[T][CE] TTT ●

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eunoia
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Re: [T][CE] TTT ●

Post by eunoia »

Made an account just to say this case was awesome
Spoiler : :
Hypothetically speaking, would all of the players have been able to survive if say, each player that ascended threw out a key as the elevator began to close? It's stated that Sheol doesn't have direct control over the elevator after all
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¿Acid Rain?
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Re: [T][CE] TTT ●

Post by ¿Acid Rain? »

eunoia wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 1:19 pm Made an account just to say this case was awesome
Spoiler : :
Hypothetically speaking, would all of the players have been able to survive if say, each player that ascended threw out a key as the elevator began to close? It's stated that Sheol doesn't have direct control over the elevator after all
Spoiler : Response :
Nah, the elevator will only move if the sensor detects two keys inside the elevator. If the number of keys in the elevator suddenly changed, I'd think the elevator would stop and go back down.

I don't blame you for wondering this, though (and you aren't the first person to question how the elevator works, either). I decided to skip over the intricacies to a) keep the VO section well-paced and b) because it doesn't really matter one way or the other. In retrospect it was a little silly of me to gloss over such an important mechanic of the game when I know my audience is made up of people who are constantly on the lookout for tiny details to form nonsensical theories with lol
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Re: [T][CE] TTT ●

Post by Kit »

Wow, TTT is amazing
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TimeAxis
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Re: [T][CE] TTT ●

Post by TimeAxis »

I started playing this case in October of last year, and finished it today. That means I've spent over half a year playing it, with a few several month-long breaks throughout. If I had been judging it in a contest, people would be very mad.

Length-wise, this is at least as long as one, maybe two full Ace Attorney games. Here are my thoughts:
Spoiler : :
Long story short, loved it. Presentation was absolutely fantastic, the music was perfect, atmosphere was 10/10, the writing was excellent, the case logic was great.

I have a few nitpicks, but they're relatively minor. For one, this case did something that kind of annoyed me as I played through it (but annoyed me less as the case went on), which was teasing that it was going to do something, and then being like "yeah, that'd be cool but nobody wants to see that so we're not doing that" and not doing it. For example, teasing that the case was going to be about a killing game, and then not showing the killing game. Skipping over the initial puzzle, etc. After having finished it, I totally get why it skipped over that stuff, and I do think it works fine, but I still totally would have loved to have played a case that focused on those parts. It almost kind of felt like the story was rushing to skip past itself so it could be its own sequel.

Another nitpick was with the gameplay. The case logic made sense, but I'm not going to lie, I would not have been able to complete this without the walkthrough. It was filled with solutions where I was like "yeah that makes sense" in retrospect, but that I would never have thought of in a million years. Part of that may have been due to the long breaks I was taking between parts, but I think the case is good at compartmentalizing itself, so that wasn't as much of a factor as you'd think. The real issue was just the sheer amount of moving parts there were to keep track of. As a story, it was great, but as a game? I definitely wouldn't have minded just a tiny bit more handholding or hints to help out.

And one more thing, but I don't like the overuse of auto-advancing text. I get it for the voiced parts, because you want to time things with the voices, but for everything else, it just makes it hard to follow sometimes. I did have to load saves and re-read a couple parts, and in some cases I didn't have a good save to go back to so I just said screw it and missed a line or two. A lot of parts felt like they really didn't need to be auto-advancing. Especially because you can't save or load during auto-advancing frames, meaning if you load a save beforehand you need to rewatch the whole thing.

That being said, as I said before, loved it. 10/10 case. Nitpicks don't even dent the score. Ended extremely strongly, too.

Also I have a theory that Blue was the one who hit the breaker, used the chainsaw to get the last key, and saved Roland by throwing him into the elevator with the two keys. For a while I also suspected that it was going to be vice versa and that Zero was actually Blue, not Roland.
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Re: [T][CE] TTT ●

Post by ¿Acid Rain? »

TimeAxis wrote: Sun Jun 25, 2023 1:49 am I started playing this case in October of last year, and finished it today. That means I've spent over half a year playing it, with a few several month-long breaks throughout. If I had been judging it in a contest, people would be very mad.

