Horror is a broad topic; different things make different people scared. We all know murder by itself is not enough to make an AAOer phased. However, a Blue Badger slinking up from the shadows to Edgeworth to bash him over the head could be.
Our challenge falls into two categories:
In order for your case to qualify, you must make some use of horror as a genre, or general spookiness. Whether that be something akin to a monster-filled bloody tale or a lighthearted Halloween story is up to you.
Our challenge falls into two categories:
- Make a genuine horror experience; psychological, abstract, slasher, etc.
- Make a case that has general spooky, Halloween-like themes.
In order for your case to qualify, you must make some use of horror as a genre, or general spookiness. Whether that be something akin to a monster-filled bloody tale or a lighthearted Halloween story is up to you.
When judging, we will consider your entry under these aspects:
Relevance
Relevance
- Whether you chose to make an abstract horror, analog-psychological horror, or a comedic case with horror themes, we will decide whether you accomplished what your specific niche is. No niche is better than the other.
- Each judge’s sense of what is ‘scary’ is sincerely their own. What may be scary to you may not be scary to them, and vice versa.
- Characters are make-or-break for cases. If your character is more solemn or reserved, this is acceptable for the horror genre, but may come off as bland. You’re encouraged to get silly to make an impression, but within the tone of your case.
- Use of OCS are recommended, but not mandatory— just in Kitty’s opinion, OCs are more fun to use, but they wouldn’t mind if you added a canon character or two.
- A scary situation can warp anyone’s sense of what is the immediate solution, and the interpretation of a canon character in a horror setting can be very intriguing, as well as personal.
- Your case should not have oversaturated graphics or things that are hard to look at, unless there is a specific reason. Attempt to have little to no typos, graphical glitches, and bugs that prevent the judges from completing your case.
- Your use of atmosphere to establish what your case is will be factored into how effective your overall presentation is.
- Story is the most important thing in Ace Attorney, but in the broad theme of horror, sometimes the scariest things are the ones we don’t get a full answer on. Whether you create a story that leaves an open-ended chilling conclusion, or one that gives all the satisfying answers, is up to you. Whatever you decide should be effective.
- We should feel like the words we’re reading are meaningful, not filler, and pushes the game along to its conclusion. Excessive words that mean the same thing are not encouraged, unless it’s to reinforce something scary through repetition. EEEK!!! Feel free to play around with it.
- Your gameplay should be fun or scary. This may be hard in a visual novel engine, but get silly with your ideas of what may be possible to create a spooky atmosphere using AAO.
If you’re joining, these’re the rules;
- Entries must be created between July 2nd and October 2nd. Early submission is acceptable. An extension of this date may be applicable through unforeseen circumstances.
- Entries must be submitted to eerew and applekitty, with walkthroughs included.
- Entries must not be public until after the judging is complete.
- Entries must not be edited after submitted.
- You may have to fix bugs at the request of the judges, but you cannot rewrite the game to fix its writing/logic/gameplay/whatever.
- Incomplete entries are acceptable, so long as you give it a genuine try.
- You may include spoilers for any game in the franchise, including Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and The Great Ace Attorney games.
- If you’re doing a crossover and it has spoilers, please specify that to the judges.
- Entries must have a full list of credits. If the entry is incomplete, slap them on the end or send them to the judges.
- You may collaborate with another person. You cannot collaborate on more than one entry, nor playtest other people’s entries. Third party playtesters are encouraged.
- Please continue to follow AAO’s rules when making your case.
- Do not add any content in your case that makes it so grimdark that it turns into a whumpfest full of torture and explicit content. Unless ur funny about it
- Do not add any content in your case that makes it so grimdark that it turns into a whumpfest full of torture and explicit content. Unless ur funny about it
- If your content has specific content in it that may be disturbing to viewers, please put a content warning before your game begins detailing what content is present. This tells us what you felt deserved warning potential future players about.
- For example, warnings for themes of suicide, drug use, jumpscares, etc.
- Do NOT use DID (what most people call multiple-personality disorder) as a source of horror. Same goes for other ‘scary’ mental illnesses. Unless you yourself have a ‘scary’ disorder, know how to write it respectfully, or know someone who has it and can help you write about it, don't touch it.
