Judge & Jury - Open Beta Testers Needed!

Yes please! I’m not a professional writer (this is pretty much my first real project) and english is not my first language, but I would love to have a chance to improve!

I agree with you on that. I was a little uncertain about adding this case in the beginning, because I didn’t want anyone to think that the problem was contracting HIV per se. That’s why I used Robert’s behaviour and anger to tell the player that the problem was, in fact, just Ludmilla’s petty reasons.
And yes, I also agree that adding the social consequences to a potential guilty verdict would add a lot to the depth of the player’s choices, thank you very much for your input!

I’m not sure I understand the first part: considering that the fiction is based on an alternative reality, the retroactive laws are pretty much the only constitutional principle that are somehow in danger.
As for why are such decisions considered official precedents, the reason is that all the cases the player has to face are in a sort of “grey area”, where there’s no precise law that can be used to determine whether or not a person is guilty. Considering this, if another case were to appear with similar premises, the only way the actual judges could react is by looking at the only thing that could tip the scale on either side, which is the player’s choice.
Of course, if the parliament were to put out a law saying “nope, we didn’t like that decision, from now on it’s going to be this and that” things would be different, but if the parliament were to say that they in fact agree with the player’s choice, then that choice would actually be making the law retroactive.

Thank you! No, unfortunately I’ve never heard of the Milgram Project before, I’ve just checked it out on wikipedia

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I mean, if most books you read use guillemets, it’s probably because the books you’re reading are not in English. It’s primarily a French thing, though some other languages use them too. I think Russian does?

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I’m italian, but I’ve just checked and the first three books I grabbed use the “–” (no clue how it’s called) so yeah that’s probably something they taught me in school

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Hm… Well, it would appear that the English name of those marks is, in fact, “quotation marks.” Which is odd, because guillemets are also quotation marks, but have their own name. Not sure why " doesn’t have its own name. (Looks like the Italian name is virgoletta, but we definitely don’t say that in English.)

Some minor errors

part 1





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part 2





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I like the idea of this story but the weird non-quotation marks and the paragraphs not being broken up made this hard to read for me. I personally couldn’t finish it cause it made my eyes strain and head hurt a bit…but I am on my phone and wear glasses so that could just be me. Again, I did like what I could read and the plot/storyline really intrigues me! I just wish it was easier to read.

If English isn’t your first language, you’ve got a pretty good hold on it. I’ve come across native speakers who aren’t as good.

I said “first draft” but that was wrong. You’ve clearly done a lot of work on it. However, a couple of hints.

I’ll take as an example an early scene where Gumshoe has delivered the food he failed to bring previously:

The man’s eyes light up, glad to avoid another punishment from the higher-ups.
«Thank you! Thank you so much, you’ll see it was worth it, I promise,» he answers, unable to contain a huge smile.
«Don’t forget to bring two, Gumshoe. The Jury is coming in as well today, try not to let her starve too,» Robert adds from the other side of the room, after finishing his dessert-based breakfast.
«Yes sir! I won’t forget to bring food to both of them three times per day, you can count on me!»
The boy starts laughing loudly before dismissing the man with the viands: «Don’t worry, I won’t mention this to the prosecutor. But mind you, be more careful next time. Now please, would you call in officer Bristle?»
Without another word, Gumshoe leaves the room, making sure to close the door properly behind his back after getting out: a behavior a bit too specific not to be related to one of the man’s “previous mistakes”.

Increased “Affinity” with Robert!

  1. Point of view shift (head hopping)

The man’s eyes light up, glad to avoid another punishment from the higher-ups.

This is a shift in point of view, also called head-hopping. The story is all from the protagonist’s POV but here we have something from inside Gumshoe’s head. Your protagonist can deduce what Gumshoe thinks but they don’t actually know.

You could do something like:

The man’s eyes light up. You suspect he is glad to avoid another punishment from the higher-ups.

although I think you have enough in the next paragraph to simply say:

The man’s eyes light up.