Length-wise, this is at least as long as one, maybe two full Ace Attorney games. Here are my thoughts:
Spoiler : :
Long story short, loved it. Presentation was absolutely fantastic, the music was perfect, atmosphere was 10/10, the writing was excellent, the case logic was great.

I have a few nitpicks, but they're relatively minor. For one, this case did something that kind of annoyed me as I played through it (but annoyed me less as the case went on), which was teasing that it was going to do something, and then being like "yeah, that'd be cool but nobody wants to see that so we're not doing that" and not doing it. For example, teasing that the case was going to be about a killing game, and then not showing the killing game. Skipping over the initial puzzle, etc. After having finished it, I totally get why it skipped over that stuff, and I do think it works fine, but I still totally would have loved to have played a case that focused on those parts. It almost kind of felt like the story was rushing to skip past itself so it could be its own sequel.

Another nitpick was with the gameplay. The case logic made sense, but I'm not going to lie, I would not have been able to complete this without the walkthrough. It was filled with solutions where I was like "yeah that makes sense" in retrospect, but that I would never have thought of in a million years. Part of that may have been due to the long breaks I was taking between parts, but I think the case is good at compartmentalizing itself, so that wasn't as much of a factor as you'd think. The real issue was just the sheer amount of moving parts there were to keep track of. As a story, it was great, but as a game? I definitely wouldn't have minded just a tiny bit more handholding or hints to help out.

And one more thing, but I don't like the overuse of auto-advancing text. I get it for the voiced parts, because you want to time things with the voices, but for everything else, it just makes it hard to follow sometimes. I did have to load saves and re-read a couple parts, and in some cases I didn't have a good save to go back to so I just said screw it and missed a line or two. A lot of parts felt like they really didn't need to be auto-advancing. Especially because you can't save or load during auto-advancing frames, meaning if you load a save beforehand you need to rewatch the whole thing.

That being said, as I said before, loved it. 10/10 case. Nitpicks don't even dent the score. Ended extremely strongly, too.

Also I have a theory that Blue was the one who hit the breaker, used the chainsaw to get the last key, and saved Roland by throwing him into the elevator with the two keys. For a while I also suspected that it was going to be vice versa and that Zero was actually Blue, not Roland.
I'm actually extremely flattered that TTT was compelling enough to keep you coming back for nine whole months. Thanks for playing!
Spoiler : Response to Feedback :
Long story short, your thoughts mirror my own. When I originally envisioned TTT, I wanted the player to alternate between Roland and Mia, but that was eventually scrapped partway in favour of the whole Zero thing. There's a lot of content I wish I could have written, but it just wasn't in the cards. (Like, for instance, the entire part where you were supposed to play as Diego and hunt down Bishop's research notes by talking more with McClane and Volkov and solving puzzles and codes and stuff and I think getting into a shootout with someone? Ultra bummer that didn't fit.)

I set out with the goal of making TTT challenging but fair — and I think I accomplished that — but, yeah, it asks a lot of the player. Too much, IMO, but honestly I'm satisfied just knowing that it all holds together lmao

I totally sympathize with your timed section troubles; the original gameplay sections I think are the weakest parts of TTT. I felt (and still feel) that I was obligated to create new gameplay experiences given how TTT fits into the larger mystery VN context and also because it's minimum like a 12-hour read. I also think they all look hella rad graphically. That being said, they're all bullshit lmao. The reasoning in both Logic Duels is incredibly jank, and the only reason it isn't more noticeable is because they don't let you stop and think about it. I'm also just personally not a fan of how they play which is why the third Logic Duel (the part 8 panic attack stuff) ended up just being normal gameplay instead. In fact, there was a time when I intended to go back and change them entirely, but it was totally screwing with the pacing so I left them in. There's also the Part 7 SRaB investigation segment, and boy-oh-boy that thing is hard. Believe it or not, it actually used to be significantly harder — just ask my betatesters. The planning for part 7 alone took me like eight or nine months and the segment was at one point literally a Danganronpa Nonstop Debate, then it was just a really long testimony, then it was a proper AA-style investigation before finally becoming something close to what it is in the final product. In the end, it checks all the boxes I wanted it to it just does so at the player's expense. It's an absolutely bonkers segment, and I am a changed person after writing it.

