Overview:
Play as your favorite Ace Attorney characters as you interact with the vast world of Japanifornia. Each scene is to be crafted with great attention to detail and lore in this retro side-scrolling, murder mystery generator. After a murder has been performed (by your hands or the hands of others), you may choose to prosecute against the defendant, defend the accused or testify in court, using a unique system that allows certain statements to be generated from an evidence/alibi list to build your own testimony as you wish to.

Planned Releases:
[The following dates are subject to change.]
Version 1.0 (Tutorial Demo) - TBA
(More to come later maybe. I know this is probably not how they should be set out, but meh.)

Version 1.0 Progress:
(Still getting this post set up. I'll add more to it later.)
Custom Art:

Custom Sounds:
Implemented Mechanics:

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Last edited by Retroxide on Sun Jun 05, 2016 2:45 am, edited 13 times in total.

Welcome to the forums!
And I cannot wait to play this, it sounds wonderful.
And did you say harass Edgeworth? *glares*

Heh harass edgeworth sounds fun!...OK just put it down i wont harass edgeworth!

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What did you just say?

I'm not sure I completely get the gameplay, but I think I follow the concept. So you and possibly other characters would walk around, pick up evidence, etc, then go to court and use it, correct? You act out or write an Ace Attorney style crime then try to find the killer? It's interesting stuff, I'm just confused about how it will be done.

Well, I've not got a GDD because I feel that the core gameplay may change drastically over the course of development, but I'd imagine it would go something like this:

Phase 1: Free Roam - Move from location to location in the ace attorney world. You can pretty much RP how you want to during this time. Want to share a coffee with Godot as Dahlia Hawthorne? Go right ahead. Want to go swimming with Damon Gant as the Judge? Sure, knock yourself out. (Yes, you can play and go on trial as the Judge. In this case, Justine Courtney or Judge's Bro will take over.) This is all pretty much filler, however, sometimes a character will murder someone else and you will have the option to take their case, prosecute against them, act as a witness/detective and share your evidence/experiences, or ultimately decide their verdict. (But of course, all that comes later.)

Phase 2: Murder - So, you've decided to kill someone. Pick a weapon, choose a location, locate your target and attempt to murder them. Your victim will be resilient though and will put up a fight unless you catch them by surprise and kill them instantly/incapacitate them. As you craft your murder, you will no doubt leave tracks, evidence of a struggle, blood spatters, fingerprints and witnesses. (The list will increase as more stuff gets added.) Everything you, the victim and the witnesses have interacted with will become potential evidence that you can use in court. Should you choose to kill someone, you can also attempt to frame them with bloody writing and weapons that they may have touched. (The AI should decide the 'alleged murder weapon' based on the first weapon they find that: A - Has trace evidence on it [blood, poison, etc.], and B - Matches the type of wound in the autopsy. If either one of those conditions are not met, they will simply state that a weapon could not be found. [A prompt which you could use to present the true weapon/forged evidence if you so chose.] )

Phase 3: Investigation/Lawyer Recruitment - Once the police have been called to the scene after a witness happens upon the body/murder, (And no, you cannot just simply keep killing off the witnesses, because the police will come regardless of what you do even if nobody is there to report it. In that case, they'd come after a set amount of time has passed, which I've yet to decide on.) any suspicious activities in front of a law enforcement officer will result in you being detained for the crime (Like holding a knife for example.) and you cannot investigate further. If this happens, you can choose a lawyer to defend you (Each lawyer costs a different amount of in-game currency depending on their level of difficulty. You use Bluecorp to help lower the difficulty of the prosecution by blackmailing the chief prosecutor, but again, that will cost you.) or choose to self represent. Otherwise, you just investigate the scene and pick up/forge evidence. You will only have a certain amount of in game time to do this, and once this time is up, you are transported to the defendant lobby/ prosecutor lobby/ judge's chambers/ foyer on the morning of the trial depending on the role you are to play.

Phase 4: Trial - The characters that are present in the trial will use the evidence that they have collected to generate statements from a list of predefined phrases. Each statement has a series of contradictory logic connections, so you could theoretically present more than one piece of evidence to the one statement, but this is where I feel that I need to just tinker at it until it works. This part by far seems to be the hardest part of the entire project, but I'll figure out a way to do it. Once all of the witnesses have been objected to and the incriminating evidence has been thwarted (motive, means, method, etc.) or you've confessed to your guilt/got a game over, the appropriate verdict is awarded and you get paid a certain amount of in game currency if you win that you can use to buy new skins/music/characters, hire a lawyer, dumb down the prosecution, shout Godot a coffee, etc.