This is the sort of thing we all do in first drafts. It’s not a big thing but it can cause an unconscious ‘blip’ for your reader, even if they don’t consciously realise.

By way of contrast, the other paragraph with POV is excellent, because here the protagonist is speculating why Gumshoe is acting the way he does:

Without another word, Gumshoe leaves the room, making sure to close the door properly behind his back after getting out: a behavior a bit too specific not to be related to one of the man’s “previous mistakes”.

You’ll find a few examples of these, but they’re easy to fix.

  1. Avoid long explanatory bits in speech tags

“Don’t forget to bring two, Gumshoe. The Jury is coming in as well today, try not to let her starve too,” Robert adds from the other side of the room, after finishing his dessert-based breakfast.

The stuff after the direct speech is a little awkward. I don’t think it is all necessary (does it matter what side of the room Robert is on?) but the main thing is you can separate the two sections with a full stop between them:

Robert brushes off the crumbs of his breakfast. “Don’t forget to bring two, Gumshoe. The Jury is coming in as well today, try not to let her starve too”

To a certain extent this is stylistic preference but I throw it in for what it is worth. It feels much tighter to me.

On a similar note, you could consider (and I do mean, consider - it’s not wrong as such and this is just a suggestion) changing the first bit from:

The man’s eyes light up, glad to avoid another punishment from the higher-ups.
«Thank you! Thank you so much, you’ll see it was worth it, I promise,» he answers, unable to contain a huge smile.

To something like:

The man’s eyes light up,
«Thank you! Thank you so much," he says with a huge smile. «You’ll see it was worth it, I promise,»

  1. Use of present continuous tense

Present continuous is where we use the “is doing” rather than the “does” form of a verb. That is, ending in “ing”.

It is the difference between “I love you” and “I am loving you” - the second indicates an ongoing process, not a state of mind. (I know I’m descending into the depths of English grammar here but it does make a difference)

There are of course cases where the continuous form is appropriate but it doesn’t have the same punch:

The boy starts laughing loudly before dismissing the man with the viands:

becomes

The boy laughs loudly before dismissing him.

(keep ‘with the viands’ if you want - I don’t think it adds anything but that is purely my preference, it’s not a problem)

  1. This one has nothing to do with the drafting process

I would have liked to know why affinity is increasing. Maybe something like “You smile at each other”? Up to you. This really is my personal preference and others may disagree.

  1. It’s really very good

Honestly, these are smallish details but they are why I see it as a draft rather than a finished product.

If you were my student I would strongly be encouraging to write more and get it published.

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Both the first post and a actually complete story!?

What an absolute monster!

Thank you for your hard working buddy!

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This… is the sort of niche thing I hope to find. I’m halfway thru it, but I love it so far!

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I haven’t completed this yet, but I’m enjoying the read so far! You have an intriguing and original premise. I only got up to Felipe’s case, but you’ve chosen some complex and nuanced ethical dilemmas for us to consider. I liked the interactions with Madeline and Gumshoe too.

I’ll wait until you update the game to complete my playthrough–I’d love to give a report on typos and more detailed feedback.

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Thank you so, SO much both for your kind words and (first and foremost) for your advice, it’s really appreciated! I’ll do my best to fix things up!

Thank you! If you already have any feedback / typo to report, please let me know!

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Interesting premise. I thought the cases were intriguing and I liked the nuances you introduced to make our decisions harder.

I concur with the commenters who already mentioned the guillemets and the need for more paragraph breaks. I also would advise you to exchange the word “interlocutor” with something else because it reads unnecessarily formal to me. Also: Repeatedly referring to Robert as “a boy” kind of threw me because it undermines his authority in an almost comical way.

Keep up the good work! This is a really fresh concept.