And as for your theory... TTT is pretty open-ended, so it doesn't really matter what I think. Though I will say it's not far off from what I personally believe happened.
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Re: [T][CE] TTT ●

Post by fiskmoz »

I played through this today and just wanted to say that this game is fantastic!
Exceptional writing and incredibly detailed and well thought out overall. Thank you for the journey!
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Ferdielance
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Re: [T][CE] TTT ●

Post by Ferdielance »

I saw people saying good things about this on the Discord, so I gave it a try. I've finished the second chapter up to now - thoughts so far.
Spoiler : spoilers and speculation ahead. :
So far, this is a well-paced, polished, engaging case that shows signs of a lot of care and editing, with punchy dialogue and a tense, moody atmosphere. The Zero Escape influence is obvious - so obvious that I'm wondering if this is going to turn out to be a crossover, or at least involve a character who is a fan of the Zero Escape games - but the gameplay is wildly different.

This is both a strength and a weakness. Acid Rain clearly doesn't want to put ZE-style puzzles in just because the ZE games have them; the narrator flat-out skips a puzzle that would be tedious to work through. That's probably a good choice!

However, one of the biggest strengths of ZE is that it forces the player to engage with the game's themes and ideas - even the goofiest ones - by having them do things. Here, the first chapter is really closer to a kinetic novel - the player clicks. This would be less disappointing if I hadn't come in expecting a ZE-style experience.

On the other hand, there's a lot to be said for knowing your strengths and playing to them, and Acid Rain is doing so. Plus, I have several lines of suspicion that - if any one of them turns out to be right - would make it quite misleading to ask the player to solve puzzles in this chapter. Given certain pieces of foreshadowing, and the thoughtfulness of the presentation so far, I'm inclined to trust that Acid Rain is skipping the ZE puzzles for a good reason.

I think a lot of people's comments on this case will focus on the slickness of presentation, with sound effects, transitions, OC sprites, and music all being deployed superbly well. But that would miss one of the main things this case does well: so far, despite the length of the game, the writing is admirably concise and focused.

I don't mean that the case is short, but rather that almost every line serves at least two purposes at once, especially in the first chapter. Each line of dialogue doesn't just exposit - it exposits and establishes character. Or it tells a joke, but also raises tension. (The sole exception to this are a few scenes where delays, pauses, and waffling are used for comic effect, but even those might be serving a second purpose.) The canonical AA and ZE games don't always do this well. (TGAA1 is infamously repetitive, with some lines of dialogue serving no purpose besides reminding the player of something they've seen three times already.)

That focus is VITAL. In a case with so many parts, each of which seems like it's going to be quite long, dithering and dragging it out would be fatal.

Speculation so far:

ZE games rely on narrative tricks, and this was entered in a Never Trust the Narrator competition. When the comp title gives that much away, there are only a few ways to surprise the player. One is to mislead the player about which narration not to trust. Another is to make the narrator trustworthy in every way that really matters, and do a double-bluff, fulfilling the comp theme in a more subtle way. And the last is to be so audaciously deceptive that only someone as insane as the author could see it coming. ZE uses the last approach, repeatedly, so I will expect that.

I am now going to throw some darts, as of the end of chapter two. It is quite possible none of these will hit, but it may give AR a sense of how effective or ineffective the misdirection has been. (Of COURSE there's misdirection. How could there not be?)

