Well... round 2, I guess!
(My response might seem a bit disorienting and poorly structured... and that's probably because it is. Feeling shockingly tired today...)
Spoiler : Reponses :
Looking back at it all, I can definitely see your point about the solution. To be honest, I never for once really thought about the response of "mystery junkies", as you put it - I thought that, as long as it made logical sense in terms of execution (of the murder plan, I mean), there wouldn't be much blacklash. And, to be honest, I didn't really care if there was. My intent in doing these fancases was always to do something different, something new. This generally stemmed from my own lack of ability to structure crimes. Plots, I can do... okay most of the time. Crimes, not so much. This generally lead to me either overcomplicating matters, which, in turn, lead to overcomplicating the structure of the trial, which lead to overcomplicating contradictions, which lead to Turnabout Tomorrow (and then Empty, later on). This started to sort of... bother me and in my way later cases (I have a LOT of unfinished stuff and ideas I'd been working on and a lot of unfinished scripts), I'd noticed that the crimes were getting simpler, testimonies shorter. And I was fine with that, because I realized that crimes weren't what was important to me - but characters, generally. So I just took and did stuff with them. And generally, that's the part people always liked.
But, for my last case, I figured, I had to do something insane. And the reason for this wasn't so much my need to always do something different, believe it or not, but the fact that I'd sort of gotten back into reading (into, not so much actually reading) comic books. They do some... weeeeeeird stuff there.
My original idea for my last case wasn't even a reboot of Curtain. It was a case set shortly after the events of DD (like three months or so) centered around Phoenix slowly realizing that he'd fulfilled his purpose as a defense attorney and deciding to let Apollo take over. It was originally my idea for the current case comp, but I eventually decided to drop it. It had... too many of my previous tropes, I thought.
Oh, but it also had Polly the Parrot be an evil genius mastermind that became the head of a crime syndicate after being experimented on in a lab. Incidentally, she was also the final mastermind.
I am dead serious.
So, yeah -- considering that mentality, Curtain was always to have an insane conclusion. The idea of a "ghost" was something that had occurred to me shortly before my "breakdown" (after Case 1 of DRRP2 had been wrapped up, I mean). It was never supposed to be that significant to the things that happened in the actual crime, but I also didn't really know how much I could do with it at the time, so I put it off. Then, as I was coming up with ideas for the reboot, I realized that it would work perfectly with Curtain's set up.
And thus, Verity was created.
Now, I also knew, going in, that I would probably not have a chance to set up her ghost properly without making the twist entirely obvious from the get-go (which would've ruined everything that came afterwards) or making it just... unclear enough. In my original draft of the story, I intended it so that Lure was the one who brought Verity back through a series of occult rituals (the remains of which would've been discovered during the "night" phase of the investigation by Phoenix and co., before he went to the det. center). This idea was scrapped since I figured it would just add to the confusion of the situation after the revelation at the det. center, and immediately send it back to the old version of Curtain. And I just... didn't want that. I couldn't allow the player going into the court phase TOO confused about the situation.
Not to mention it sort of went against what I was setting up for Lure at that point, anyway.
I DO like the idea of using the cult to set up more of it, though. I'll probably add more to it in the next update.
But generally speaking, I always looked at this version of Curtain as more of a short story, than anything. A novella. I'd figured that small bits and pieces of information (the sounds Lure heard at night, the memory losses, the perfect double, Andrea's remarks during their confrontation in court, Hyde's OWN remarks in court she gave jokingly, Jeremiah's cult and the fact that there are "ghosts" in the PW universe, sort of, the idea that Verity was the person that shot herself from the small bits and pieces of hints here and there) would be enough to justify it, since I just wasn't able to come up with a good idea of properly foreshadowing it in its entirety.
