[CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

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Gizmological
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[CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Gizmological »

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My entry for the No Pressure competition hosted by Tiagofvarela.

Phoenix and Maya are thrown into yet another murder case with little to no idea of what they're doing. Same old, same old, huh? Except, this prosecutor... well, let's just say he's a bit "special." With such a clueless opponent, this should be an easy ride for our humble protagonists.

...Right?

WARNING: This case contains music and character spoilers for GK2, as well as music spoilers for JFA and T&T.



(Click here to play!)
(Make sure that you're using firefox.)

I love seeing reviews, SoC's and all that good stuff, so make sure to let me know what you think!

Spoiler : WALKTHROUGH :
(Testimony 1)
Press all.
Present Bottle on statement 6

(Rebuttal 1)
Present Safe on statement 3

(Testimony 2)
Press statement 7
Raise an objection
Present Leigh Vine's profile
"I don't have evidence"
Present Safe
"Saw it before"
Present Safe
Present Stephanie Mann's profile

(Testimony 3)
Press statement 10
"After you found the body" (Reveals 10-2)
Present Call Record on statement 10-2

Present Crime Scene Photo

(Rebuttal 2)
Press statement 3
"Time of death"
"After the call"
Present knife
Spoiler : CREDITS :
Rich Mann sprites by Lind.
Leigh Vine sprites by DragonTrainer
Playtested by Declaro
Last edited by Gizmological on Fri May 05, 2017 12:22 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Aeliren »

Well, that was fun! Had me laughing a lot at Sebastian's expense at certain points.
Spoiler : :
Edgeworth barging in at the end and telling Sebastian he was at the wrong trial NEARLY took the cake...

...and then the defendant for Sebastian's actual trial showed up. Yep. 100% innocent guy.
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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by TheDoctor »

Spoiler : SoC :
Okay, starting The Turned About Turnabout.

Seems there's a trend where people like to make "Turnabout" related puns in their cases. Maybe that's just me.

Grainy black and white bg, followed by vivid red blood splatter.

??? says (s)he doesn't want to go to prison, then screams like (s)he's been murdered. Curious.

You know, I've often wondered how people decide on which district courtroom to use. Is there any difference other than the number?

"For your information(,) I'm perfectly..." Missing comma there.

Rich Mann. Tutorial level pun name, I see.

"Mr. Mann" sounds so odd to me.

Van Dine's 11th. It is forbidden for a servant to be the culprit. We can rule them out, can't we?

Telling us that we'd never have to work again if we manage to defend you? We're screwed.

You hear that, Nick!?
Don't ruin this for me! (The pause before "Nick" is a little long)

Debeste timing...

I forgot how much I loved his stupid theme.

I do wish the AAI characters came court sized. Sebastian's AAI size is somewhat offputting, but I know it can't be helped.

"Challenged" is a nice way of putting it.

Put on the case yesterday? By whom?

I wonder if the Judge has an emergency tutorial for prosecutors... Seems like it'd be useful.

Gumtree? Lol. Somehow, I think Gumshoe will be getting his own name wrong soon though.

Suedeshoes? Okay, now I know Sebastian's just screwing around. There's no way he misheard that.

T&T CE Moderato is worst CE Moderato. Pity, since I like most of the other T&T tracks.

Fade in frame after testimony isn't timed.

911 call seems suspicious. Recording of a recording maybe?

Press convo doesn't change after adding the police call record, except to remove the statement about the evidence being added.

Clever way around not having to make a crime scene photo.

If it's a knife that the defendant and the victim owned, why would the defendant feel the need to wipe the fingerprints if he was the culprit?

Why the (heck) would one keep a knife in a safe?! Something's fishy here.

The defendant knew the combination to the safe, and the lock is broken? Hmm...

If it shattered on impact with the head, the defendant should have fresh cuts on his head...

That took me longer than it should have to figure out. I was thinking that if the culprit wiped the prints off the knife, he must have done the same to the bottle for some reason.

Honestly, I should have been able to point out the lock thing sooner.

"*She* and I were the only ones who knew about it."

Moving on towards Vine's testimony, it seems we have a case of disproportionate retribution here.

How did you know she called the police?

Hit on the head by the bottle? Hazy? Great, our defendant's guilty, isn't he...

This is just too good.

Protagonist swap!? This is getting really good.

Classic updated autopsy report move is classic.

This inconsistency between 6:05PM style timestamps and 18:05 style timestamps is kind of offputting.

I make murder indictments for fun, but then, I'm not a prosecutor.

Really Nick, you're asking Edgeworth of all people why someone would confess to a crime they didn't commit?

Bluffing is the defense attorney's job. I love it.

Profile descriptions updated after Edgeworth takes over. Nice touch.

Applause for a guilty verdict. That's a first.

"Had I been there sooner(,) then it
would have been over in 5 minutes." -- Missing comma, unneeded word,

I somehow knew de Killer was going to be the guy let off the hook.
Overall great case. The ending was especially good.
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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by DWaM »

This was pretty great. It had the feel of an AA game while being its own thing, presentation was solid all-around and was quite enjoyable to play throughout.
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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Enthalpy »

I played the case and am very glad I did. I liked it quite a lot!

