The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AAO

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The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AAO

Post by Blackrune »

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Upupupupupu~
Disclaimer: This has very little to do with Dangan Ronpa, so don't run away. I did not think of Dangan Ronpa when I thought of this theme, but after some time I realized the reference was just too fitting to pass up on.

When choosing a competition theme, I want to go with something that makes a story interesting (for me at least).
I came to the conclusion that after stubborn villains, this is next on my list: DESPAIR.

Or rather, someone facing a seemingly completely hopeless situation. The hero having all the odds against him, that kind of thing just makes any story much more entertaining. In this competition, it's time to emphasize such a situation.

Task
Your hero (*for an exception, see below) must be put in an absolutely despairing situation.
You may not be sure what exactly I mean (though some of it is supposed to be left up to your creativity) so I'll clarify a little and give you examples. I know. I'm so nice.
Obviously there's some kind of obstacle in the hero's path, but what exactly makes it despairing?
First, for a situation to actually put you in despair, high stakes are always better. Sure, you can go with the usual - loss means losing a case, but if the hero has to worry about additional things like... losing his life, or being sold off into slavery, that'd certainly increase his despair, wouldn't you agree?
Second, complete loss of hope at solving the dilemma, as per definition of despair. Since the first requirement makes it likely the hero cares, he'll obviously try everything that comes to his mind until the options are exhausted. (unless the situation is so overwhelmingly hopeless there literally aren't even reasonable options he could try.) Maybe he had a slight ray of hope, his friend with the decisive testimony that'd turn the case around arrived just in time. BUT THEN... betrayal. For some reason the friend turned against our hero, and his last hope is shattered.
Some of this will be a matter of characterization and presentation. If I cannot empathize with the character in question their despair may not be fully conveyed. Presentation should be obvious. Don't just present it as a minor setback. It shouldbe presented as completely devastating, screwing up any seemingly foolproof plan the hero had, shattering his final bit of hope, leaving him with no confidence at all. Of course, when people have nothing left to lose... that is often when they can risk everything and rise from the ashes. While this is normally what should happen, unless you want to go for a sad ending or something else that doesn't mean the story is over, whether they rise again from their despair or not is up to you and not a requirement.

Example time.

Canon example: 2-4. The solve the main dilemma, Nick's final ray of hope is that the assassin is caught. So he stalls for time hoping for just that. However, in the end, that hope is shattered. He tried absolutely everything, but in the end he ends up in despair, having to choose between the two options he wanted to avoid at all costs. (before Franzy storms in, and miracle happen)

Generic fancase example: Let's go with locked rooms. You know you love them. In most fancases, solving these is just put off until the end. However, they're generally not really presented as that despairing. By the time you get to them, you've usually solved everything else that's there to solve about the case. So there's way too much hope around, and usually it just takes another couple steps. They're almost always minor setbacks at best. However, they can certainly presented as a despairing situation. If the hero tried several theories on them and every last one was completely crushed, I can certainly picture quite a despairing situation. Ideally, he's also tried to call for a recess, tried to prolong the trial for another day, and tried to convince the prosecution that since he's solved the rest of the case they should just consider it a draw and be nice. I want to see them try everything and despair. Add some inner monologue about how it's simply no good to try this and that and you pretty much have what I want to see.

Two more things.
*An exception mentioned above. It doesn't necessarily have to be the hero who's put in a dilemma. You can go with someone else, as long as we're able to follow this person's thoughts throughout the situation. I want to see them consider each option in their head and conclude it's simply no good. Keep in mind that yes, this means you can just make the villain the one who despairs, but it's generally harder to make people empathize with the villain, so the impact might be significantly lessened.

Also, by all means, it doesn't have to be a hopeless "situation". Situation can be widened to "setting". Post-apocalyptic world with no future for humanity? Hero starts out in hell on death row? Fine by me.