Every ZE game relies on causing us to make certain assumptions, and then subverting them. So let's try that.
  • Roland is a mostly reliable narrator. The unreliable narrator is Mia.
  • Roland did not wake up in one of those eight rooms and guide the puzzle solving. Eric was in that room. Roland was in the locked room, or not in any of the rooms.
  • More audaciously: Roland wasn't even there, and is a fabrication - either by Sheol, the survivors, one of the dead, or a later cover-up after the events.
  • Example: There were only three survivors, who created a fictional composite character to take the blame for all of their killings during the game. He "got away."
  • Even MORE audaciously: There was no escape game. The journal, with its sketches of an underground complex, is a hoax. This would be an unsatisfying answer unless the contents of the journal were still important for some other reasons.
  • There were TWO such "games" played. We think the people in Ch. 2 correspond to the game logged in the journal. They are another game.
  • We are led to think the people left inside will die, that the complex is some underground bunker surrounded by concrete, and the people who take the elevator will live. But everything is backwards. The elevator goes DOWN and represents damnation - a drop from purgatory into Hell. They are actually on a high floor of some building, the elevator takes people to their doom, and an exit opens via the roof.
  • Eric seems suspicious to everyone because he's a detective, and the others are criminals.
  • Roland's name is also misdirection. It's meant to evoke the gunslinger from The Dark Tower, leading the player to think that Roland and Tower are one and the same. I'm skeptical that it's that straightforward.
Some of these are mutually contradictory, but let's see how many - if ANY - turn out to be correct. There's a decent chance AR has taken me for a ride here.
"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
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Re: [T][CE] TTT ●

Post by ¿Acid Rain? »

Ferdielance wrote: Fri Jan 19, 2024 6:40 pm I saw people saying good things about this on the Discord, so I gave it a try. I've finished the second chapter up to now - thoughts so far.
Spoiler : spoilers and speculation ahead. :
So far, this is a well-paced, polished, engaging case that shows signs of a lot of care and editing, with punchy dialogue and a tense, moody atmosphere. The Zero Escape influence is obvious - so obvious that I'm wondering if this is going to turn out to be a crossover, or at least involve a character who is a fan of the Zero Escape games - but the gameplay is wildly different.

This is both a strength and a weakness. Acid Rain clearly doesn't want to put ZE-style puzzles in just because the ZE games have them; the narrator flat-out skips a puzzle that would be tedious to work through. That's probably a good choice!

However, one of the biggest strengths of ZE is that it forces the player to engage with the game's themes and ideas - even the goofiest ones - by having them do things. Here, the first chapter is really closer to a kinetic novel - the player clicks. This would be less disappointing if I hadn't come in expecting a ZE-style experience.

On the other hand, there's a lot to be said for knowing your strengths and playing to them, and Acid Rain is doing so. Plus, I have several lines of suspicion that - if any one of them turns out to be right - would make it quite misleading to ask the player to solve puzzles in this chapter. Given certain pieces of foreshadowing, and the thoughtfulness of the presentation so far, I'm inclined to trust that Acid Rain is skipping the ZE puzzles for a good reason.

I think a lot of people's comments on this case will focus on the slickness of presentation, with sound effects, transitions, OC sprites, and music all being deployed superbly well. But that would miss one of the main things this case does well: so far, despite the length of the game, the writing is admirably concise and focused.

I don't mean that the case is short, but rather that almost every line serves at least two purposes at once, especially in the first chapter. Each line of dialogue doesn't just exposit - it exposits and establishes character. Or it tells a joke, but also raises tension. (The sole exception to this are a few scenes where delays, pauses, and waffling are used for comic effect, but even those might be serving a second purpose.) The canonical AA and ZE games don't always do this well. (TGAA1 is infamously repetitive, with some lines of dialogue serving no purpose besides reminding the player of something they've seen three times already.)

That focus is VITAL. In a case with so many parts, each of which seems like it's going to be quite long, dithering and dragging it out would be fatal.

