Broken Commandments

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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by The Fury Wraith »

I did offer my services to playtest Rune's trial. Oh well, I'll still be available for it when it is inevitably finished! :redtruth:
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by Trybien »

The Fury Wraith wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 8:09 pm I did offer my services to playtest Rune's trial. Oh well, I'll still be available for it when it is inevitably finished! :redtruth:
Could've offered to collab instead.
Regardless, excited to play new Rune trial. Sounds interesting.
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by TimeAxis »

A Turnabout With Too Many Faces by DWaM
Spoiler : Screenshot :
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Spoiler : Synopsis :
Someone going by the moniker "The Fiend With Too Many Faces" has kidnapped a group of people in a hotel, where they're trapped until the blizzard outside lets up. There's only one rule: No murdering each other.
Spoiler : Review :
Story:
This is the kind of case that works best when you go in as blind as possible, so there's not much I can say without spoiling things. What I will say is that this is an extremely long case (it clocked in at about 8 hours for me) and it's very ambitious. It might be tempting to suggest that a case like this bites off more than it can chew. But as it turns out, it chews every bite it takes, and then some. Somehow, this story takes a tangled mess of plot threads and weaves them together into a well written and relatively satisfying story. Despite being long, it doesn't feel like it's dragging on or it's repetitive. It's just jam-packed with content.

The moment-to-moment writing was stand-out. All of the characters felt very alive. Existing Ace Attorney characters felt in-character (with some minor liberties taken in some parts), but more importantly, dialogue just flowed very well. Characters were constantly rattling off witty one-liners and the writing felt mature in tone, having a good handle on when to take itself seriously and when to goof around. While there were some small parts that I felt were slightly clunkily handled or difficult to follow, for the most part there was a very consistent quality to the story.

Characters:
Something especially impressive about how the characters were handled is how thoroughly their personalities and backgrounds were utilized. It really felt like DWaM took each character and made use of all the tools in the metaphorical toolbox those characters provided. There wasn't a single character who I felt didn't get enough of a spotlight.

Overall, I have to say that the story and characters were excellent. I tried not to let myself be influenced, but a lot of people hyped up a "DWaM trial" as something special, and if all it means is having really good writing, and the rest are as good as this one, then I kind of get it now.

Presentation:
The presentation of this case was also impeccable. I had some minor complaints about one particular music track which I felt was a bit unfitting and distracting, and there were a few minor standard Ace Attorney conventions that weren't followed with 100% faithfulness to the games, but I don't hold those against the case, because the music is a preference thing, and even in breaking Ace Attorney conventions, it was consistent in the conventions it chose to follow. In terms of visuals, it was gorgeous. A number of custom sprites were used to great effect, and there is lot going on visually with this case that can't really be summed up in words, but it's all great. What was extremely surprising to me was how this case was so long and yet I never ran into a single visual glitch. Admittedly, I did take about 6 different breaks, some of which lasted multiple days, so I didn't play it all in one go, so maybe that helped, but still, it was clear that great care went into making sure that the case was nice and polished.

Gameplay:
If there's one weak point to this case, it would have to be the gameplay. But when I say it's a weak point, I'm comparing it to the otherwise excellent story and presentation. For the most part, the gameplay was good. On more than one occasion, however, the case logic and contradictions felt way too obtuse. Normally in an Ace Attorney Game, the game will try to steer the player in the right direction and help them save time by ruling out certain possibilities, but in this case there were a number of times where you really can't trust the hints the game gives you, and it's not always clear whether it's intentional. In some of those cases, it can be argued that there's some thematic and narrative value in the game intentionally leading you astray, but in practice, intentional or no, this just results in those moments not being very fun.