WHAT THIS IS NOT:
This does not mean your trial have to be absurdly difficult.
I'd just like to note here that it's not directly the player who is supposed to be put in despair. It's a character in the story. Unless your character is super-meta and somehow aware of the difficulty, that just won't work. They usually act like they got it right on their first try, so...
Besides, you could never crush my final ray of hope anyway. You're forced to send me walkthroughs, and there's always the source code~
But yeah, it doesn't have to be difficult at all. Consider 10 successive easy presents. However, story-wise they are presented as the hero trying thing after thing, slowly running out of options until he's tried everything. Works way better than having one testimony with one single ridiculous astra-objection. No matter how often the player has to try, the character will still act as if he got the correct answer straight away after some serious thinking. (unless you use variables and make the hero's comments after each failed attempt get worse and worse until it's just ALL USELESS... Huh, I actually remember playing an umineko fangame where that sort of thing was done when you had to select your culprit. Battler went from being fairly confident to shouting just that. Might have had something to do with someone else's limbs getting cut off for each failed try. I guess that'd be a creative solution. Except it'd require me to fail on purpose to even see it, so...)

That's pretty much it. I'll leave the rest up to your creativity. Have fun coming up with people in absurdly despairing situations.
If you still have no clue what you're supposed to do... well, uh... go watch Kaiji or something. (I just added that because of Lind's avatar. No really, add a little of Kaiji to the courtroom. That'd totally fit.)
...

Entries will be judged in the following five categories. And yes, I'll make it so the points actually reflect the ranking.
Plot: Self-explanatory. Don't bore me. Don't have plotholes. You get up to 10 points for this.
Characters: Make them memorable. Make them likable. Have good interaction between them. Then you get up to 10 points.
Presentation: Always have a polished case. It leaves a better impression. 10 points.
Gameplay: ...make it fun. Or make it challenging. But don't make it too frustrating. 10 points.
Theme Relevance: Will depend on both the quality and the quantity of these situations. Mostly quality though. It's not that hard to give a situation a slight touch of hopelessness, but it's not that easy to make it actually memorable.
In addition, it's better to go for few of those. Though you can certainly create a spiral where each attempt backfires and makes things even worse. Well, I'll leave that up to you, it's the final impression that counts. For this one you can get up to 20 points.

TL;DR: Increase the stakes a little, add a couple of mercilessly crushed moments of hope, then optionally put it all in a somewhat unfriendly environment and I'll probably be ok with it if the rest of the case is good, too.

MISSION START!

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Conditions
  • The entry must have been created between Juny 14, 2013 and September 5, 2013.
  • The entry must not be showcased until September 6, 2013.
  • The entry must make a character face at least one extremely desperate situation.
  • The entry can be a miscellaneous. This includes comedies, if you can make that work somehow.
  • The entry may contain GK2/GS5 spoilers. They're not spoilers for me.
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Deadline
September 5 2013 11:59 PM CET (CET. deal with it)

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Entrants:
ZetaAzuel & kwando1313 ~ The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AAO
Whirlwind & Evolina deLuna ~ 2nd Place
SwagmaWampyr & enigma ~ 3rd Place
Rtaos Grimm ~ 4th Place
dehughes ~ 5th Place
Detective Luke Atmey
Twigav
DeeYo
Accord & jakerj10
AquaAce72
FenrirDarkWolf & Slayernice
~Dataman~
Ping'
S.S. Sleuth
ShadowEdgeworth & Tap
Last edited by Blackrune on Tue Sep 10, 2013 8:53 pm, edited 22 times in total.
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by kwando1313 »

OH SNAP

MONOBEAR

AND MAKING CHARACTERS SUFFER

I LIKE +1
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by DLA »

Ohohohohoho! Despair as a comp theme! My good Rune, I am very much in this competition, old chap!
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by NihilisticNinja »

I am most intrigued by this service and would be interested in any resulting products.

(Also, Rune, I think I know the fangame you're thinking of; it was called When the Seacats Cry or something along those lines. Man that was a fun one.)
"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!"
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Master Of Chaos »

Writer. Roleplayer. Fighting Game Enthusiast. Professional Scumbag/Troll.
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ShadowEdgeworth is my partner in crime. GuardianDreamer-san is my bestest buddy ever just ignore that conveniently hidden knife. Ami is the ultimate and most cuddly Senpai. And Patchu is my wife. I HAVE LEGAL PROOF!