Speculation so far:

ZE games rely on narrative tricks, and this was entered in a Never Trust the Narrator competition. When the comp title gives that much away, there are only a few ways to surprise the player. One is to mislead the player about which narration not to trust. Another is to make the narrator trustworthy in every way that really matters, and do a double-bluff, fulfilling the comp theme in a more subtle way. And the last is to be so audaciously deceptive that only someone as insane as the author could see it coming. ZE uses the last approach, repeatedly, so I will expect that.

I am now going to throw some darts, as of the end of chapter two. It is quite possible none of these will hit, but it may give AR a sense of how effective or ineffective the misdirection has been. (Of COURSE there's misdirection. How could there not be?)

Every ZE game relies on causing us to make certain assumptions, and then subverting them. So let's try that.
  • Roland is a mostly reliable narrator. The unreliable narrator is Mia.
  • Roland did not wake up in one of those eight rooms and guide the puzzle solving. Eric was in that room. Roland was in the locked room, or not in any of the rooms.
  • More audaciously: Roland wasn't even there, and is a fabrication - either by Sheol, the survivors, one of the dead, or a later cover-up after the events.
  • Example: There were only three survivors, who created a fictional composite character to take the blame for all of their killings during the game. He "got away."
  • Even MORE audaciously: There was no escape game. The journal, with its sketches of an underground complex, is a hoax. This would be an unsatisfying answer unless the contents of the journal were still important for some other reasons.
  • There were TWO such "games" played. We think the people in Ch. 2 correspond to the game logged in the journal. They are another game.
  • We are led to think the people left inside will die, that the complex is some underground bunker surrounded by concrete, and the people who take the elevator will live. But everything is backwards. The elevator goes DOWN and represents damnation - a drop from purgatory into Hell. They are actually on a high floor of some building, the elevator takes people to their doom, and an exit opens via the roof.
  • Eric seems suspicious to everyone because he's a detective, and the others are criminals.
  • Roland's name is also misdirection. It's meant to evoke the gunslinger from The Dark Tower, leading the player to think that Roland and Tower are one and the same. I'm skeptical that it's that straightforward.
Some of these are mutually contradictory, but let's see how many - if ANY - turn out to be correct. There's a decent chance AR has taken me for a ride here.
Thanks for giving TTT a shot! And extra special thanks for reading it as critically as you have been! I hope it continues to warrant such keen evaluation in your eyes haha

I'll hold off on responding to specific comments until you've either finished or stopped, but I look forward to comparing notes.
K_G
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Re: [T][CE] TTT ●

Post by K_G »

Thank you so much for making this case. It's my favourite ace attorney case of all time. I actually like it even more than my favourite cases in the official games. Everything was perfect to me, the writing, atmosphere and the music choices were all amazing. This is an absolute masterpiece IMO.

I wish there were some way of preserving this case. Many old cases on this site often become unplayable because of backgrounds and songs being lost in some way. TTT honestly deserves to be preserved forever but I don't know if that's possible. It would be nice to be able to play this in 10+ years from now.

Again, thank you for making this.
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Ferdielance
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Re: [T][CE] TTT ●

Post by Ferdielance »

A non-spoilery review for now. Spoilery thoughts later, when I have a chance!

I'm sometimes stunned by the sheer writing speed of AAO users. AAOers have turned around massive, multi-part work in the span of a single case comp. Those works are often impressive, but also inconsistent - the gameplay has weird hitches, some parts needed to be cut, etc.

Though huge, TTT is not one of those 'write the biggest case ever' speedruns. It was in development for years, and the level of planning shows. It has consistency and polish, especially in its pacing and presentation. In other words, it's more like someone wrote a novel or a commercial game in AAO...

Except that isn't quite right either, because TTT is unabashedly a fangame, a love letter to things AAOers like. It is, in some ways, it feels to me like the ultimate AAO case. It's a gentle parody of everything I like in AAO cases, as well as a serious execution of everything I like in AAO cases. It isn't perfect, but the ways in which it isn't perfect ALSO encapsulate the feel of AAO cases of a certain era.