There were also some points that I felt were unncessarily convoluted in terms of implementation. To give an example, there was one instance where you get a new piece of evidence mid-testimony, and that new piece of evidence seems to contradict one of the witness's statements, but presenting on that statement was wrong. Instead, the solution was to press the witness's statement again (after you'd already been required to press it once before), answer a question in a completely unintuitive way so that the statement unpredictably changes to a slightly different way of saying the exact same thing, and only then can you present the thing that should probably have worked equally well before. I happened to luck into finding this new statement, but I could totally see someone getting completely stuck there. Other times, you'd have situations where dialogue or the framing of a question will be set up in such a way to make you think "okay, the game clearly does not want this from me right now", but then it turns out it actually does want exactly that from you. A number of those situations led to me presenting literally every single possible option besides the correct option because I thought "this could not possibly be the right answer." It's just very unintuitive and feels like it was unnessarily crafted with the intention of misleading the player for the sake of inflated difficulty, and not in a challenging or thought-provoking way.

But I'm nitpicking a little. The times when I felt frustrated by the obtuseness of the contradictions numbered about three to four times, in an otherwise extremely long case. Ace Attorney mechanics like dialogue trees, investigation, and so on, were all present and well implemented. If anything, saying that the gameplay is "only good" is a testament to how great the rest of this case is. My complaints are solely about the implementation of the mystery in gameplay. The mystery itself was well thought out, and the contradictions and twists were consistently interesting.

Theme Relevance:
Oh boy, where do I start? All I can really say without giving too much away is that this case absolutely nails the theme. When I was coming up with the idea for this theme, this case, while obviously being its own beast, fits the exact mold of what I had in mind in pretty much every way. It breaks and follows rules in a recognizable fashion while still telling a compelling and cohesive Mystery story. It constantly brings Knox's Commandments to mind as you play through it. Where some cases might fall into the trap of deconstructing the rules without putting the pieces back together into something that makes sense and has a solution, this case takes the following and/or breaking of its chosen rules and extrapolates them to their logical conclusions.

Along with the stellar presentation and writing, the Theme Relevance is pretty much perfect as well. I've got no complaints in this area. It was just a good old fashioned mystery, but packed full of its own twists and turns.
Spoiler : Overall :
PROS
  • Presentation was excellent
  • Moment-to-moment dialogue was extremely well written
  • Perfectly encapsulates the theme and spirit of this competition
CONS
  • Sometimes sacrifices gameplay for the sake of its narrative
  • Case Logic implementation can be frustratingly obtuse or misleading at times
As always, let me know if you want the link to my first impressions, but it's gonna take a bit for it to be done processing, for obvious reasons.
Last edited by TimeAxis on Fri Feb 04, 2022 5:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by DWaM »

Ah, most excellent, most excellent indeed. With both judges enjoying it, it appears my fears from a few weeks back were unfounded.

I'd once again like to thank the beta-testers -- Naomi's feedback in particular -- for helping make the case as polished as it is (and not just in terms of general presentation). The efforts are all the more appreciated given how long the case seems to actually be playtime-wise. i could never really calculate frames into playtime. (Which probably indirectly contributed to the cases being as long as they are.)

And yeah, I'd definitely be interested in the first impressions.

Thanks for playing!
Spoiler : :
A shame that one song didn't really gel tho.
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by The Fury Wraith »

Trybien wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 8:48 pm
The Fury Wraith wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 8:09 pm I did offer my services to playtest Rune's trial. Oh well, I'll still be available for it when it is inevitably finished! :redtruth:
Could've offered to collab instead.
Regardless, excited to play new Rune trial. Sounds interesting.
Alas, by the time I had considered to offer that, I'd already begun betatesting DWaM's entry.

Speaking of which, I'd like to thank DWaM again for making it! I had a blast playtesting it and I hope my feedback and error fishing was of some use.

I'll admit, the only other DWaM case I've played was Turnabout Tomorrow, which I was ultimately a bit mixed on back in the day. However, that was like the first or so case DWaM ever made around here and the quality for a first attempt in that was still really high. Regardless, it was just then so nice to see how ATWTMF shows that the writing and quality has only improved so much by now. General gripes I had with TT are just nonexistent here. I had a lot of difficulty just finding points of critique in ATWTMF that weren't just nitpicks... I honestly really don't WANT to be singing DWaM's praises like this, since I hate hype like nobody's business, but this really was a good quality case and I also don't want to lie... Definitely give it a try when it gets released to the public, because it really is worth the 8 to 12 hours of playtime if you ask me.
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by Naomi* »

