I can tell you're a writer based on the strength of your dialogue. Writing believable dialogue is one of the hardest things to do successfully in an AA game, and you clearly have a great grasp of it. All of the characters were generally in character as well, though with a few issues that I'll elaborate on later.
Thank you, that's nice to hear. I've been writing for about seven years now, but I was still worried I'd end up butchering everyone.
I'm not sure how many other cases you've played on AAO, but this case reminds me a lot of DWaM's later works. The point of the case is to tell a story—about this world in which Trucy was adopted by Kristoph—and the AA gameplay medium is used as a narrative device to convey the story you want to tell. As such, we're not really playing through this trial like a typical game. There's no mystery to solve, and the player isn't particularly challenged to figure anything out. This isn't a bad thing by any means, but there are some issues with how you execute it.
The point of a trial in AA is generally this: the prosecution presents a rock solid argument, and we have to go through evidence and testimony to fight against their argument and try and prove our client's innocence. That formula isn't really possible here, because Kristoph is guilty! But because of this, the way you have the trial segment structured doesn't really work.
The problem is that the prosecution never really presents a compelling case. We have several prompts early on (during the opening statement!) in which Apollo points out explicitly how disorganized the prosecution's case is. We don't even get to the actual proof of the murder until the third cross-examination from Orly. This causes the case to feel oddly disjointed, which I think is the opposite effect than you would want in this situation. The reason I say that is because you have a really interesting premise grounded in dramatic irony: Apollo is trying to prove Kristoph is innocent, while we know all along that he's guilty. Since that's the case, why shouldn't the prosecution's case be decisive? Having us witness Apollo desperately try to fight the prosecution's case, while we are fully aware he's going to fail, would be a lot more effective in my opinion. To do this, the prosecution's case shouldn't be disorganized—it should be brutally effective. The opening statement should be decisive, and really, I think you only need two testimonies. Orly to testify about the murder occurring, and Phoenix to testify about the victim's bald head. As it stands right now, Gumshoe's testimony and Orly's first testimony... well, they don't really have much purpose. The only gameplay is pressing statements and selecting "there's a problem" to get Apollo to point out an issue. This isn't really that engaging for the player! For this kind of trial (where it's really just a narrative device), I would recommend to keep things highly simple and only have one or two evidence presents. Here's how I would do it:
I've played a couple of DWaM's cases, and now that you mention it I guess I had some inspiration there. I definitely understand where you're coming from here; flow of trial logic has never been my strength. Thank you for your feedback on this.
von Karma presents the basics of her case. We have two pieces of evidence: the deadly bottle, and a photograph of the crime scene that contains the two pictures (the one with Zak in his hat and the one with his bald head). She tells the court that Kristoph Gavin struck Enigmar with the bottle and killed him. They have two witnesses who can prove this. Around this point, Kristoph mentions the cards wreathed in blue flame, which will come up later. Apollo notes how strange that statement is. First, Orly testifies. It's basically the same as the current second testimony. She states in her testimony that the bottle was cracked, as well as the fact that a card was missing. After the testimony but before the CE, Franziska tells us about the ashes found at Kristoph's home, and Kristoph objects and makes the argument about his daughter. Next, in the CE, Apollo points out the contradiction to the bottle in evidence. Rather than do this through a press, Apollo should just present the bottle on a statement where she says the bottle was cracked.
This leads to the investigation of the crime scene, and Kristoph objects. Apollo presses on despite Kristoph's opposition, we get a recess, and then back to the trial.
Phoenix testifies, and when we press the statement about what Kristoph said, we're offered a prompt to present the crime scene photo to show how Kristoph shouldn't have known about the victim's bald head. This is when Apollo starts to realize that Kristoph is guilty. He thinks back to what Kristoph said earlier about the blue flame, and asks Phoenix about the color of the cards. Phoenix tells him blue, and Apollo has his breakdown as he realizes that Kristoph is guilty.
The bottle comes back, and we prove Kristoph is the real killer. The trial ends with a guilty verdict.