It's got rapid-fire logic duels, recontextualization of canon sprites and characters, a delicate mix of the goofy and the grim, trolling, allusions to Murder Game lore, and puzzles. It asks a lot of its player - more than even fairly challenging commercial mystery games ask. In return, it gives a very specific kind of joy.
---
Here's an analogy: suppose you have a group of friends you play tabletop RPGs with, and they've gotten pretty good at running these games. You all know each other's lore, gameplay preferences, and favorite movies. One day, a group member who's not really known as a game master comes in with their own campaign.

You play it, and it is amazing at what it is. Not only has this person been listening and watching the techniques, they've been honing their craft quietly. Everything looks right, sounds right, and flows.

If a random person were to walk in from the street, the whole project would seem weird and baffling to them. What's this house rule you have about using a stacked deck of cards instead of a d20? What the hell is up with these characters you all seem to know?

But the people in the room are having the time of their lives.
---

If at least five of the following points apply to you, you will probably LOVE this case:
  • You've played all the AA games, including Investigations. This isn't important because of spoilers; it's important because the more obsessively you love Ace Attorney, the more TTT will speak to you.
  • You've played all the Zero Escape games and enjoyed at least some. Again, not for spoilers, but for the same reason as above.
  • You're familiar with Umineko.
  • You've played Danganronpa and enjoyed it.
  • You've played a DWaM AAO case and enjoyed it.
  • You've played a Blackrune AAO case and enjoyed it.
  • You can name at least five of Knox's Ten Commandments from memory.
Even if only two or three apply to you, you will still probably like this case! It is very good! But you might scratch your head at some of its central obsessions, and those of its characters. But again, if you're the target audience, it will put a big, stupid grin on your face for hours.
"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
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Re: [T][CE] TTT ●

Post by ¿Acid Rain? »

K_G wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2024 3:51 am Thank you so much for making this case. It's my favourite ace attorney case of all time. I actually like it even more than my favourite cases in the official games. Everything was perfect to me, the writing, atmosphere and the music choices were all amazing. This is an absolute masterpiece IMO.

I wish there were some way of preserving this case. Many old cases on this site often become unplayable because of backgrounds and songs being lost in some way. TTT honestly deserves to be preserved forever but I don't know if that's possible. It would be nice to be able to play this in 10+ years from now.

Again, thank you for making this.
Damn, that's some generous praise. Thanks for playing!

Regarding preservation, there are a few playthroughs of TTT on YouTube. Visual Novelty, Mitsuda Madoy, and YunaTheSida all have public playlists, and Igniam shared their unlisted videos in an earlier post in this thread. I'm not worried about TTT suddenly becoming lost media, but preservation is and has been a long-time concern among the fancase community. I mean, Dropbox and Photobucket have directly contributed to the functional loss of most fancases released prior to 2012. I don't have the answer to this issue, but either recording your own playthrough or supporting those who do make AA fancase content would be a start.
Ferdielance wrote: Fri Jan 19, 2024 6:40 pm I saw people saying good things about this on the Discord, so I gave it a try. I've finished the second chapter up to now - thoughts so far.
I'm going to wait until the full review drops before I make any sort of in-depth reply, but I figure I can leave a few comments on these posts. There will be spoilers in my replies, for the record.
Spoiler : spoilers and speculation ahead. :
So far, this is a well-paced, polished, engaging case that shows signs of a lot of care and editing, with punchy dialogue and a tense, moody atmosphere. The Zero Escape influence is obvious - so obvious that I'm wondering if this is going to turn out to be a crossover, or at least involve a character who is a fan of the Zero Escape games - but the gameplay is wildly different.
I don't think anyone I've heard from thus far had interpreted the ZE similarities in Part One as anything other than an extremely unsubtle homage. I wonder if something tipped you off to the narrative significance...? Either way, you sure called your shot here lmao

This is both a strength and a weakness. Acid Rain clearly doesn't want to put ZE-style puzzles in just because the ZE games have them; the narrator flat-out skips a puzzle that would be tedious to work through. That's probably a good choice!