TimeAxis wrote: it clocked in at about 8 hours
The Fury Wraith wrote: 12 hours of playtime
Agreed, look forward to all 18 hours of gameplay!
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by risefromtheashes »

Naomi* wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 10:43 pm
TimeAxis wrote: it clocked in at about 8 hours
The Fury Wraith wrote: 12 hours of playtime
Agreed, look forward to all 18 hours of gameplay!
Gonna need to do a 24-hour charity livestream where I play a DWaM case now.
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by TimeAxis »

Quick heads up, but I've been pretty sick for the past few weeks, and it's been getting a little worse lately, so I haven't been able to judge these cases as quickly as I'd like. I'm hopeful that my condition will improve enough in the next few days to get back to it sooner rather than later, but worst case, I might end up having to abandon the recording idea, and if things get significantly worse, I may have to leave Awsome2464 to judge on their own for this one. But for now that's just the worst case, so hopefully it doesn't come to that.

Just trying to keep everyone in the loop cause I imagine some of you may have been getting antsy at how long it's been taking. I don't expect my reviews will be done by the end of the year, either way, but playing through these cases is a high priority for me, so I'm hoping to get back to it as soon as possible.
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by Trybien »

Health before arbitrary self-imposed online obligations I say. I hope Awsome's doing okay since its been a hot second since one of his reviews.
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by Awsome2464 »

Trybien wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:05 pm Health before arbitrary self-imposed online obligations I say.
I agree. I hope you feel better soon, Time.
Trybien wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:05 pm I hope Awsome's doing okay since its been a hot second since one of his reviews.
I'm okay, just been busy as of late, especially with the holidays coming up quickly. I hope to have my next review out before Christmas, possibly finish them all by the end of the year, but don't hold me to that.
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by applekitty »

I'm going to take a wild guess and say Awsome is going to declare themselves the winner of the comp tomorrow. :P
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by Awsome2464 »

Review: "The Savory Turnabout" by bannedfrom7 and Super legenda
Spoiler : :
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What an interesting time that was.

Synopsis: A murder occurs during a competition, and Guy Eldoon is arrested, leaving Athena and Trucy to defend him.

Spoiler : Broken/Followed Commandments :
Currently unknown
Story: Right off the bat, what I love the most about this entry is how canon it feels. Aside from one very obviously meta joke at the beginning, this case feels like something you would find in an actual Ace Attorney game, and I absolutely love it. As per usual in an Athena-centered fan case, Trucy is our assistant, and the dynamic between the two is written wonderfully. We also see a lot familiar faces in this case, some being series regulars and others being case one-offs, but they're all believably written and feel like they should. The story itself is also fairly straightforward and believable, and the original characters that accompany it feel right at home in this universe. While there was one moment in particular that I felt overstayed its welcome and just got annoying, everything else was paced smoothly and naturally. Sadly, the case is currently incomplete and contains only the Investigation, but the ending of said investigation leaves a lot of questions to be asked, making for a great cliffhanger.

Presentation: Since this plays out like a standard Ace Attorney case, the presentation fits very well and helps add to the canon feeling. However, there are a few nitpicks I feel I need to point out about this section. For starters, the music that plays in the Anything Agency sounds very quiet, which is very noticeable against the loud text blips. There was also one character in the entry who still didn't have a Court Record entry by the end. But the biggest complaint I had with this was that during one Examine scene, items that were mandatory to find were very difficult for me to both spot and click on, as they blended fairly well with their surroundings compared to the other clickable items. As I stated, these are definitely more of nitpicks, and I'll admit the last one might have just been me being blind, but they're still things I noticed and felt were worth mentioning. But overall, the presentation was clean and felt right, with the use of custom backgrounds and characters being well-selected to fit their roles.

Gameplay: The only real issue I had with the gameplay was the previous mention of lack of spotting and clicking on a few items in an Examine scene. I honestly got stuck at one point and was unsure where to go and what to do, and when I read the guide, I actually felt a bit annoyed because I was unsure how I was expected to see that. But like I said, that might just be me expecting I had already found everything, but it's certainly something I hope the creators take into account when they (hopefully) continue this entry. Aside from that, it was your typical Ace Attorney Investigation gameplay.

