Ace Attorney Online

In working on my fancase All the Brooks and Soldiers, I kept running into the limitations of AAO. Not because AAO is inadequate - far from it! AAO can do pretty much any reasonable thing you'd want to do.

Sadly, I'm not doing reasonable things.

Suppose you want to embed elaborate Professor Layton-style puzzles, have smoother 3D object rotations than PyWright allows, or otherwise extend the base idea of an "AA game." You can fake some of that in PyWright, AAO, or even Ren'Py, but it'd be nice to have a framework that's a more open to extension in ambitious ways.

That brings me to UCANT.

What is UCANT?

In a few words: An Adventure VN engine for people who like to program, but also like having tools to make that easier.

Where is it now?

I currently have an investigation gameplay demo, but still need to implement trial features (cross-examine) and a lot of conveniences. A lot has been done, but there's still some way to go.

Gameplay Demo:

Here are simple demos of investigation gameplay, in zipped archives:

PC version

Mac version

Your computer may not recognize these executables as safe. On a Mac, you may need to control-click the unzipped archive to actually run it.

Unity Package:

If you'd like to mess around with UCANT in Unity, try importing this Unity Asset Package into version 2018.1 of the Unity Editor. The documentation is still in progress, so you may or may not be able to do much with it as is!

Asset package

UCANT was on hold for a while, but the project is now moving along again. The biggest news is that I've found a good .GIF decoder for Unity, so now UCANT does, in fact, support .gifs.

Right now, I've implemented an expression engine that can run a simple if statement on a wide range of integer + variable expressions. String variables are not supported _yet_. Flow control is looking good, if simple. Character emote switching is working, too.

There's a VERY long way to go, but the command system I've put into place, if a bit finicky, is well-suited to what I want to do.

UCANT be serious. Even anyone who CantScript UCANT make a complicated case. That's amazing. WhoCANT hope that this succeeds? All the brooks and soldiers are waiting patiently on UCANT's completion.

In all seriousness, it's good to see that this is alive (as of last month but still) and I hope you can finish it.
I also made this post for the puns.

Update:

* Massive refactoring and rewrites have slimmed down a lot of the messiest chunks of the engine, but more is still to come.

* Saving and loading games now works... sort of. I still need to polish some specific cases!

* This project is still in its infancy, but even so, I really do think I've seen some forward progress!

Updates:

* Choice options have been added.
* Saving now takes a screenshot and metadata.

Next priorities:

High priority:
* Adding a proper quit button, instead of forcing manual exit or just ending when the demo ends
* Ensuring the save system doesn't create further problems
* Examine screens - the first step towards a location system

Medium priority:
* Fixing an annoying bug where the screen flickers on save
* Other aesthetics fixes for the interface, such as more fade transitions

I anticipate examine screens being tricky, but I have some interesting features planned.

Updates since last time:

* Several bugs in saving fixed.
* Preliminary Examine screen engine added and working.
* Resources now auto-register when imported to Unity - now you can drag a background, sound file, etc. into a folder and immediately call it by filename in a script, rather than rewrite a configuration file to include it. This does not work for character sprites (and shouldn't).
* Displaying variable values in dialogue added.
* Centered text added.
* Quit button added.
* Some more fades added, and fading system standardized.

To-do next:
* Revise Examine screen code to include optional back button and check for bad examine areas (ones that link to undefined script label) (Done, with automated generation of examine scripts.)
* Add typewriter mode shortcut. (Done. The command type "This is typed dialogue." will automatically make the color, sound, and centering of the text fit typewriter mode.
* Add text input prompt (Done.)
* Add investigation mode buttons

Very nice! When do you expect to release the next demo?

I think I'm going to see if I can get an investigation going! With the examine screens in good shape (aside from a strange long load time on the first one called, which I can work on), once I have investigation menus I can start work on a much more substantial demo.

The investigation menus are in place, as is a rudimentary evidence system with Check button! I still need to set up "Present" and "Use" features, but this is getting very close to a complete investigation engine!

Will UCANT Be sufficient?

Posted a demo and Unity Asset Package!