However, one of the biggest strengths of ZE is that it forces the player to engage with the game's themes and ideas - even the goofiest ones - by having them do things. Here, the first chapter is really closer to a kinetic novel - the player clicks. This would be less disappointing if I hadn't come in expecting a ZE-style experience. I could argue that the lack of anything excited to do in Part One is, in fact, thematic. That's absolutely a technicality, though haha. I recognize now that the lack of ZE gameplay causes some friction with the expectations established by TTT's promo material. I don't think I would have or could have done it any differently, but it's definitely something I should have anticipated.

On the other hand, there's a lot to be said for knowing your strengths and playing to them, and Acid Rain is doing so. Plus, I have several lines of suspicion that - if any one of them turns out to be right - would make it quite misleading to ask the player to solve puzzles in this chapter. Given certain pieces of foreshadowing, and the thoughtfulness of the presentation so far, I'm inclined to trust that Acid Rain is skipping the ZE puzzles for a good reason.

I think a lot of people's comments on this case will focus on the slickness of presentation, with sound effects, transitions, OC sprites, and music all being deployed superbly well. But that would miss one of the main things this case does well: so far, despite the length of the game, the writing is admirably concise and focused.

I don't mean that the case is short, but rather that almost every line serves at least two purposes at once, especially in the first chapter. Each line of dialogue doesn't just exposit - it exposits and establishes character. Or it tells a joke, but also raises tension. (The sole exception to this are a few scenes where delays, pauses, and waffling are used for comic effect, but even those might be serving a second purpose.) The canonical AA and ZE games don't always do this well. (TGAA1 is infamously repetitive, with some lines of dialogue serving no purpose besides reminding the player of something they've seen three times already.)
I'd be curious to know how well the later parts accomplish this, if at all. I imagine things start to simplify in order to focus on the gamified elements of the mystery. Especially considering how convoluted this mystery ended up being.

That focus is VITAL. In a case with so many parts, each of which seems like it's going to be quite long, dithering and dragging it out would be fatal.

Speculation so far:

ZE games rely on narrative tricks, and this was entered in a Never Trust the Narrator competition. When the comp title gives that much away, there are only a few ways to surprise the player. One is to mislead the player about which narration not to trust. Another is to make the narrator trustworthy in every way that really matters, and do a double-bluff, fulfilling the comp theme in a more subtle way. And the last is to be so audaciously deceptive that only someone as insane as the author could see it coming. ZE uses the last approach, repeatedly, so I will expect that.
Right on the money. Coming up with a way to make unreliable narration a surprise even when the unreliability is stated upfront was what made that comp fun and interesting, imo. In fact, I came up with the visual twist in Part Three first and then basically built the rest of the case around it.

I am now going to throw some darts, as of the end of chapter two. It is quite possible none of these will hit, but it may give AR a sense of how effective or ineffective the misdirection has been. (Of COURSE there's misdirection. How could there not be?)