I'll give a more formal review later, but a small SoC, with technical issues.
Spoiler : :
Rich Mann's CR Description: "The defendant, who is accused of murdering his wife." The act of accusing may have started in the past, but he still is accused.
F4: I think *Yawn* should be lowercase.
Come to think of it, there really aren't many married couples in the AA games. Is there one besides the DeLites?
F27: no alibi, then
F29: Comma splice.
The gag about Phoenix's overconfidence works.
This is definitely not the Sebastian I remember from the GK2 finale. More like halfway through.
[Note to Self: Bug when displaying evidence on auto on one frame than displaying it at the same position it was at the next - it flickers. Locked onto auto has weird implications, given that it doesn't flip when panning courtroom on auto.]
[Note to Self: Weird visual glitch on press conversation end... Investigate.]
Not having a photograph of the body is... quite contrived, but technical limitations.
Phoenix should be objecting as soon as he sees the lock safe is broken. It doesn't matter who knew the combination if the lock was forced open! I'm also not sure why they have this knife in a safe, anyways? Is this for self-defence, is the "guns are really hard to acquire" world of Ace Attorney? (If so, is that thing at the head of the bed and to the right the dresser?) A knife for self-defence is a strange choice as well, since it's such a close-range weapon, and I'm assuming neither of them have trained with it... Is there more of a story here?
The conclusion that the wine bottle was used as a weapon is strange, given the lack of blood on it.
The lack of fingerprints isn't quite a contradiction, given that for all we know (and this in fact turns out to be the case), the victim was wearing gloves.
DeBeste's Testimony: The defendant attacked, and the victim fought back with with this bottle, stunning him briefly.
In the Police Call Record, "transcript" is misspelled.
F437: look, and
The *Sniff* for DeBeste's cries should be lowercase as well.
I really need to look into these flicker errors.
F533: scentence -> sentence
Vine's Testimony: We spoke briefly, and I left a few minutes later.
Good, catching the bottle prints ptoblem.
[Note to Self: Possible audio glitch? I have the console open and got a couple Cannot play media errors between index 644 and the start of the CE.]
There actually is a problem with Vine's statements about not hearing anything. If she didn't hear Mr. Mann walk over to the bedroom form his study, the quality of her hearing comes into question.
The wine bottle by the door is also very strange. The attack happened there, really?
...What person working in the kitchen has her eyes on the hallway that leads to the kitchen entrance?
Not even a contradiction, just pointing out that it could have been Vine? That's... something.
We... just accused the witness after a single cross-examination.
F822: safe, and
That would... be a really dumb way to steal the jewels, and it's a bit speculative, as well.
[Note to Self: Audio bug around "Cross-examination" sequence for "The Truth."]
Well. This is going quickly.
F1001: me, and
...It was on F1001, by the record, that I knew where this trial was going.
[Note to Self: Around Edgeworth's objection, we have an "element is undefined" when defining inner_element in updateGraphicElement.]
You really should have updated the knife description to show the blood wasn't the victim's.
[Note to Self: Double-check background edges at the breakdown.]
F1361: sooner, then
[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: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Gizmological »

Sorry, I've been sort of inactive here. I'm glad that people have enjoyed this, though.

Thanks for the feedback, Enthalpy. I'll sort out the technical issues when I have the time, but there are a few comments I'd like to make.

Enthalpy wrote:
Spoiler : :
This is definitely not the Sebastian I remember from the GK2 finale. More like halfway through.
That's probably a good thing that you think that. I never openly stated when TAT takes place, but the date puts it between cases 3 and 4 of GK2. I left it kind of ambiguous because things don't fit too neatly into canon anyway.

Phoenix should be objecting as soon as he sees the lock safe is broken. It doesn't matter who knew the combination if the lock was forced open!
I can see where you're coming from. I'm planning on adding some extra dialogue for presenting the safe to Gumshoe's statement, just as a "no, not yet!" kind of thing without a penalty.

I'm also not sure why they have this knife in a safe, anyways? Is this for self-defence, is the "guns are really hard to acquire" world of Ace Attorney? (If so, is that thing at the head of the bed and to the right the dresser?) A knife for self-defence is a strange choice as well, since it's such a close-range weapon, and I'm assuming neither of them have trained with it... Is there more of a story here?
Yeah, I guess I never explained this. It was supposed to be a work knife, not a weapon. I know that I leave my tools around the house in random places, so it being inside a safe didn't seem like to much of a stretch to me. I don't like over explaining stuff like this, since the origins of the knife weren't exactly important, but I suppose it's worth clarifying.

The conclusion that the wine bottle was used as a weapon is strange, given the lack of blood on it.
That's a fair point. Might have to make a couple of tweaks there.

The lack of fingerprints isn't quite a contradiction, given that for all we know (and this in fact turns out to be the case), the victim was wearing gloves.
Is it really reasonable to assume that somebody was wearing gloves without any indication that that was the case? Because I would disagree.

