Psyche Locks - Authenticity (Advanced)

Find detailed help from the AAO community, or write your own tutorials.

Moderator: EN - Forum Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
E.D.Revolution
Posts: 5743
Joined: Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:00 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English and decent Spanish
Location: Across dimensions, transcending universes

Psyche Locks - Authenticity (Advanced)

Post by E.D.Revolution »

IMPORTANT: All my pictures are large, so you need to zoom out when you view my demonstration pics.


This guide assumes that you already know how to do psyche locks the basic format. Now this guide will show you how to do psyche locks in a way that's not your basic "Every question must break a psyche lock."

No. That's not merely enough. There are many instances in the AA games where you need at least 2 pieces of evidence to get rid of just one lock. Best example: Pearl's final psyche locks a la 3-5.

Now, this will be set into three parts: Multiple answers for per lock, the actual "game over" sequence, and finishing the psyche locks authentically.

But here's what you must realize about the Psyche Lock system:
Image

Without further ado, here's the meat of the advanced guide. NOTE: you MUST master basic psyche locks, or you will mess this up.

Multiple Answers for One Lock
Sometimes, you just want to have a player supply at least 2 answers before one lock is broken. It depends on the nature of the secret. In any case, you need to put supplemental questions on the "success convo" portion. It doesn't matter how many you want. You should use the action "flash health bar" before each supplemental question. Obviously, the correct answer will continue the flow of the psyche locks. However, there is one tricky part: the failure conversation. The biggest mistake trial authors make when scripting this is that they loop back to the question. Do NOT do that. Why is that? What if you're caught in an endless loop of losing? That's really unfair to the player. So what do you do? You redirect the convo about the incorrect answer (ie, frame if fail) BACK to the psyche lock question. That is to say, redirect the conversation to the ORIGINAL question. But, do NOT do it directly. Redirect to a blank frame that would automatically lead you back to the ORIGINAL psyche lock question. In this case, it would be the last frame in the "conversation if failure" in regards to the original question. Rinse and repeat as many times as necessary.

Oh, and for this to work, the last frame in the original question's "conversation if failure" needs to be a blank frame, with "Reduce Player's Health by 0" and a timer of 1. The frame before that can have the risk displayed (as I had described in yoshi's guide).

If this is hard, don't worry. I have visuals for you. Pay attention to the frame number and positions.
Spoiler : Step 1: Pay attention to the psyche lock edit field :
Image
Spoiler : Step 2: Pay attention to the frame numbers under psyche lock question's "conversation if failure" :
Image
Spoiler : Step 3: Make sure that on you subsequent questions, the failure convos end up going back to the original question :
Image
Image
Emulating the Psyche Lock "Game Over" Sequence
What I see in most fan cases (what comes to mind is FrozenPhoenix's "The Perfect Turnabout") is that when you fail the psyche lock, you automatically lose. Granted, "Perfect" was made when the Editor was young, but now it's considered incorrectly implemented, by today's standards.

Have you noticed what happens in JFA, T&T, and AJ 4-3? That's right. Phoenix doesn't die. He just tries again. You can recreate the sequence, but it's going to be VERY tricky. So far, JM has many psyche locks, but currently, it doesn't have the authentic "game over" sequence that AA games have. My "Turnabout!" Parts 1 and 3 (when I re-release those parts) have that AA-like game over. It'll look slightly messy due to those ugly goddamn locks that still appear when you have the Game Over sequence, but I can guarantee that it'll be somewhat like a "Game Over" sequence.

This part of the guide will be set in two parts: the "Game Over" sequence, and manipulating the last lock.

"Game Over" sequence
Now, "Set Game Over Redirection" to the place where you want to "lead" the Game Over. You must set this action at the BEGINNING of psyche locks. Now, start writing out the conversation that will happen when the player fails to break the witness's psyche locks. BUT you must use the "Current lock explodes" action at strategic points of the conversation. Remember, the AA "game over" sequence goes something like "Damn! I don't have the evidence to unlock the locks. Mr. Nick, don't push yourself too hard or your soul will break." Go with this direction of writing. Bur remember, the number of locks that "explode" during the "game over" must equal the number of main questions because naturally, that's how many locks you have to break. Do not use the Locks Break sound fx. Just before the last frame of that dialogue, set the player's HP to 1.2 (the equivalent of 1hp when PW redoes the psyche locks on empty). On the last frame, redirect to the last frame of the final psyche lock (meaning, Conversation if success)...