Every ZE game relies on causing us to make certain assumptions, and then subverting them. So let's try that.
  • Roland is a mostly reliable narrator. The unreliable narrator is Mia.
  • Roland did not wake up in one of those eight rooms and guide the puzzle solving. Eric was in that room. Roland was in the locked room, or not in any of the rooms.
  • More audaciously: Roland wasn't even there, and is a fabrication - either by Sheol, the survivors, one of the dead, or a later cover-up after the events.
  • Example: There were only three survivors, who created a fictional composite character to take the blame for all of their killings during the game. He "got away."
    I actually like this one a lot. This would be a great twist, imo.
  • Even MORE audaciously: There was no escape game. The journal, with its sketches of an underground complex, is a hoax. This would be an unsatisfying answer unless the contents of the journal were still important for some other reasons.
  • There were TWO such "games" played. We think the people in Ch. 2 correspond to the game logged in the journal. They are another game.
    Coincidentally, early in development, there was actually a second game that took place between SRaB and Bishop's murder. It was mostly a contrivance to motivate the protagonists (they were going to be the survivors of this second game), and it got dropped pretty quickly.
  • We are led to think the people left inside will die, that the complex is some underground bunker surrounded by concrete, and the people who take the elevator will live. But everything is backwards. The elevator goes DOWN and represents damnation - a drop from purgatory into Hell. They are actually on a high floor of some building, the elevator takes people to their doom, and an exit opens via the roof.
    I like this one a lot, too. If this was a story that starts and ends with a character's "escape" from the murder game, this would be a interesting direction to take it.
  • Eric seems suspicious to everyone because he's a detective, and the others are criminals.
  • Roland's name is also misdirection. It's meant to evoke the gunslinger from The Dark Tower, leading the player to think that Roland and Tower are one and the same. I'm skeptical that it's that straightforward.
    This was an intended red herring, but Tower's voice was originally much closer to Roland's. Once he developed into who he is in the final product, I think it's pretty clear they aren't the same person lmao
Some of these are mutually contradictory, but let's see how many - if ANY - turn out to be correct. There's a decent chance AR has taken me for a ride here.
Ferdielance wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2024 12:46 am A non-spoilery review for now. Spoilery thoughts later, when I have a chance!
Spoiler : :
I'm sometimes stunned by the sheer writing speed of AAO users. AAOers have turned around massive, multi-part work in the span of a single case comp. Those works are often impressive, but also inconsistent - the gameplay has weird hitches, some parts needed to be cut, etc.

Though huge, TTT is not one of those 'write the biggest case ever' speedruns. It was in development for years, and the level of planning shows. It has consistency and polish, especially in its pacing and presentation. In other words, it's more like someone wrote a novel or a commercial game in AAO...

Except that isn't quite right either, because TTT is unabashedly a fangame, a love letter to things AAOers like. It is, in some ways, it feels to me like the ultimate AAO case. It's a gentle parody of everything I like in AAO cases, as well as a serious execution of everything I like in AAO cases. It isn't perfect, but the ways in which it isn't perfect ALSO encapsulate the feel of AAO cases of a certain era.

It's got rapid-fire logic duels, recontextualization of canon sprites and characters, a delicate mix of the goofy and the grim, trolling, allusions to Murder Game lore, and puzzles. It asks a lot of its player - more than even fairly challenging commercial mystery games ask. In return, it gives a very specific kind of joy.
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Here's an analogy: suppose you have a group of friends you play tabletop RPGs with, and they've gotten pretty good at running these games. You all know each other's lore, gameplay preferences, and favorite movies. One day, a group member who's not really known as a game master comes in with their own campaign.

You play it, and it is amazing at what it is. Not only has this person been listening and watching the techniques, they've been honing their craft quietly. Everything looks right, sounds right, and flows.

If a random person were to walk in from the street, the whole project would seem weird and baffling to them. What's this house rule you have about using a stacked deck of cards instead of a d20? What the hell is up with these characters you all seem to know?

But the people in the room are having the time of their lives.
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If at least five of the following points apply to you, you will probably LOVE this case:
  • You've played all the AA games, including Investigations. This isn't important because of spoilers; it's important because the more obsessively you love Ace Attorney, the more TTT will speak to you.
  • You've played all the Zero Escape games and enjoyed at least some. Again, not for spoilers, but for the same reason as above.
  • You're familiar with Umineko.
  • You've played Danganronpa and enjoyed it.
  • You've played a DWaM AAO case and enjoyed it.
  • You've played a Blackrune AAO case and enjoyed it.
  • You can name at least five of Knox's Ten Commandments from memory.
Even if only two or three apply to you, you will still probably like this case! It is very good! But you might scratch your head at some of its central obsessions, and those of its characters. But again, if you're the target audience, it will put a big, stupid grin on your face for hours.
No specific comments on this one, but I'm always happy to hear that TTT landed almost exactly how I wanted it to. Thanks for playing!
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