solution to this testimony is Witness' Account again because Arkus is a person in it, and The Lover was 'by his side'...?

(That gives me two options. Prove Barre's guilt in the case three years ago...)
(...or prove Strater's innocence.)
Doesn't doing the first automatically do the second?

Hm, in that account "The Thief" could have done it too, cause he went in the lounge and could've went to the library.
I wonder if Isla Suicide was ever possible. The victim message implies it but, y'know.
Come to think of it, no-one went into the dining room in that -3y story, did they? So was she not stabbed?

(I present Phoenix/Athena's role for "This entire game was nothing more than a ploy for Strater to direct suspicion away from himself!" cause why'd involve a pro attorney...? Fail. And numerous other fails. This is taking me a while. Is it a memory puzzle?)

...Okay I looked it up with the walkthrough. Yup it's a memory puzzle. Why the Bloody Knife Notes? Why was that it?
I feel this is kinda contrived. I thought Strater just used his own hand to make the bloody handprint. The prints were smudged, how would you tell if there was an actual print?

inb4 SEEKRIT KITCHEN PASWAGE
Actually Grace. Unfortunately I spoiled myself on this one but this possibility of another person was not far. Also I remember her profile said married -2y, not -3y or before.

Did Ronald just say he didn't know about the passage, MALARKEY.

I mean couldn't he use a pre-prepped knife and go to the dining room later to switch it?
(I present Steak Knife on "he also had a chance to take that knife" and fail.)
(I present Athena on "he also had a chance to take that knife" and fail. This time I thought "what'f Athena was watching?")

Wait a minute... Is he not supposed to know that the knife wasn't the same as the original study knife?
(I present Bloody Knife Notes again on "he also had a chance to take that knife.")

Well, Grace *is* quite suspicious, like she's gonna turn evil and reveal her alliance to Connor and how she was scamming Ronald way more or something.

But this testimony seems pretty fair... so far. I think the issue is "forced me"...
(I present Grace Barre on "forced me", under the logic that, if he forced you why did you go and marry him. And nope. Of course. Also god damn Ronald is 15 years older than Grace.)
(I present Barre-Link Article on "crime from three years ago" because it says 4 years ago. Nope.)

Wait what? Secret passage in the STUDY? (I present the Manor Map but it fails.) Is this a typo or what?

Okay I'm looking at the walkthrough again, I cannot ignore all those issues.

Well of course his testimony had to be brought up, but I feel his testimony is too vague of a thing when it doesn't describe the previous actions of everyone. IMO.

(I present Stolen Pendant on "even if I was hiding something" and nope. Too soon to use this I guess.)

Should I expend energy on "swapped envelope" theories now? I mean, I instantly thought of that, but nothing was confirming it. Especially with a contention point like *My role in the murder mystery game was The Seductress.* Like come on.

Well, say Ronald and Grace swapped envelope contents. What does that change? Then she would be responsible for the much bigger theft, and the role details are similar enough.

(I present Barre's Role. Didn't work.)

I feel an issue is that, RONALD's motive was also "I killed anyway cause he coulda revealed my guilt, even though I finished my role requirements" so couldn't it be the same for her?

(I present Barre-Link Article, with the idea that she was behind another thing in it. Didn't work.
I present Isla Strater, with the idea that she covers for Ronald's kill as the motive. Didn't work.
I present Ronald Barre and... that works? Ooooookay.)

Oh.

Oh, that's clever.

Actually, I think the tense of "reveal" doesn't *quite* fix it, because Ronald could've been wrong about the roles and just took a guess that happened to be correct. She had to know about Ronald succeeding in the role, and the way Ronald knew the roles was out of deduction (I believe), not snatching the envelopes. [Future me: OF COURSE there's a flashback that shows him just snatching the role envelope, even though I think he said before that he got most of them by deduction.]

[Future me: To clarify, my issue was (worded better) that Ronald was able to tell all the roles correctly doesn't mean that Grace necessarily knew that Ronald knew all the roles, and since "Grace didn't necessarily know", I don't think it can be used as the basis for this contradiction.]

Oh. Already? We need to say her secret?

Uh oh, I am much less confident about "Adultery" (the obvious one) now...

But Ronald already seems to know, so maybe he doesn't care. Is this the right time for a "Mark Cuckerberg" joke?

Okay wait a minute, why is this being presented as if it's difficult to find physical evidence when the *reason I thought Adultery was the answer + Connor* was the pendant? If that wasn't there I don't think I'd be able to be so sure/figure it out.

What. The pendant (proof) was not held by Grace Barre? Well, I guess he means Strater's proof that the culprit obviously stole.

Okay, I'm getting a bunch of right answers but the higher penalty bar is making me nervously cringe (in a good way) that I'll get it wrong. That's a good touch, I didn't like the penaltyless things in the official games.

And another sad story where it seems Grace was the only "decent" person with all the rest of the 3 being like scammers or something.

HAHAHAHA That god damn ending where Ken is just a gold digger all along. Amazing.
Spoiler : Typos and Errors :
"It might be worth
investigating the
dining room."
Really weird linebreaks, I feel this should be 2 lines.

These lines feel very weird to me:
"back in to the main hall"
"push it back in to line"
Since the word is usually 'into'.

"9.45" (or "9.50", if misread), one of the times spoken uses a dot instead of a colon
"llike" (maybe I misread, but I think there was a double 'l')
"convice us"
"refrence"
"secret passage in the study" It's in the library, not the study, and this is in a cross-examination so it was extra confusing. If you fix any typos after seeing this, please make sure it's this at least.