I know that's a pretty significant restructuring of that part of your case, but I think it would be
substantially more effective for accomplishing what you want to do narratively. Plus, it would be relatively short and sweet. You have lots of prompts in the current setup of the trial, but I would actually suggest against it. The point of the trial section is to advance the narrative--all we really need are those couple of basic evidence presents to accomplish that.
I see, thank you! I'm not sure if or when I'd be able to go back and edit things, as like you said it would be a substantial restructure and with how much I like to fiddle around, it could take me a really long time. Despite this, I'll keep your feedback in mind for my future cases. You make a lot of excellent points and your help is deeply appreciated.
Now, on to some other matters. Re: characters, I think Trucy and Kristoph need some work. Trucy's main problem is a lack of screentime. We don't get enough time with her to really sense how being adopted by Kristoph changed her personality. There's definitely some hints there, but I really think the case would benefit by spending a lot more time with Trucy. Re: Kristoph, he's just a bit too... stoic, maybe? He's the coolest defense in the west, but he feels less confident and cool and more robotic and stiff. I'd spend some time focusing on his dialogue in AJ and see if you can adjust it a bit. It's not bad by any means, but it felt a little off as I was playing it.
In terms of the overall story... to be honest, it's just too short. I know you have that fanfic (which I hope to get around to reading sometime!) that goes into a lot more depth, but this case just doesn't give us enough information about the world. We get some flashbacks to Apollo and Trucy's meeting and how their relationship progressed, and I found myself wishing that those flashbacks were actually shown to us as full sections of the game. You also reference Trucy being accused of murder at one point, which I assume is explained in the full story, but it feels a bit jarring that it's dumped on us here and never really explained.
I think you could add a lot more to this case, and if you do, you'd have something really interesting on your hands. One thing you could consider doing is telling a dual narrative--something cool about the editor is the ability to transfer variables between cases. That way you could have a "Present" case (currently part 1) and the "Three Years Ago" case (currently part 2), and we could switch back and forth between them. That way, you could slowly unravel the story and explain the nature of this AU. Of course, that'd be a lot of work, and you may just want to keep the details contained to your fanfic, which is fine. I just think you have the potential to write a really compelling case if you expand upon it.
Duly noted on all counts. As much as I wanted to get deeper into this, I didn't have enough time on my hands to fully reconstruct my entire narrative in the casemaker (or at least in a way that I'd be proud of). Again, restructuring the whole thing would take me a lot of time, but I'll definitely consider it.
A few other random details. You could benefit from using some more sound effects, more shakes, more flashes, and more variations in the text speed. All of these are minute, but they can build up to really improve the presentation of your case. The way you use fades is a little strange as well--you only ever include fade ins, but never fade outs. Usually, fades occur in two parts, where we fade the screen out and then back in on the new character/bg/etc. This is a fairly easy way to improve presentation. In a couple places, you use asterisks for emphasis like *this*. I don't believe this is ever done in the canon games--usually, the text is either capitalized or in orange to show emphasis. Generally, I'd recommend you check out
this guide by Enthalpy. It contains lots of little tips and tricks about presentation that can go a long way.
Believe it or not, this released version has significantly more sound effects etc than it did right when I first submitted it. Even so, I'll see about adding more for polish. I was struggling with getting all the fades to work properly (still learning all parts of the editor), which lead me to cutting the problematic fades entirely to avoid that headache. I'll have to look deeper into it to see what I was doing wrong. Asterisk use is noted; I'll take that out eventually.
Alright, that's all I've got for now. This ended up being a lot longer than I expected, lol. Overall, despite all my comments, I really enjoyed this! It was especially impressive for a relatively new author on AAO. A lot of cases fail in the basics, and your case avoids a lot of the common pitfalls I'm used to seeing from new authors. Overall, great work!
By the way, I noticed you never have a wide shot of the courtroom when the audience is talking. If you'd like, I can make the miniature sprites for you to add. Since you're only using canon characters, it'd actually be pretty quick and easy for me to do. Feel free to shoot me a PM.
Thank you! It means a lot that you spent the time to fully review my case. I knew it would be far from perfect, but I did my best to avoid falling into common traps in casemaking. I still see the Debug menu when I close my eyes sometimes. Also, that's an incredible kind offer of you, and I may take you up on your offer if and when I make major edits.