There actually is a problem with Vine's statements about not hearing anything. If she didn't hear Mr. Mann walk over to the bedroom form his study, the quality of her hearing comes into question.
Well, that line was more referring to her hearing a struggle or something, which I suppose I could maybe clarify a bit better. I doubt that Vine would really notice the sound of somebody walking upstairs if she had no reason to believe that anything was wrong at the time.

We... just accused the witness after a single cross-examination.
Being a comp entry and all I didn't really want to include a bunch of filler puzzles and instead just get into the meat of things. I know I finished way before the deadline still, but that wasn't exactly planned. The actual murder is very basic once you get right down to it, I know that. But, to be honest, that wasn't the first thing on my mind when I wrote this. My priority was staying true to the comp theme. But, yeah, I can appreciate that the pacing can seem a little rushed at times.

You really should have updated the knife description to show the blood wasn't the victim's.
I mean, I can definitely do that, but I'd argue that the current updated description implies exactly the same thing. And even so, Edgeworth states exactly this before the knife is updated. I'm just curious as to what, exactly, you think the issue is here?
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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Tiagofvarela »

I booted this up for just a few seconds to test the sound problem you were having, and realised something from the few frames I reread:
Spoiler : :
When the autopsy report is brought up, Sebastian's remains unreadable, though he recalls it to be a stabbing of some sort. The detective is the one to present an autopsy report. This is foreshadowing (more or less) to the fact that Sebastian is on the wrong case!
A Laggy Turnabout ★
A Batty Turnabout ★
A Tricky Turnabout ★
Upcoming: A Worldly Turnabout, A Courtly Turnabout, A Clumsy Turnabout, A Needy Turnabout
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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Enthalpy »

...I never got around to "a more formal review" of this case? I should change that, because this cause got me thinking about contradiction design in some ways I hadn't before.

I have two QAs to prioritize first, but at my current rate, I'll be free to take this up again within two weeks. Probably sooner. Shoot me a PM if you haven't heard from me by then.
[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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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Gizmological »

Cheers, Enth. I can appreciate that you're busy. I've actually been thinking about improvements that could be made here for a while so it'd be good to hear your input on what's already there.
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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Enthalpy »

What direction are those improvements heading?

I replayed the case yesterday, and the impression I get was that this trial was all about comedy; anything else could go to the wayside. Is that accurate, or is that not what you want?
[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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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Gizmological »

I'm not talking major rewrites or anything. I agree that comedy is probably the trial's most important aspect, but I wouldn't call it a "comedy case" if you get my meaning, it's why I used a [T] over a [C] tag. I still wanted there to be a legit AA-esque murder mystery behind it, albeit a fairly simple one, and it's that part that I want to improve on. Again, I have no plans to make major rewrites but I do want to make sure that what is written makes logical sense and that the gameplay is fair.
Spoiler : :
An example is the knife in the safe. It's been pointed out a good few times that it just seems really random to have a knife lying in a jewellery box (which, in all fairness, it really is) and it seems to have thrown a lot of people off. Actually giving a good reason for the knife to be locked in a box is something I want to do. There are a few other things that I feel could have been clarified better or explained more, but they really only require that a few lines be added or tweaked. That's the style of changes I'm talking about.
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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Aeliren »

Spoiler : :
Could just make it a fancy jewelled knife that was Stephanie Mann's favoured keepsake for whatever reason. Simple and explains why it was in the jewellery box.
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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Gizmological »

Aeliren wrote:
Spoiler : :
Could just make it a fancy jewelled knife that was Stephanie Mann's favoured keepsake for whatever reason. Simple and explains why it was in the jewellery box.
Spoiler : :
Would you believe me if I said that this is almost exactly the same solution that I was thinking of. Only difference was that I didn't want the knife to look particularly fancy because it still needs to be inconspicuous enough that Vine wouldn't immediately assume it belonged to Mann. Instead I was thinking of making the knife some kind of old Mann family heirloom. Also, taking the jewellery out of the box, since it really has no reason to be there seeing as Vine broke into it with only an assumption that there was something valuable inside, and making it a specialised case for the knife.
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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Aeliren »

Gizmological wrote:
Aeliren wrote:
Spoiler : :
Could just make it a fancy jewelled knife that was Stephanie Mann's favoured keepsake for whatever reason. Simple and explains why it was in the jewellery box.
Spoiler : :
Would you believe me if I said that this is almost exactly the same solution that I was thinking of. Only difference was that I didn't want the knife to look particularly fancy because it still needs to be inconspicuous enough that Vine wouldn't immediately assume it belonged to Mann. Instead I was thinking of making the knife some kind of old Mann family heirloom. Also, taking the jewellery out of the box, since it really has no reason to be there seeing as Vine broke into it with only an assumption that there was something valuable inside, and making it a specialised case for the knife.
Spoiler : :
Hah, great minds think alike!

It's been about a year or so since I last played the case, so I kinda forgot some of the details about the safe beyond Leigh Vine breaking into it to steal the valuables, but that sounds like a pretty solid explanation as to the knife being there.
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Re: [CE][T] The Turned About Turnabout ●

Post by Southern Corn »

I actually played this case a while back. It was pretty good! One important question though:
Spoiler : :
Is Rich Mann related to Deid Mann????
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