The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AAO

Join in with competitions to make the best trials... with a twist!

Moderator: EN - Forum Moderators

User avatar
kwando1313
Posts: 7684
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:33 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Français (un peu), Ancient Belkan
Location: Uminari City

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by kwando1313 »

Actually... Was wondering... Who submitted their entries?

Also, does that link at the bottom of your sig mean that Burial Part 3 is coming out this month?
Avatar made by Rimuu~

Image

"The Knight of the Iron Hammer, Vita, and the Steel Count, Graf Eisen. There's nothing in this world we can't destroy."
User avatar
Rtaos Grimm
Posts: 309
Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:56 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Rtaos Grimm »

I think there were four entries submitted this time.
Status: Tired and out of it.

Bullet Tooth Tony: "Boris the Blade?
Solomon: "Yeah."
Bullet Tooth Tony: "As in Boris the Question Dodger?"
Solomon: *nods head*
Cousin Avi: "Why do they call him the Question Dodger?"
*pause*
Bullet Tooth Tony: "Because he dodges questions, Avi."

Adapted from the film "Snatch"
User avatar
Blackrune
Posts: 3805
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:11 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, German, Japanese
Location: The Submarine

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Blackrune »

Nice guess, but there are actually five entries. We have another secret challenger.... buuut I see no real need to tell you who it is until I actually get to them~.

And yes, kwando. Probably.

Spoiler : Review for Zeta's and kwando's entry HEAVY SPOILERS :
Gates of Sacrifice
Suddenly Soviet Russia, then a case.
I'm pretty sure it's multiple gates now, not just one gate. Couldn't have picked a better name though. I'm not sure what to say in an introduction here, except that I got really excited about this case quickly, because I secretly hoped someone would go for something like this. Well, there's also the fact I've wanted to do something like this myself but I guess you beat me to it now. The question now, of course, is how well you've pulled it off. Let's start with the plot!
Plot:
AA x Dangan Ronpa x Zero Escape. (and... some random umineko, I guess?)
Fortunately, this doesn't sum up the plot at all. There's certainly inspiration, but you've added your own idea instead of simply copying a concept. So it feels fresh, the whole thing with being able to forgive murderers, and those gates they have to sacrifice people for. They're dealing with different dilemmas than the people in the other works. Haven't seen it like this on AAO before, so you've got something fairly innovative here.
I also liked that this wasn't simply one murder mystery after another. Instead of going completely episodic, everything CONNECTS. There are still unresolved questions from the first murder, we got several people with secrets apparently lurking in the dark. This is obviously better than everything just returning to the status quo after each murder. Always better to have lasting consequences... I sincerely hope everything will actually make sense at the end, but for now I'm giving the benefit of the doubt. A direct result of connecting everything like that is that the plot stays full of intrigue and surprises. Especially after passing the first gate, there's way more to wonder about than the actual case at hand. Which is entirely appropiate for this situation. As for the mysteries, the contradictions were sometimes a little borderline logic, but never completely incomprehensible reasoning. I didn't quite like that both killers were caught because of their own stupidity in their testimonies but I guess they're human after all. It was possible to follow even when things got a little complex with the movements of people. The pace was appropiate, never moving too fast or too slow. Sometimes it bordered on being a little too slow, but maybe that was just me being at the edge of my seat. A fairly great performance.
Characters:
You fared best in this category.
It's amazing how different these characters are. Not only that, none of them struck me as flat or stereotypical. I guess the fairly slow pace paid off to establish them well. The whole situation has also to do with it, you're suspecting everyone to have some kind of secret, keeping them interesting. We've got a lot of dialogue between them, sometimes witty exchanges, sometimes a good direct conflict. I liked most of them by the end of it. There were only some instances at the beginning where it was on the edge of being too much talking... but it never really went to the point where I actually got bored by it, so you get a pass.
Let's quickly go through them.
Dylan: To be honest, at first he didn't really feel like he'd be some kind of rebel leader. He seemed to not really be doing anything until the first trial, letting the others talk it out en masse, but whatever. He gets better later. There's are still some other interesting points about him in the end which didn't just make him feel like a faceless player character. Though this actually connects with the gameplay, it didn't always feel like you're actually playing as him. Heck, sometimes it's not even him shouting "HOLD IT" when you press something. The player doesn't actually make many choices for him. There's not a single choice you can make to form his opinion per se, he decides by himself whether to forgive a murderer or not. Which I guess keeps him more interesting, he's got his own opinions on stuff and doesn't just let the player decide for him. Though it also meant I felt slightly less connected to him in the usual way, it's nothing bad. Turns him from a game!protagonist to a book!protagonist or something. Fair enough.
Theresa: So for most of it she just seemed like a Kirigiri expy that looks like Sakuya Izayoi, but dat ending saved her from getting stamped off as that.
Leslie: Again, seemed like a generic jerk at first... so I'm glad I checked out her second free time event. Took her a while, but she's out of the generic zone now as well. The second trial also saves her a little.
Nola: Other second free time event I picked after almost spending it on Theresa. Which means I found the maid. ACE RUNE So basically my theory now is that the whole second crime was the revenge of Roone's maid. Yeah, sounds good to me. I felt like she could've said or revealed a little more, but I guess everyone would considering her character.
Lilly: Zeta, I'm noticing you have a child (or a character looking like one, I guess) in every one of your recent trials. This one's certainly unique for... not necessarily being a child and having a... drug addiction. Yeah, sure... fine by me. Entertaining enough and probably hasn't been done before like this. Gets a pass.
Hercule: You know, his testimony was both a nice warm-up exercise as well as a nice way for some comic relief. So yeah, I liked him. Then he died a horrible death but hey I asked for despair.
Porsha: ...To be honest I'm not sure what to say about her. I guess she didn't have as much time to establish herself though.
George: Maybe I should've checked out his free time events... I feel like I somehow missed his character establishment. He seemed fairly nice though. Except for burning down Roone's mansion. Never forget.
Richard: He's, like, the obligatory despair character. But you managed to not overdo it so it never gets actually annoying. He's the kind of character that easily falls into just repeating himself and getting boring, but that didn't happen here. Well, this is just my taste, but if they don't overdo it I find this kind of angsty crazy character extremely amusing.
John: Pretty well-established. He's also pretty good at creating conflict within the group. So he's kind of the guy that always makes things more interesting. Approved.
Phil: "Philo" plz. Well it's nice to have an old guy around as well. Wasn't sure what to think of him first, but I'm almost certain he's involved in pulling some strings. Then he suddenly fell into apathy, for which there's probably some explanation later. I should go back and check the other free time events. (didn't want to reload the first time to keep it an authentic playthrough)
Beatrice: wat. Well, okay then. Why ....Why is she an exact copy down to the name but with different backstory? I need to go back and check her free time event but kwando pls that's so random. It actually prevented me from taking her seriously as her own character. It's just weird to throw her in like that, with no deeper purpose. But at least you killed her off quickly. I still don't get it though.
Golus: Not enough info to judge. But apparently he's not completely evil. We'll see.
Fran: Seemed like another fairly random throw-in. She didn't seem to have any significant function during the trial, but you revealed a point to it later. So having a different "judge" was justified by the plot, though it being Fran still seems slightly random. I can live with that though, do what you want with your own characters.