Enjoy my short stories and other things relating to my roleplaying characters! (Link coming soon!)
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Blackrune »

Detective Luke Atmey wrote:Ohohohohoho! Despair as a comp theme! My good Rune, I am very much in this competition, old chap!
Congrats. You're now on top of the list. I hope it'll turn into a list, at least.
NihilisticNinja wrote:I am most intrigued by this service and would be interested in any resulting products.

(Also, Rune, I think I know the fangame you're thinking of; it was called When the Seacats Cry or something along those lines. Man that was a fun one.)
Yeah, that was the one.
We'll see how many join this one. I don't remember, but I think there's a bad season for trials, so to speak. I'm sure it was somewhere in the summer. Furthermore, the potential-DWaM-triple hype is gone now. But my hope will only die at the end. (....regardless of how many people join, probably.)
Master Of Chaos wrote:Let the suffering commence.
You know, that's technically more of a trolling theme than a despair theme. But ok, I guess those two can complement each other in the right circumstances. Point taken.
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Bad Player »

NihilisticNinja wrote:I am most intrigued by this service and would be interested in any resulting products.

(Also, Rune, I think I know the fangame you're thinking of; it was called When the Seacats Cry or something along those lines. Man that was a fun one.)
NihilisticNinja wrote:(Also, Rune, I think I know the fangame you're thinking of; it was called When the Seacats Cry or something along those lines. Man that was a fun one.)
NihilisticNinja wrote:When the Seacats Cry
NihilisticNinja wrote:
whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa unexpected :o
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Tap »

Sign me up, please!
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by SwagmaWampyr »

...Okay. It's like this. Lemme explain.

Finishing HSH is still my first priority. But, well, it's no mystery I've been horrendously slacking off on getting back into it. So here's what I'm going to do.


If anyone wants to collab with me, then I'm open. At this point I think the only way I'll ever get anything done is if I start on something else to get the juices flowing again. Just, there are multiple things you should keep in mind about me.

A: I am really bad with logic. I am horrendous with logic. Expect nothing I propose to make sense. Because it probably won't.

B: I'm not much better with plots. My strength lies in bringing idea on paper out to life: Not in creating said ideas. It's just not something I'm good at.

C: Considering A and B... writing dialogue is pretty much the only thing I'm good at. So if you're a good dialogue writer, then you're not going to need me as all I'll be doing is slow you down.

D: I'm going to prioritize HSH over whichever comp entry I may be a part of. That's not to say I won't be doing comp work, I will do my damndest, but wrapping up HSH is just plain more important to me.


And absolutely nobody will want to collab with me after that list, but I'm not going to lie to you, I'm going to tell you the truth. That's my list of flaws. If you're willing to work through them, I appreciate it. And if not, well, I can't say I blame you.


As a note, I do like the theme, but it is kind of similar to Never Ending Turnabout.

...Not that any of the entries to NET were overly relevant to the theme. Or at least in my opinion they weren't.
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Enthalpy »

And on that magnificently prepared tangent...

Not planning on participating in this one. Again, I just don't have the time, now that Platinum is taking my full attention again. However, I will be willing to do anything in a supplementary role, like beta-testing or assisting with design. Best of luck to all entrants, and I will say this:
Spoiler : :
You can consider Platinum to be my "entry in spirit" for this competition. What I mean by that, I'll not specify. Spoilers~
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by SwagmaWampyr »

Believe me, it's not that hard to hazard a guess to people who actually played the case.

What's released of Platinum is more suited to this theme than the comp it was made for.
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Bad Player »

SwagmaWampyr wrote:What's released of Platinum is more suited to this theme than the comp it was made for.
That's actually exactly what I thought xD
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by kwando1313 »

Actually, Curtain fits this as well.

Actually, Curtain fits ALL the last comp themes so far well... >_>
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Zeel1™ »

...Well damn. Now I kind of wish I waited a few days on starting Ghost. :P
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Re: The Most Despair-Inducing Turnabout in the History of AA

Post by Tap »

Zeel1™ wrote:...Well damn. Now I kind of wish I waited a few days on starting Ghost. :P
Publicly abandon Ghost, and then start work on Turnabout "Spirit"? :wink:
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