Evil Justice (WIP) - Updated 3/31/24: The Fourth Trial

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SDHGEJHDNEFHDSD YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!! I just played through the demo and I am LOVING this so much oh my gosh- just- the CHARACTERS and EVERYTHING AHHHHHH!! I LOVE THE INQUISITOR SO MUCH I hope we get to interact with him more later, AND LIKE. EVEN KING EVILS PEAKED MY INTEREST AND HE’S ONLY SAID LIKE ONE SENTENCE???

Anyways this game is absolutely my type of game. I love ace attorney and this just. AHHH. YESSSSSS… I love the whole evil kingdom thingy and the fact that everyone here is a monster, because a lot of IFs i’ve played have characters that are just very… conventionally attractive, and it makes me kinda uncomfy, BUT WE GET TO HAVE GRAY SKIN AND. AHHHH!!! reshnriejkmsef…

I really like the fact that, for the final blows you did “No, that was wrong. Let’s try again, from the top;”- it gives consequence while still letting you continue the game. I really like that feature.

As an Aromantic, most of the RO’s I’ve met in COG games aren’t very enticing to me, usually bc some of em are made TO be RO’s, rather than characters in their own right- however, I don’t think that’ll be a problem for you here. I would like to see RO’s in this specific game solely because I feel like you’d write em well, but then again, it’s not a requirement. (Also maybe I want my MC to stare at the inquisitor for a prolonged period of time until its sort of awkward and they snap out of it and are like: o_o)

The only complaint I have is that we do not yet have a table to accusingly slam😤 but other than that YESSS!!! (Also, I do recommend the save system. I’m the type of guy that likes to go back and save at certain points to go through EVERY option, and having a save state is a huge pivoting point of an IF for me)

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Thank you very much for your comments! So far, reception has been positive, so I think I’m good to go ahead with the full game. Time to do a bit of planning…

This was the original plan. It would take a bit of setup, but for a game like this it’s important enough to put in the work.
Now, though, I’m wondering whether I should have a fail state at all. The purpose of including failure is to create tension for the player, at the risk of making them frustrated at losing progress. The Ring is supposed to be very tense, so that feeling is important, but I do like the freedom to be able to pick wrong answers. Right now I’m toying with the idea of a toggle, allowing the player to make themselves “invulnerable” at any time, so players can challenge themselves or explore as they prefer. Thoughts?

I love him too. I wanted to let him spend some more time with MC, but decided not to because he tries to get you killed, and then he kills a guy right in front of you, all of which is pretty messed up. I’ll let MC recover from the trauma a bit first.

I didn’t expect this would be well-received, thank you! I can lean into it a little.

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OHMYGOSH YES!!! It allows for SO MANY fun little things; for example, I feel like it’d be nice to have, somewhere in a scene, the MC picking at their seams as a nervous tic- something you wouldn’t be able to do if we were completely human!! Also like. It just makes everything so much more interesting!

Oh absolutely- I’m glad you had the choice for our MC to just. Sit and process things after leaving the Ring, because jesus christ that’s a lot to take in.

I WOULD LOVE THIS!!! The tension is a great catalyst for wanting to get things right, but in cases where I’m actually stumped on something or want to go through all the fail options, the invulnerability’ll be really helpful!! May be hard to code, though, haha…-

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This was grat! I really loved this! I would love to know more about the world and the characters were all so interesting! I never played ace attorney but man, this was really good! I ended up with a 90% confidence score! thanks for writing this, it was a lot of fun to play!

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I agree I was pretty scared that the mc was going to die early because of him. The mc needs some stress relief after that. I’m already sus of the characters who tipped us to him

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WAIT OKAY SO I JUST REPLAYED TWICE to go through all the different options and??? Oh my gosh??? There’s so much more…
I just want to say; at the end when it branches out three different ways, please make sure you aren’t biting off more than you can chew! I’m not sure how much you can work on this, but from stuff branching off like that right off the bat, and in such a big way, It’ll be a LOT to write and keep track of. Just checking- haha.

Other than that, I did notice that for people who decide to close their eyes instead of pushing through the pain and getting up at the beginning, don’t get to have a scene where they look at their clothes and their skin, so I was wondering if that could be somewhere after Devlin comes and they open their eyes? Just so that both options have that sort of intro to the MC itself, hehe.

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:smiling_imp::smiling_imp::smiling_imp: lol I just code dived and did a perfect read in first play through :yum::grin::smirk:

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That’s really good for a non-Ace Attorney fan. I was worried the system might be too weird for people who don’t already know it, so I’m glad to hear you triumphed!

That’s what I’m working on right now: setting up a solid framework, including branching points and how they’ll affect the game.
There really ought to be major branches, right? Since it’s Choice of Games. But what exactly does that mean for Evil Justice?
Since the core of the game is the Ring of Judgment, it feels like choosing different branches should result in different trials! But yes, that would increase my workload by a whole lot. Plus, Ace Attorney people like me would hate missing out on a whole trial.
I’m going to see how quickly I can come up with new trials. If I can make enough to cover each branch in a reasonable time, I will. Then, I’m planning on a chapter and branch select post-game, so anyone can play all the trials without having to replay the entire game. Hopefully that makes sense to do. I’m still weighing my options here.