And that's the characters. To sum it up, everything about them seemed right. Except Beatrice, that just seemed like a weird choice.
Presentation:
You know what's next. You can't escape it, Zeta. The typos, they're your eternal companions, even obscuring the meaning of your sentences here and there. Though it wasn't that bad... got a little worse towards the end. Definitely present though. Should be proofread again.
Putting THAT aside, presentation was ok. You got some nice pictures and visual effects.
Music choices were good. There was one that felt out of place but I can't even remember.
Some sound effects were misplaced, there was random cheering somewhere. Characters weren't hidden when they should've have been during some background changes. We've got some wrong blips here and there. There were a lot of missing wait timers and blank frames. But variety in backgrounds and cool extra graphics saved it from being that bad. You could certainly have done better though. I guess with that huge an entry it's hard to catch every last of these small things.
Gameplay:
We've got some talking to do. About game-breaking bugs. Cmon, you gotta catch these during testing. And I've got two of them here. (though one isn't exactly game-breaking, it still counts.)
First, this testimony. "Discussion: Why She Left". Now I couldn't figure it out after trying some things, so I looked at the walkthrough, which curiously enough suggested something to me I'd already tried. But presenting Leslie's testimony just wouldn't work. INSTEAD, presenting George's testimony worked. But this wasn't merely the walkthrough being wrong... ohhh no, it's clear from the trial that what I SHOULD have presented there was indeed Leslie's testimony. I'm not sure how nobody would've noticed this one.
Next, even more serious. Actually made it impossible to proceed.. During the second investigation, there's simply no way to return to the corridor from George's room. You're trapped there forever. On top of that, there was no way to get to the main hall and everything connected to it. I was fortunately able to not miss anything by avancing into the main hall, investigating everything connected to it, THEN proceeding to the lounge and wrapping things up in George's room. Still, you really should've caught those two missing connections.
Now... I feel there wasn't that much gameplay compared to story. Which is fine by me and works well here. Really would've loved to give Golan a name though, you tease. And vote on the murderers myself, but hey... that made it an interesting read in its own way because the protagonist was his own entitiy and not just a medium for the player.
I actually noticed this had a proper difficulty curve. Starting with that easy crack-theory denying and slowly going up to more solid claims. Yes, you've done well on that. It never went into unreasonable territory either. just some good old contradiction-presenting. Nothing new, but still a little fresh in that it's presented more like a discussion. Never got boring either, though as I said it's not like there was tons of gameplay anyway. Most of what's there was alright, except the bugs mentioned above.
Having to investigate an empty square on the ground felt rather unintuitive though, hinted at or not. I mean, couldn't you have edited SOMETHING in? If there was something there I certainly didn't see it.
Theme Relevance:
Well, yes. We've certainly got the despair. We've got a setting complimenting it. At times it was more distrust than despair but it was definitely still present, not only thanks to Richard. We clearly have some lose-lose choices with the gates, making it impossible for everyone to actually get out. The stakes are higher than in your usual AA game. You even had dramatic metaphors.
I feel like there was still more potential though. Never really took the protagonist that long to recover from any given obstacle. But judging from those guys talking at the end you're probably still saving some of it for later. Can't judge what's not there yet, but what's there definitely still scored fairly well in my book.