Theme Relevance: There's really not enough clear evidence as to which rule or rules are being broken and followed. While I have some guesses and speculation based on ways the story could go from this, I don't have anything definitive, and this, by default, makes this the weakest element of the entry in my eyes.

Final Thoughts: Overall, "The Savory Turnabout" does a great job at feeling like your typical Ace Attorney case. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if this was secretly a case for AA7! The only real things holding it back are that one instance of being stuck due to hard-to-spot clickables and the currently unclear use of the comp theme. I truly hope the creators finish this case, as there is definitely a great experience to be had here!
I apologize for this taking longer than anticipated to write up; the past 2 weeks have been crazy for me in multiple ways, but I should be able to finish the final 2 reviews quickly. Also, after speaking with TimeAxis, he should be ready to get back to judging within a few days. Once again, I apologize on behalf of both of us for the judging taking longer than what everyone would like.
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by Trybien »

Moral of the story: Don't bait a bunch of Ace Attorney nerds with an awesome prompt before the holidays.
Spoiler : :
Also fsr I'm suddenly hungry for salty noodles...
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by Awsome2464 »

Notice: By request of the creators, as well as my agreement with the statement, I must let you know that this completed case is best experienced completely blind. Therefore, this review is best to be viewed only by the judges and creators until the case's release. They've also requested we redact information such as the Broken Commandment(s), character names, and even the title, a request I will oblige to.

Review: DLA and enigma's entry
Spoiler : :
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The beginning of something truly unique.

Synopsis: An anthology collection of stories all revolving around disappearances occurring in the town of Albertson.

Broken and Followed Commandments: [REDACTED]

Story: There's really no one way to go about describing this entry's story, as it's comprised of multiple stories, each with a different tone and style. But like any good anthology, they all share something in common. In this case, a series of disappearances, and possibly murders, have been occurring in the town of Albertson. We follow multiple people over time as the disappearances get more and more numerous, with later stories showcasing just how impactful it is on the townspeople. Something I'll absolutely give props for is how unique each story is to each other, making it feel like a new experience each time. That being said, with how different the stories can be, some are going to be stronger than others, and there were a few where I thought it was "meh" at best to confusing at worst. But that also means that I didn't dislike or hate any of them, so kudos for that. This is more of a presentation critique, but it relates to the story: the lack of profiles in the Court Record was noticeable and often left me confused on who everyone was, so in terms of the characters of this story, not a lot of them stick out to me in the long run. But the biggest flaw I have with this entry is the ending. While I'm thankful that it has one, especially with the scale of this entry, it felt more like a "it stopped, not ended" scenario. Personally, it left me feeling a bit mixed on how to feel. But overall, the narrative was very interesting, and it was the most unique of the entries I've seen so far. I'm still blown away that the creators managed to complete the case with how complex this entry is.

Presentation: The best way to describe the presentation of this entry is "cinematic". I felt like I was watching a movie or TV show with how the overall entry and each individual chapter was presented. As exciting as that is, the presentation does have some issues, I feel. As stated above, each story has a lack of profiles in the Court Record section, even though each new story gives us new "evidence". I'm not quite sure what the reason for that was, but it really made it hard for me to remember who certain characters were, even if they were just introduced (though to be fair, a few names that were referenced later down the line did a ring a bell, but having actual profiles would've been preferred to help better cement them to memory). There were also a few things I found odd, as well, such as no notification sound when getting new evidence, one character being completely grayscale, randomly losing HP at one point (I assume it was meant to be flashing), and certain evidence images being so big that it was a bit hard to study them, something that was essential to that particular story. There was also a moment while playing that resulted in a "The End" block after completing a segment of the story, despite it not being at the end of the story. This was an issue that was thankfully patched but still worth noting. But despite all the criticisms, I did enjoy the overall cinematic presentation that was given. Plus, it had the most mind-blowing element of all: the "music" of the scene being a full hour-long radio broadcast, featuring actual songs and DJ voiceover. I always appreciate creators going the extra mile like that, so major props.