This will lead into part 2 of this section of the guide.

Manipulating the last lock
So you have redirected the "game over" sequence to the last frame of the final lock of the witness's psyche lock. (My, that was a mouthful :P ) This is the trickiest part to understand, but it's the easiest to implement. Create one more blank frame. On the frame before the one where the "game over" sequence is to redirect (again, another mouthful :P ), redirect that frame to that newly created blank frame. This is better shown in one picture. If you've done this correctly, the Player should play the sequence, and the psyche lock button should still exist.

Here's what it looks like, in visual form.

For the purposes of my guide, my "Set Game Over redirection" is set at frame 1455.
Spoiler : Part 1: The "Game Over" sequence :
Image
Spoiler : Part 2: Manipulating the last lock :
Image
Finishing the psyche locks authentically
For this, it's recommended that you do NOT use the following actions until AFTER you have completed the scripting for the "game over" sequence and redirection:
  • Hide talk conversation
  • Reveal talk conversation
  • Current lock explodes
  • Hide psyche lock button
  • Reduce player's life points
When you have set the Player to jump frames at a certain point, you should implement these actions. You can use the first four actions at any point on the success conversation of the final lock, but you must NOT use "Reduce player's life points" until you're sure that'll be the end of the psyche locks. So why is there a "Reduce player's life point" action? Simple: it's to add life points.

Okay, I bet you're thinking "E.D. is crazy to think that an action to reduce HP would add HP." WRONG! It's possible to add HP. How? Add a minus sign right before the number like this:

Code: Select all

Number of life points (max 120): -60
Spoiler : Look at this :
Image

For those who are looking for authenticity in your trials, I hope this guide works for you. It takes a lot of scripting, but it will make your presentation of your case 10x better than before.
Last edited by E.D.Revolution on Mon Apr 25, 2011 7:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Image
User avatar
Thursday
Posts: 701
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2010 2:45 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Tagalog, Some French
Location: Toronto, ON

Re: Guide: Advanced Psyche Lock Guide: Authenticity

Post by Thursday »

Thank goodness. I live for authenticity, so I very much appreciate this guide.
Awesome job!
Image

Image
Day 2 - Trial COMPLETE and Playable now!
User avatar
E.D.Revolution
Posts: 5743
Joined: Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:00 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English and decent Spanish
Location: Across dimensions, transcending universes

Re: Guide: Advanced Psyche Lock Guide: Authenticity

Post by E.D.Revolution »

Thanks, man. :D
Image
User avatar
Ryu Ushiromiya
Posts: 2361
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2011 6:57 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: American English, Español (Puerto Rico)
Location: Puerto Rico

Re: Guide: Advanced Psyche Lock Guide: Authenticity

Post by Ryu Ushiromiya »

Oooh, this guide will definitely come in handy. Thanks! :awesome:
IMPORTANT MESSAGE! CLICK HERE PLEASE?
Apologies if I do not reply in a timely manner. Sig by Tap!

Image
User avatar
Meph
Posts: 13439
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2008 10:07 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English
Location: Probably Disneyland Paris... or the UK

Re: Guide: Advanced Psyche Lock Guide: Authenticity

Post by Meph »

Interesting. This is quite inventive. ;)
Mimi
Posts: 10382
Joined: Wed Jan 27, 2010 6:35 am
Gender: Female
Spoken languages: English: the only language I can brag about

Re: Guide: Psyche Locks - Authenticity (Advanced)

Post by Mimi »

This looks like a good guide. Once I master basic locks, I'll see if I can use this. :wink:
TestNintendo
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jan 30, 2024 2:45 pm
Spoken languages: English, Polish

Re: Psyche Locks - Authenticity (Advanced)

Post by TestNintendo »

All of the images are broken. Please, fix them!
User avatar
drvonkitty
Posts: 567
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2012 12:25 am
Spoken languages: English

Re: Psyche Locks - Authenticity (Advanced)

Post by drvonkitty »

TestNintendo wrote: Sat Mar 09, 2024 2:55 pm All of the images are broken. Please, fix them!
this thread is for an older version of aao, check this guide out for a how-to on psyche locks in the current version!
Image

Image
Post Reply