---

And that's the end of that. In summary, I really love where this case is going. I find the characters and setting way more intriguing than the actual murder mysteries, which I'd still call ok, but they clearly weren't the entire focus here anyway. The first one did fairly well at keeping the culprit hidden until the very end though. It was slightly more expected in the second one. There are also all those unanswered questions that kept me playing and wanting more. I'm not even sure, but I think I just played through its entirety in like 6-8 hours? The fact I pretty much went through it without any major breaks should tell something about how immersive it is. Flaws keep it from being perfect, but it's still great. And most of those can still be fixed anyway. It's a pretty unique experience in any case.
Well that took quite a bit. I think I'm done for today.
After all, this is the one day where I can legitly benefit from all the birthday equipment in Dream Team. I specifically kept it just for this day.
Phantom

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Phantom »

Good luck guys, can't wait to see the winner ;)
User avatar
kwando1313
Posts: 7684
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:33 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Français (un peu), Ancient Belkan
Location: Uminari City

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by kwando1313 »

Yaaaaaaaay~

Now for some responses.
Spoiler : Rune :
Well, the first thing I can think of is the whole Beato thing. Which I actually didn't write. And Zeta wrote. Completely by coincidence. I'm being serious here. I really have no idea how on earth it got to canon!Beato's backstory so closely. But.... Yeah.

As for the rest of the characters... Yay. I wanted to do subversions of standard tropes as characters, so I'm glad that it worked out well~

And as for the typos part? Well, we pretty much quashed out all of them in Part 1... But in Part 2, we kinda ran out of time so... Yeah, they definitely were more rampant in that part. We'll probably fix all that jazz up and whatnot.

But still, really glad to hear that you enjoyed it~

Also, making her a maid was totally my idea.
Avatar made by Rimuu~

Image

"The Knight of the Iron Hammer, Vita, and the Steel Count, Graf Eisen. There's nothing in this world we can't destroy."
User avatar
ZetaAzuel
Posts: 1958
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2011 5:16 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English
Location: Somewhere in Space, at Zeta Speed

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by ZetaAzuel »

Guess I'll make my responses as well.
Spoiler : Regular Responses of Blueness :
Yeah as Kwando said I wrote the Beatrice stuff. Though I hadn't intended on her being Beatrice *Glares at Kwando* but because I didn't care I let Kwando use Beatrice sprites. In the end she was just supposed to be the nice motherly figure that you hope would live but as you can tell... stuff happens.

As for glitches... yeah that's my own fault. I didn't get the time to actually play test all of the parts sadly due to other factors such as football and school. Not an excuse but... stuff happens. Though I'm overall glad that you enjoyed the game. Aside form the glitches my biggest concern had to do with the logic. I was afraid that it was going to be stupid sounding but I guess it all worked out in the end.

But all in all we've got some polishing to do for part 2, hopefully, we'll have it done and ready to showcase sometimes soon.