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Typos/errors I found

«Very well. female. Got it. Next question: what is your name?»

female/male should be capitalised

His pen moves fast on the paper. Once he’s done talking notes, he turns back towards you again:

should be taking

«Condamned to death?!?»

should be condemned

«It’s 3.34 PM, boss» the officer answers diligently after taking a look at his own watch, clearly cheaper than the one Robert was wearing a couple of seconds earlier.

missing comma

Time flies faster than you would expect while you read the treaty,

Maybe you meant treatise? A treaty is an agreement between two countries.

«Thanks, but the hunger is troubling me more than the cold» you answer back, at your limit.

missing comma

«It is. But the law requires that, and I quote: “Judge and Jury’s destiny shall be kept secret until the conclusion of both parties’ duties. The Curator will assist them in their course while making sure the secret is kept until the end.” This is what has been written in our Constitution,» he states.
«This is the first time I hear anything about this,» Madeline replies.
«It’s the first time you hear anything about this because if every citizen knew about the secret it wouldn’t be a secret anymore. The Curator would be the person that will take care of presenting the cases to the Judge and the Jury, which means me. As for your fate, alas, I am afraid you will have to wait until the end of your journey.»
All this secrecy is tremendously suspect, but you’re perfectly aware that Robert won’t break the law just to give you two a little taste of what awaits you at the end of this story.

this section is italicised (missing [/i] tag?)

Just these, I haven’t gotten very far haha. The reason I wanted to wait for the update is so that I don’t end up catching errors that you’ve already fixed. Hope that’s okay with you :sweat_smile:

I agree with what the others have said about the blocked options–I don’t really see why they should be blocked. Using the choice about being suspicious of Robert as an example: I roleplayed as someone who tends to be suspicious of people, but doesn’t make it obvious as she is still civil and polite to them, especially when they have authority over her.

On the other hand, I don’t actually mind your use of the guillemets, but it seems most people would prefer the “…” quotation marks.

Thank you for your feedback! Unfortunately I don’t plan on releasing an update anytime soon (apparently, buying a house and decorating it the bare minimum is quite time consuming), so any tip helps for now, I’m probably going to wait for all the feedback and then fix everything all at once.

Regarding the blocked options, I’m probably gonna keep them but add a parenthesis that will help the player understand why they are blocked off or at least the requirements needed to unlock them, something like “Doubt Robert [required: Affinity Robert < 50]”.

And yeah, since it’s not the standard I may replace the guillements as well, since I’m going to touch things here and there.

I agree. I don’t mind seeing a blocked option if I know why. It can give a useful hint as to either what you need this time, or what you might do on a subsequent playthrough.

Not sure that’s going to help much, since it’s already been demonstrated that options are blocked off when, lore-wise, they shouldn’t be. It’s just telling me, “yeah the reason this is blocked off is that I want to interfere with your decision making ability.” In which case… This honestly may be better off as a kinetic novel. I mean, the most it may help with is discovering possible bugs. Which these may all be already, since they definitely don’t follow logically…

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Ah, I see, thank you for letting us know. Guess that changes my plan then; I’ll finish my playthrough by the end of this week (hopefully) and compile my thoughts.

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Is there any specific situation that made you feel like the game was just hindering your decision making? Because as far as I remember there are only two kind of blocked-off choices:

  1. You have a too low / too high stat (i.e. you can’t ask Madeline about her past if you don’t know her really well because you feel like it would be weird)
  2. That option is only available if your previous discussion pointed at some specific topics and you, therefore, can’t just come up with that question/answer in that moment because you did not talk about that previously

“Every single time” isn’t a specific situation, so no, I can’t think of a specific situation.

But it sounds like #2 is the issue, because… That doesn’t make any sense. Not discussing something should not preclude discussing it, otherwise it will never be discussed. Not to mention that the MC definitely does, with no choice, discuss things that you can choose never to discuss, and the game just assumes you know about it – like the length of your term and what happens after.

But, given that your code is an absolute jumbled mess, I would not be surprised if there are errors with things being blocked off that aren’t supposed to be.