On a side-note, I might have mentioned this before, but while the original Curtain had no supernatural elements in its solution, it was based around the idea of "a culprit that could never be caught by the law". This was a theme that appeared in Agatha Christie's final Poirot novel "Curtain", hence the name of the case. I did intend to change before releasing this, but ultimately sided against it.
Onto the other stuff...
Phoenix was always meant to be written in his ACE HOBO demeanor, actually. That was something I was dead-set on doing, since I hated how he was portrayed in DD. The reason that Curtain takes place two years after AJ was just so I could make it set in stone that people have changed. They just aren't the same people you started out with. Hence why Apollo is more open with talking Phoenix not as his boss but his equal, and Trucy... well, she gets her own arc. I can understand how people would find it strange, but, perhaps, but again - the point was to show in the beginning that Phoenix's ACE HOBO-ness was the result of him becoming "wiser" and "in control" as the years went by, but then as the case goes on become more and more serious as he realizes everything's slowly falling apart.
On the presents thing... the only times I think the player would've been stuck during the investigation would've been during either the "day" phase when they have to present hyde's profile to Tiala, OR during the "sunset" phase where they have to present jeremiah's profile (and of course during the minigame but that's another thing altogether). I can't really think of a way around this aside from adding more optional presents (which, again, I'm not sure how much would be done).
And because the investigation is non-linear in both of these instances, it would've been extremely hard for me to be able to predict what the player has and hasn't done and give consistent hints from Trucy...
And as for the riddle... well...
YOU BEAT IT WHICH MEANS ITS POSSIBLE WHICH MEANS YOU DONT GET TO COMPLAIN BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA IM BULLETPROOF BABY
(I'd considered maybe adding the "where the player went wrong" in the failure convo, but I eventually realized that it would be impossible for me to account for every theory that might pop into their heads - the questions are set in stone, but I have no idea how the player interpreted them, what combination they used would've been too much and on top of that I would have to come up with a general idea of what they were going for which... would've been practically impossible for me
I'd also mentioned this before to some people, but my original idea was to add a "cheat" option where you could just go to Edgeworth to solve it for you and just skip the entire thing; without finding out the solution as a price, of course
but then I was like
and thus, i gave you the most satisfying moment of your life
no pain no game SUN)
...
Also, the Tiala typo in the evidence is sort of embarrassing, but not the first time it's happened - for some reason I kept mixing the two of them up... (Could've sworn I'd fixed it, though...)
But, for my last case, I figured, I had to do something insane. And the reason for this wasn't so much my need to always do something different, believe it or not, but the fact that I'd sort of gotten back into reading (into, not so much actually reading) comic books. They do some... weeeeeeird stuff there.
My original idea for my last case wasn't even a reboot of Curtain. It was a case set shortly after the events of DD (like three months or so) centered around Phoenix slowly realizing that he'd fulfilled his purpose as a defense attorney and deciding to let Apollo take over. It was originally my idea for the current case comp, but I eventually decided to drop it. It had... too many of my previous tropes, I thought.
Oh, but it also had Polly the Parrot be an evil genius mastermind that became the head of a crime syndicate after being experimented on in a lab. Incidentally, she was also the final mastermind.
I am dead serious.
So, yeah -- considering that mentality, Curtain was always to have an insane conclusion. The idea of a "ghost" was something that had occurred to me shortly before my "breakdown" (after Case 1 of DRRP2 had been wrapped up, I mean). It was never supposed to be that significant to the things that happened in the actual crime, but I also didn't really know how much I could do with it at the time, so I put it off. Then, as I was coming up with ideas for the reboot, I realized that it would work perfectly with Curtain's set up.
And thus, Verity was created.
Now, I also knew, going in, that I would probably not have a chance to set up her ghost properly without making the twist entirely obvious from the get-go (which would've ruined everything that came afterwards) or making it just... unclear enough. In my original draft of the story, I intended it so that Lure was the one who brought Verity back through a series of occult rituals (the remains of which would've been discovered during the "night" phase of the investigation by Phoenix and co., before he went to the det. center). This idea was scrapped since I figured it would just add to the confusion of the situation after the revelation at the det. center, and immediately send it back to the old version of Curtain. And I just... didn't want that. I couldn't allow the player going into the court phase TOO confused about the situation.