And... That's pretty much all I can think of at the moment.
As an added update, in the current prototype that I've made, you can walk around on a platform, pick up a knife and navigate through the item menu.
I've only got 99.9998% of the game to go... Yay.

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Here's an example I'm just randomly thinking up of:

Gumshoe: "We couldn't find a weapon at the scene, so the killer must have taken it with them."Phoenix: "OBJECTION!" *presents Edgeworth's knife*Phoenix: "A certain knife was found at the Wright and Co. Law Offices that seems to fit the bill. Firstly, the autopsy report says that the victim suffered several slashing wounds. Secondly, the blood on the blade has been found to belong to the victim. There is no way that this is simply just a coincidence!"
Gumshoe: "Ack! Yes, sir! We'll run tests on it right away to confirm whether or not it's the real deal!"

This is really only a rough draft of how cross examination MAY turn out like. I am desperately trying not to cut any corners and am trying my hardest to emulate a proper non-watered down Ace Attorney experience.

Feedback is greatly appreciated.

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...For that alone this is the best game ever. I demand to play what you've done so far, even if it's only really... Harassing Edgeworth...
I'M SO SORRY, LORD EDGEWORTH! PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!

Yay! We've reached over 100 views, and for that, I'll divulge a bit more information about the game. Not that I wasn't going to do so otherwise.
I have been working on the game for about an hour a day over the past week or so. If I don't manage to work on it, I'll be sure to post something here instead. Either way, I promise to make at least some progress on the game every day for the next month and a bit, even if it's just writing some code I'd like to test out later on my phone if I don't have access to my laptop. I will not let this thing die, especially if it develops a following.
I really REALLY appreciate your enthusiasm. If you're excited for it, I get excited too simply because someone other than myself has shown an interest in my work. That having been said, I plan on releasing a demo when I have all of the game mechanics sorted and the visual aesthetic somewhat polished. Or by Christmas. Whichever comes first.
If you have a complaint or concern that you'd like to express, please don't hesitate to tell me. If there's a mechanic that you'd like to know more about, just ask. If you really want to play it, don't be afraid to post something. I want to know if anyone's interested in playing a game like this, otherwise there's really no point in making it.

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Last edited by Retroxide on Tue Nov 03, 2015 11:44 am, edited 2 times in total.

*still interested in playing*
I love that gif, but did Phoenix just walk off the edge and come back? Phoenix is ghost confirmed.

Almost.

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*stares* Wut

Well, falling off the sides isn't really an intended feature. The rotation is supposed to automatically reset to (0,0,0) each frame and by the next update video, there should be a wall stopping you from jumping to your death.
Not that 'falling' will be cut from the game of course. It's happened a few times in the series to date after all, so its exclusion would be uncalled for.

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Well, I know what I'll do EVERY game when I get the game.
*all the character's suicides intensify*

Now that you mention it... I never really thought about suicide in this game. I mean, it totally makes sense that you can almost do anything in the free roam part, but if your character dies, you can't be a defense attorney, prosecutor, judge or witness anymore (unless you are channeled by a spirit medium), so I didn't see the point. I won't stop the player from killing themselves, but I'd figure it could be likened to a 'Game Over'.

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But... But...
What if you did that to become the victim?
Also, nice sig.

Thanks. I'm glad you like it.
Also, in response to your question, I actually do plan on allowing you to spectate your own murder trial, but I'll have to have a bunch of playtesters sit through a 'suicide trial' and tell me if it's actually any fun before I change my mind. See, usually if you are murdered, you'd watch the trial to make sure that the culprit gets his/her just desserts, but if you kill yourself, you don't really get the satisfaction, you know?
I dunno. I'll test it out a bunch and see if it works.

Also, if you get a Fey to channel you, you can be the defense attorney or prosecutor of your own murder trial.

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I feel it'd be fun seeing what happens to the accused. Do they end up being found guilty for a crime they're not guilty of? Or do they end up being released?

Alright. I've got some major, devastating news.
Two of the scripts I have made (Both of them concern the item inventory and weapon stats) have somehow corrupted and deleted their entire contents. This might have been because I had to shut my laptop off manually when it stopped responding, but that's not really important right now.
I'll get a better computer soonish that doesn't crash as much, but I've learned that I need to backup my stuff regularly from now on.
However, I won't just give up on the project because of one simple setback. It'll take a lot more to stop me from doing this. I just thought to inform you guys because it's a really big bummer...

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I'm an idiot who knows nothing of coding etc., but err.... Sorry to hear that.
But we'll be fine!