I’m also worried about that triple branch at the end. It’s offered very casually, but has a big impact. It could even lead to entire alternate trials if I continue in this way. Is that fair, offering such a big choice without warning?

Fine by me! If you had a good time doing it, that’s completely reasonable.

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sm_init should be placed right below all of the variables that you created, not at the top.

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Well, a lot of CoG games only have REALLY branching paths later in the game, and even then, some of them don’t branch out too much- and the community really doesn’t mind! Most of them make up for it with good writing and the characters themselves, and this game definitely offers more than enough with the mechanics of the trials and the way the world works, as well as the fact that the characters feel 3-dimensional. You seem to be really hung up on what’s “normal” for a CoG game, and I really think you should try to loosen up just a bit- this game is better than you give it credit for, I think, and people WILL want to play it.

That’s what I was trying to touch on earlier; at first I assumed that every option you chose would lead to you meeting Akila and going with her to her lab, but when I chose the other options it was clear that wasn’t the truth. If you DO have branching paths, separate trials might be interesting, but I would definitely limit it to one or two that are specific to the place the MC is going.

The choice itself is kind of weird, considering the reader gets zero heads up on where they’re about to go and the fact that the choice is going to seriously affect how things are in the future for them, which I think is something that should be made clear in the main thread at LEAST, solely based on the fact that it’s going to effect the story so seriously.

It’s worded very noncommittally, so if you want to keep the choice I recommend maybe trying to tweak that a bit? Though I can’t really see a way that would get the choice to come across correctly with the way it’s set up right now, haha.

Another thing you could do that I recommend would be to merge the three paths together in a way? At least the one with our new bug friend and the one with Akila, because I feel like what happens in those could be sort of merged? For example, maybe whichever option you chose is where you go FIRST, so like if you chose the guard you’d be in the reanimated help place for the first night, but either you come across bug guy (perhaps he saves you from getting mugged?) or Akila was seeking you our or something similar, and you get the option to come with either of them in different circumstances. That way you can sort of try out all the options, and there can be an option later on to stay at one of them permanently? I just feel like such a big choice should have more background on exactly what we’re getting into, if you get me.

jdshjfkshnfiks this is sort of a word dump but hopefully you can understand what I’m trying to say-

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Wherever I put it, it always says “Non-existent command ‘sm_init’” and won’t run.
I most likely need to install the addon correctly, but I pasted smPluginMenuAddon at the end of my game’s html file with no result. I may need smPlugin.js pasted in there as well, but all the links to download it are broken and I haven’t been able to find it yet.

You’re probably right. The uncertainty bothers me but it doesn’t have to. Thank you for the encouragement.

I think this confirms my suspicions that such a big choice shouldn’t be so casual. “Trying out all the options” feels like a good way to handle this, that lets players make a nice informed decision. I can test that.

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When you test the game in Cside, you need to *comment out sm_init, otherwise, it will give you an error. Only dashingdon recognizes that command and will not give you that error. You don’t need to paste smPluginMenuAddon in the IDE’s html unless you are exporting the game to upload on a different site. Dashingdon has the feature built into the website as long as you enable it for your game.

*create academy false
*sm_init evil justice | 4
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Ah! I was wondering whether that was the case. It seems to work just fine, now. Thanks a lot!

It’s up and running!
I should make sure I know whether the saves stay good after major game updates, though. I might still need that chapter select.

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Yesss

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LMAO. But you can’t say that see/read a baby shuting the fuck up a veteran inquisitor at their first judament wouldn’t worth it XD

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definitely.

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Just finished the demo and I loved it! As an AA fan, you managed to translate the gameplay very well in just a text-based format. I got 90% confidence on my first try! I was thinking about adding a similar court-esque scenario in my demo, thinking of a mix between DR/AA and it was crazy that I stumbled on this demo. I hope it’s alright if I take some inspiration from your demo if you do not mind. Can’t wait to see case 2! :laughing:

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Thanks a lot! Take all the inspiration you’d like from my demo, I’d love to see more Ace Attorney styled games out there. Case 2 is coming along well, and I’m eager to release it!

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The Second Trial: Wall of Evil is complete!

Play it right here! I’ve updated the demo to include trials One and Two, but there’s a chapter select to skip right to the new stuff. Current word count is 48,000!

I also re-did some of the post-trial stuff based on feedback from here. The new content is clearly labeled, so you can’t miss it.

And introducing: You can die! Run out of Confidence, and you’ll get a Game Over, just like in other lawyer-adjacent games. No worries, though, you can toggle Game Overs on and off if you’d prefer to relax.

Whew! I think I have a decent idea of what it’ll take to make the whole thing. I plan on forging ahead.

Please let me know any thoughts you got. Something reads weird? Difficulty too high? Nonsensical logic? I can fix it.

By the way, is this the right way to announce an update of this nature? I looked for a way to edit my title or first post but didn’t see anything.

I hope everyone has a good time with Evil!

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You can ask a moderator to change it for you

As for the update, I loved it!! It reminds me so much of ace attorney so much. Both the cases were esciting and quite distinct, can’t wait for what you have got in store for the next case

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