Also the word "Recieved" is used everywhere in the evidence, but the actual word is "Received". (not that I care, I actually feel both look fine to my eyes honestly)
Spoiler : After finishing impressions :
Pretty good case and some good characterization - liked Ronald (probably not in person, heh) and the surprise with Ken. I may be misunderstanding the character but I felt Ronald had a really nonchalant reaction to the affair, like he's known about it for a while already. And the later detail about the two families implies Ronald treats the marriage like just a formality, like he's not really concerned with how it goes.

I have to agree with Enthalpy's comments on finding only the former of the second part of the trial to be difficult, which is nice because there were about 3 cross-examinations in a row I found tricky (which I appreciate a lot, despite me kind of stumbling through it). And I can't *imagine* anyone not finding the pendant suspicious. It's just sitting there through most of the trial doing nothing and pointing to Connor, IMO. The lone surprise I had was that I thought Grace just had it on her, because how would Strater manage to get ahold of *that*? In story there are already a decent few hints, like Seductress + her talking to Connor being our first impression.

Overall, I wish the pendant thing was more subtle, like hidden as an implication of something else.

I also liked that Widget was there mostly so you could present it to people like a second badge. Didn't see much of Widget in DD and it was a missed opportunity there IMO.
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Gizmological
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Re: [T] A Game of Turnabouts ★

Post by Gizmological »

@Igniam

Thanks for the response!
Spoiler : :
I've fixed the study/library mix-up. Looks like I fixed the testimony portion but not the actual CE the first time around. I'll take a look at everything else when I'm less busy.
Igniam
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Re: [T] A Game of Turnabouts ★

Post by Igniam »

Spoiler : :
Yeah, when I saw the study thing, I thought it was leading to a reveal of "passage from study to kitchen" since you never get to see the kitchen, as well as the open space on the map. Heh.
nikekut456
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Re: [T] A Game of Turnabouts ★

Post by nikekut456 »

I did a BLIND walkthrough of the fancase, thank you very much for the awesome writing.
https://youtu.be/_lzA7RQalAk
Teffyjeffy
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Re: [T] A Game of Turnabouts ★

Post by Teffyjeffy »

So... I dunno if this has something to do with the recent 12/31/2020 update or not but... the game will not load. Instead of the two loading bars (sound and images) showing up, only the loading bar for sound shows up, and the game won't start. This is the case for all three parts. Can someone help? I really really wanted to play this...
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Enthalpy
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Re: [T] A Game of Turnabouts ★

Post by Enthalpy »

See this topic. It's a result of an unannounced AAO update last Saturday, and a high priority to fix, but I have another high priority to deal with first.
[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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Gizmological
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Re: [T] A Game of Turnabouts ★

Post by Gizmological »

Incidentally, things should be back to working as intended with this trial. Thank you both for the heads up!
Teffyjeffy
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Re: [T] A Game of Turnabouts ★

Post by Teffyjeffy »

Can confirm, everything is working! Thanks for the quick response everyone! You guys rule!
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Re: [T] A Game of Turnabouts ★

Post by Aeliren »

Spoiler : :
My first thoughts: I was totally convinced in the first few parts that this was gonna be an Agatha Christie-style closed circle murder mystery, with a killer among us killing the guests off as some kind of sick and twisted game. So Phoenix splitting the party to investigate the secret passage alone and later to search the upstairs bedrooms alone gave me a bit of anxiety. Then I made the connection between the death of Isla and the murder mystery game, and I figured that Arkus wanted us to find out who killed his daughter. Then Arkus turned up dead and I was back to thinking it was a closed circle murder again for a few seconds before the game sent me to the courtroom. Turns out it was just a normal murder with a trial.

It didn't take me long to piece together the significance of the roles of the Snoop, the Thief, the Seductress and the Lover, what past crime their role represented and the piece of evidence pointing to each one's guilt. The lack of a The Killer card confirmed my suspicions that Arkus wanted us, The Detective, to solve the old case of his daughter's death. Figuring out that Grace was cheating on Ronald with Connor was probably the first thing I realized after Connor presented the pendant, and I'll be damned if I wasn't happy to finally make use of it waaaaaaay at the end of the trial. Everything mostly fell in place from there on out, but until the very end I came to think that all the guests (minus Phoenix and Athena for obvious reasons, and I also took Ken out of the equation due to him not having done anything except hide a letter, which didn't seem particularly murder-worthy to me (up until the final reveal that he was a gold digger), and the logistics as explained in the Isla murder case made it impossible for him to have done the deed in the two-three minutes he'd been upstairs) were in on the murder plot together and conspired to cover for one another while someone used the secret passageway to kill Arkus, and in the past Isla, in order to cover up their embezzlement, adultery and selling private information to third parties.

Turns out they were all just backstabbing scumbags working independently to cover their own asses, and each one's gambit domino effected everyone else's schemes, and they were all unmasked.

I was also curious if there would be a "miracle never happen"-style ending if I chose to push for a not guilty verdict when I had the chance, and went back after finishing the game. I will admit my slight disappointment that the choice was a non-choice that only allowed you to progress by picking [...], and having finished the game by the point where I decided to check that part out I think it would've been interesting to have an ending where you're left wondering about the loose ends, maybe some hints towards the identity of Arkus' true killer.

Was a fun ride, though. Characters seemed top-notch, the puzzles were interesting and fun without being too complicated, and there were some good laughs from the dialogue.
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vintprox
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Re: [T] A Game of Turnabouts ★

Post by vintprox »

This case is absolutely brilliant and well-twisted, par with AA as I think!
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