- Dont let the P. Goblin get you…
Deadline is October 3rd at 12am EST. Grace period is 24 hours after the deadline has passed for “unforeseen circumstances.” ; )))
PLAY THE COMP CEREMONY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
These’re the entrants;
Hehehehehehehe (scary laugh) -eerew
I like to use a cheese grater to scrape the dead skin off my foot. But what’s most disturbing to my dinner guests is how I keep the foot alive in my fridge. -A Reddit User
PLAY THE COMP CEREMONY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
Spoiler : Awards :
Scariest Little Monster That Runs Around And Lurks in the Dark
Errrmmm... Award
Great Potential Award
EEK! but I meant it Award
Spookiest Setting Award
Freddi Fish Award
Short & Sweet Award
Zombie Award
Understands Deadlines Award
Little Details Award
Snat Award
Golden Cactus Award
Jumpiest Jumpscare Award
Halloween Paint Brush Award
Animation Sensation Award
Wizard's Apprentice Award
That Was So Funny Award
New Blood Award
Mobile Mandy Award
Unique Aesthetic Award
EEK! Award
AAO Wizard Award
Best Setting Award
Best Hook Award
Sad SquidAward
Pride Power! Award
Suit Pocket Award
Ghostest with the Mostest Award
Most Badass Protagonist Award
Waiting on Australia Award
Best Animal Friend Award
Perfect Balance Award
Best Canon Characterization Award
Support the Troops award
AAO Speedrunning WR Award
TimeAxis
GuardianDreamer- Young_EEKlander "dad where are we going" "to KILL DEATH GORGE my son where we will have a nice day with NO murder scares!"
- Sonnie CelAAAAAHHnna what if we went to a scary location together and a ghost popped out would you get scared
- DeathByAutoSCARY & clcMEN made their submission while the judges were asleep >:(
- DJJ6668008135 something something anime girls something higurashi meta joke etc etc
- parcark
& pinkcocoapowDERANGED actually michael afton is not the purple guy. for you see, the "purple guy" is william afton, and his sprite being purple is to represent how he is actually in shadow. he is not a rotting corpse until the souls of the children he murdered chase him into hiding in springbonnie where the springlocks activate and he gets twisted into a meat pretzel (springlock suits work by being part animatronic and part wearable suit - when you use a specific tool to twist something in the back the animatronic parts give way in the suit so you can wear it. however it is very risky because significant movement and humidity will cause the animatronic parts to snap back into place, which causes purple guy to be killed because there was a lot of rain outside when he put the suit on). so, therefore, william afton was never seen outside "springtrap" (the name of the springlock suit he hid in after he dies in it) as a rotting corpse, so he cannot have been literally purple. also william afton doesn't die because he was injecting himself with the dead kid juice I mentioned earlier idk it's like his motive for killing kids or something. the bite of 87 did not have anything to do with michael afton or william afton, it's commonly speculated that the bite victim was jeremy fitzgerald aka the guard you play as for the majority of fnaf 2. this is because jeremy fitzgerald was moved to the dayshift as a new position opened up; william afton was going under the pseudonym dave miller and screwing around with the animatronics for more dead kid juice and wound up making the animatronics aggressive towards adults. it is commonly speculated that mangle is the culprit of the bite of 87 and i cannot believe I have written this much god damn please help me please please plase I HATE FNAF LORE PLEASE
- Mirage XELETON Dropped out over Discord instead of making their shame of dropping out public... Everyone laugh and Google sad ant bindle...
- skyEVILm a case with 0 characters -skyem (paraphrased)
- AwsoMENACE2464 "Has anyone seen Awesome" * brruuuppppp * no hehe
- NASTYButz NO SUBMISSION RECIEVED...
- BlairWITCHPrivPriv if my sanity drops to 0 then i lose this case.. AND MY MIND!!!
- TiMEANxis when I saw the submission in my PMs there was a firework outside
- GuarDIEnDreamer scooby doo taught us the real monsters are humans...
- SuperAJOKER3
What 
do you 
getwhen you cross 
a mentally 
ill 
australian 
with a S O C I E T Y 
🏙
that 
andons
him 
and treats
him 
like trash🗑
What 
do you 
get
ill 
australian 
with a 
that 
andons
him 
and treats
him 
like trash
- Super legSLENDAMAN what doyou MEAN athena's not in this case EEEEEEHHH!?!?!?
- DIElan DOGGY & TRYINGMYNERVES!!!!!bien NO LITTLE GERMAN BOY DONT USE KITTY'S FULBRIGHT SPRITES "UND MY GOT IT LOOKS LIKE SHIT!!!"
- BOOnnedfrom7 & KILLpri "okay banned you made sure to submit our case right" "yes i submitted our case that we made for this case comp" "you didnt submit savory turnabout" "no i didn't... Hehehe..."
Hehehehehehehe (scary laugh) -eerew
I like to use a cheese grater to scrape the dead skin off my foot. But what’s most disturbing to my dinner guests is how I keep the foot alive in my fridge. -A Reddit User