Gameplay: Similar to how each chapter has a different and unique story, they also have a different and unique gameplay mechanic. Some are basic AA mechanics, such as questioning someone and presenting evidence that contradicts it, but there are quite a few that are very unique for the AAO engine, from making and serving cocktails in a similar manner to the Tea minigame from "Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box" to participating in a Vtuber chat (I'm completely serious). However, there were a few issues I had regarding some aspects of gameplay. For example, in the cocktail mixing segment, you're given a list on how to make certain drinks and what their overall descriptions are, providing clues on if it'll match what the customer wants. However, there was one customer where literally none of the listed cocktails worked. As it turns out, you had to do something where there was no implication or indication that that was ever an option. Another segment I wasn't the biggest fan of was a segment where you had to use someone's own words against them as a contradiction, similar to something from PLvsPW or GAAC. While good in theory, there are SO many segments to choose from, all of which seeming a bit vague in nature, and words from earlier in the "testimony" can be used, even though you might've even forgotten they existed by that point. And the overall combination possibilities are way too high to just guess through, so it overall created an overwhelming experience for me. But that all being said, some gameplay segments were very enjoyable. Excluding that one moment in the cocktail segment, the overall game was fun and reminiscent of my favorite Layton minigame. There was also a segment where you needed to look at multiple pieces of evidence and link them together through connections, whether they be clear subtle. The connections were able to found eventually through close examination and made me feel very smart when I pieced everything together. So while calling this entry a "minigame collection" is underselling it, it's ultimately the simplest way to describe it, and like with any minigame collection, you're going to have something for everyone while simultaneously having things that don't work for some people. But overall, I applaud the creativity in this department!

Theme Relevance: To be perfectly blunt, I'm not really a fan of the execution of the broken rule(s). While I can understand what was being attempted, I wasn't really satisfied with the end result. If anything, it reminded me why these "rules" exist in the first place. To be fair, this was one of the harder rules to break while being satisfying, so I admire the attempt, but it just didn't do it for me in the end.

Final Thoughts: I know I feel like I've been harsh against this entry, but I don't want to sell the accomplishments here short. To sum up my overall thoughts, this entry is way too good to be an AAO case. I feel like this needs to be adapted to a better engine and be on Steam, as it's that original and complex with its ideas and execution. While some elements didn't work for me, that's the risk you take with a setup like this, and the fact that the risk was taken and fully completed in three months is something I won't stop praising it for. Assuming someone's ignored the warning at the beginning and read the review without playing the case first, I implore you to play it, as it's an experience unlike anything else on AAO.
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Re: Broken Commandments

Post by enigma »

Thanks for the review, it was a great read! A bit of a response below (with the same no-peeking demand threat law reccomendation in place for everyone else, of course.)
Spoiler : :
I'm glad to hear we succeeded in creating something that stands out; that's really what we were mainly hoping for. I'm incredibly flattered by those final thoughts, especially. I take that as high praise. I'm incredibly happy to see that going for things like the radio broadcast was worth the effort! I've been mostly terrified that the response would be "...okay, but why?" so it's good to see it was not in vain.

I'm also very pleased to note that, among those which were hit with the deadline bat, we've been planning to expand both the ending and the cocktail section before release (along with some other things, some smaller and some larger) so I hope you'll revisit it once the game's out to the public. I'm hoping the definitive version will strike a better balance with being more satisfying in respect to the theme aspect without sacrificing what we were going for. We knew going in that, along with... pretty much everything, we were taking a big risk but we basically figured we'd just go nuts with it and hope for every one thing that didn't land, there would be three that did. (At the least, we just wanted to make something that we could safely say hasn't been done on AAO before.) As for profiles, that was an intentional choice to incentivise revisiting scenes and for thematic reasons, but I'm now wondering if there might be some kind of middle ground so that it's not too difficult to keep track of how things connect. As for the notification sound, honestly, I think we just totally forgot that was a thing. Definitely something to consider before release. (We'll also want to find that stray penalty because that definitely shouldn't be the case.)

Overall, thank you for playing and I really appreciate the review! I hope that when we do release the game to the public that everyone else finds it just as unique!
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