Not to mention it sort of went against what I was setting up for Lure at that point, anyway.
I DO like the idea of using the cult to set up more of it, though. I'll probably add more to it in the next update.
But generally speaking, I always looked at this version of Curtain as more of a short story, than anything. A novella. I'd figured that small bits and pieces of information (the sounds Lure heard at night, the memory losses, the perfect double, Andrea's remarks during their confrontation in court, Hyde's OWN remarks in court she gave jokingly, Jeremiah's cult and the fact that there are "ghosts" in the PW universe, sort of, the idea that Verity was the person that shot herself from the small bits and pieces of hints here and there) would be enough to justify it, since I just wasn't able to come up with a good idea of properly foreshadowing it in its entirety.
On a side-note, I might have mentioned this before, but while the original Curtain had no supernatural elements in its solution, it was based around the idea of "a culprit that could never be caught by the law". This was a theme that appeared in Agatha Christie's final Poirot novel "Curtain", hence the name of the case. I did intend to change before releasing this, but ultimately sided against it.
Onto the other stuff...
Phoenix was always meant to be written in his ACE HOBO demeanor, actually. That was something I was dead-set on doing, since I hated how he was portrayed in DD. The reason that Curtain takes place two years after AJ was just so I could make it set in stone that people have changed. They just aren't the same people you started out with. Hence why Apollo is more open with talking Phoenix not as his boss but his equal, and Trucy... well, she gets her own arc. I can understand how people would find it strange, but, perhaps, but again - the point was to show in the beginning that Phoenix's ACE HOBO-ness was the result of him becoming "wiser" and "in control" as the years went by, but then as the case goes on become more and more serious as he realizes everything's slowly falling apart.
On the presents thing... the only times I think the player would've been stuck during the investigation would've been during either the "day" phase when they have to present hyde's profile to Tiala, OR during the "sunset" phase where they have to present jeremiah's profile (and of course during the minigame but that's another thing altogether). I can't really think of a way around this aside from adding more optional presents (which, again, I'm not sure how much would be done).
And because the investigation is non-linear in both of these instances, it would've been extremely hard for me to be able to predict what the player has and hasn't done and give consistent hints from Trucy...
And as for the riddle... well...
YOU BEAT IT WHICH MEANS ITS POSSIBLE WHICH MEANS YOU DONT GET TO COMPLAIN BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA IM BULLETPROOF BABY
(I'd considered maybe adding the "where the player went wrong" in the failure convo, but I eventually realized that it would be impossible for me to account for every theory that might pop into their heads - the questions are set in stone, but I have no idea how the player interpreted them, what combination they used would've been too much and on top of that I would have to come up with a general idea of what they were going for which... would've been practically impossible for me
I'd also mentioned this before to some people, but my original idea was to add a "cheat" option where you could just go to Edgeworth to solve it for you and just skip the entire thing; without finding out the solution as a price, of course
but then I was like
and thus, i gave you the most satisfying moment of your life
no pain no game SUN)
...
Also, the Tiala typo in the evidence is sort of embarrassing, but not the first time it's happened - for some reason I kept mixing the two of them up... (Could've sworn I'd fixed it, though...)
EDIT
Based on some of the feedback, I've released a 1.01 update which you can download from here (it's a small download, requires that you downloaded the previous version - just drop it into the 'games' folder of your pywright subfolder).
It fixes a minor bug found, some spelling errors and adds some new lines in certain places. Also changes the case select image to the art in the banner.
Would've re-uploaded the entire game, as well for the sake of convenience, but... Mediafire kinda screwed me over there...
Will be included in the next major update (whenever it comes - should it even be necessary).