Also... seems that I do tend to have children in all my recent trials... wierd...
Image
Hersh is officially the best for making this awesome Rogan and Parseline Sig!
~Ask Rogan and Djin~
Image
Image Image Image Image ImageImage Image
Rogan Esquin & Djin

TEAM LINK

Storage:
Eclipse the Lunatone
Abdowing the Woobat
Lasir the Zangoose
Voodoo the Wobbufett Lv. 14
Getter-2 the Porygon 2
ImageImage

Zeta x Dio
~~Proud Son of Dypo deLina and Evolina deLuna~~
User avatar
lazyplague
Posts: 2430
Joined: Sun Oct 10, 2010 4:24 pm
Gender: Female
Spoken languages: English
Location: Hell. Gay Hell, to be exact.

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by lazyplague »

Well, I suppose it's time for rune to announce my victory.

AAAANNNNYYYYTIIIIMMMMMEEEE NOOOOOOW.
User avatar
kwando1313
Posts: 7684
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:33 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Français (un peu), Ancient Belkan
Location: Uminari City

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by kwando1313 »

Oh yeah. One more thing...
Spoiler : Rune :
Umineko story elements...? Where?
Avatar made by Rimuu~

Image

"The Knight of the Iron Hammer, Vita, and the Steel Count, Graf Eisen. There's nothing in this world we can't destroy."
User avatar
Bad Player
Posts: 7228
Joined: Wed May 20, 2009 10:53 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: American
Location: Under a bridge

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Bad Player »

kwando1313 wrote:Oh yeah. One more thing...
Spoiler : Rune :
Umineko story elements...? Where?
Spoiler : :
Murders, obviously. The most distinctive, unique and original element of Umineko's story!
User avatar
NihilisticNinja
Posts: 1012
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2011 9:23 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Latin

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by NihilisticNinja »

Spoiler : :
... Yeah. I must admit to being a tad confused as to where there are Umineko story elements. I didn't see any.

Well, aside from BP's quite salient point, of course.
"With good friends by your side, anything is possible. If you really care for each other, it makes everyone stronger! Then you'll have the will to succeed! The world is filled with painful things, it's sad sometimes, and you won't be able to handle it by yourself. But just know: If there's someone that you love, you'll stay on the right path. And you won't ever give in! As long as you keep that person in your heart, you'll keep getting back up. Understand? That's why a Hero never loses!"
Image
Miki by Hershey's Chocolate Bars.
Phantom

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Phantom »

Unknown Davective wrote:Well, I suppose it's time for rune to announce my victory.

AAAANNNNYYYYTIIIIMMMMMEEEE NOOOOOOW.
The avatar is pretty fitting. :lol:
User avatar
Bad Player
Posts: 7228
Joined: Wed May 20, 2009 10:53 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: American
Location: Under a bridge

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Bad Player »

Unknown Davective wrote:Well, I suppose it's time for rune to announce my victory.

AAAANNNNYYYYTIIIIMMMMMEEEE MEOOOOOOW.
fix'd
User avatar
lazyplague
Posts: 2430
Joined: Sun Oct 10, 2010 4:24 pm
Gender: Female
Spoken languages: English
Location: Hell. Gay Hell, to be exact.

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by lazyplague »

OH YOU!
User avatar
Blackrune
Posts: 3805
Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:11 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, German, Japanese
Location: The Submarine

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Blackrune »

kwando1313 wrote:Oh yeah. One more thing...
Spoiler : Rune :
Umineko story elements...? Where?
Spoiler : :
There weren't any Umineko story elements. But with a Beatrice Castiglioni walking around I couldn't help but add that note.

Something else I just remembered that isn't really a typo:
There was also a testimony by John that used "probably" in pretty much every single statement... now I'm no English expert, so maybe that doesn't actually sound weird to you... but I feel like that should've been varied a bit.

Oh, and I felt like poor George was called Geroge for the entirety of trial 2.
Very well then, it's time for the next case. Whirl's and Evo's.
User avatar
kwando1313
Posts: 7684
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:33 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Français (un peu), Ancient Belkan
Location: Uminari City

Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by kwando1313 »

That probably sounds weird, Rune.

I probably don't know what you're talking about... probably. xD

But yeah. I only go to ~Frame 2000 of Part 2, so not terribly surprised that there were still quite a few typos and whatnot.
Avatar made by Rimuu~

Image

"The Knight of the Iron Hammer, Vita, and the Steel Count, Graf Eisen. There's nothing in this world we can't destroy."
Locked