Well, if I could make it once, I can make it again. If I can remember correctly, only the item inventory script was a huge loss. It had a lot of important and easy to forget code. At least my calling of variables from the other scripts can act as a bit of a clue as to what should go where, but it'll be a massive inconvenience nonetheless.

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I have faith in you!

Thanks. I'm practically staring at a blank C# script at the moment, wondering where to even begin again.
Oh well, time to listen to some Jazz and pull an all nighter trying to fix it. (Godot, give me strength. )

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Well, I wish you good luck!
Maybe listen to Logic Chess or something to get pumped. It always helps me when I'm doing something.
Why not summon the coffee God Godot in real life to wake you up with some you know what. *gulp, gulp, gulp*

I've never really been much of a coffee fan myself. I'm much more of a tea person.
Speaking of which, getting a cup of tea sounds like a pretty decent idea.

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After the 7 long days, did you finally get your tea?

In a single game dev session, I have no more than 17 cups of tea.
Also, being completely honest here. Last week was not a very productive week. I got about two thirds of the item menu system scripted again, so yeah...
Well, the weekend has arrived once more and I now have the opportunity to keep on pressing on into the early morning hours of tomorrow. I just need to stop getting sidetracked...

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Take your time.
And be careful with your sleep.

I'll be sure to keep that in mind. (Just wanted an excuse to use that emote.)

Edit: Centered the bubble.

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Last edited by Retroxide on Sat Oct 24, 2015 9:44 am, edited 3 times in total.

...I'm mad. BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T CENTER IT!

Last edited by Oliver on Sat Oct 24, 2015 9:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ah, I did not know you could do that.

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What's with the name Dark Age of the Law anyway?
Is that gonna be part of the gameplay or something somehow?
Or is it just to have a cool title?

It's pretty much a WIP title, but the dark age of the law can be somewhat seen in the game. You can forge evidence, take out witnesses and pretty much win by any means necessary as long as you can get away with it.
I may change it sometime down the track, but for now, I'm fine with leaving it as it is.
Unless... Do you perhaps have a name that would better suit this game?

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...No, I got no ideas.

To commemorate 300+ views, I've decided to edit my original post to reflect my current progress in this project. As you can see, I've got about three sets of character sprites done.
This will keep getting updated every few days, so keep up to date by checking in on this thread every now and then.

Furthermore, I've just got a new gaming computer to pretty much replace my old laptop and have placed it on a much less flimsy desk than the one I had before. Everything runs faster on it, so making sprites/coding/playtesting/procrastinating is MUCH easier, which makes my job less egregious.

Alright, in case you guys don't know, I will be adding assets into this game by the case that they first appeared in, starting with 'The First Turnabout'. In the demo, you can expect to see the characters Phoenix Wright, Mia Fey, Larry Butz, Winston Payne, Frank Sahwit, The Judge and Cindy Stone, items and systems pertaining to the evidence presented in the trial as well as the three locations the action takes place in for this episode.
I will be trying for a Christmas release, but if I don't get it done in time, I may have to extend its release date.
Apologies in advance, because that will most likely be the case knowing me, but you never really know...

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Those Sahwit sprites are hilarious to me. XD

Yeah... It does kinda look like a phallus, doesn't it?
Well, what can you do? It's not easy to convert the Thinker into a tiny little 3x6 sprite...

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I actually wasn't talking about that.

But thanks, now I think he has a big golden... Thing

Alright, so I've lowered the amount of sprites I need to make for the demo. I'm hoping this change allows me to focus on perfecting specific aspects of gameplay before implementing all of the characters as available PCs.
Sorry to say, but so far I've only got plans to allow players to control Frank Sahwit during the murder phase and either Phoenix Wright or Winston Payne during the trial phase. All characters require separate, personalized phrase lists, so I want to make sure these three are well received before I even think about making any more.
So yeah, for the demo, you will most likely be playing a slightly altered version of 'The First Turnabout' as the defense, witness/murderer or prosecution.
Just how altered it will be depends on how much you deviate from the original case's murder, so realistically you could end up with a different trial every time you play. Once the characters are done, I will work on the locations, working on the rest of my scripting as I go along.
The reason why there are so few custom character sprites to do is because for the trial phase, I shall be using the main series' sprites and will theme it to appear like an actual Ace Attorney game. I'm torn between using the five penalty system or the green life bar... Decisions, decisions...
Anyway, happy 400 views!

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I can't wait for the demo!
When's it's coming out again?
I'll play as Payne, probably.