I'm developing games as a hobby for 6 years and I decided to go full-time for my last project: JusticeExe.
It's a sci-fi courtroom drama. You create your lawyer character (based on some stat and skill points), and defend some emancipated robots on different cases. It has a very complex narrative decision tree, which is based on your character sheet, and your courtroom decisions.
My goal is to publish it in a month or two, and just wanted to take some first reactions. Please give it's teaser a 90 seconds and I would love to learn what you think about the game. I'm very open to any suggestions and feature ideas.
Here is the landing of the game. As a lawyer working remote from his/her computer, you're using an OS I called AttorneyOS
I wanted to tell the story of the game at first sight with a retro look. Below is the plot text and the look:
If you are able to access Justice-X servers and download ATTORNEY, this means that you have been accepted by the moderation of neoBarrister.net !
Only task left to do is to set up your profile for a fruitful career in Law™ so that Justice-X algorithm can suggest you cases.
Note that the responsibilities of AI defenders are immense. Although we are progressing beyond simple prejudices, landscape of Law™ is not evolved to handle AIs. That is, you are the last line of defense for emancipated AIs against a landscape.
"Justice might be blind but Justice-X is not.
Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither, like blind led by the blind."
We really wanted to merge rpg mechanics with investigation and courtroom drama but we also did not want this to be a numbers heavy game.
Player has a name (wow, innovation), xp, reputation and 3 types of statistics they can control.
Small amounts of XP is gained through investigation and preparation. Bulk of the xp is gained when the jury decides your client’s fate and according to what kind of punishment they receive.
Reputation is a mixture of your success in a case and that case’s popularity. Some risky cases or cases in media spotlight require higher reputation etc.
Primary stats is your human qualities. Perception, Intelligence, Charisma and Vigor
Perception
helps you recognize important stuff in dialogue. Whether a dialogue piece can be turned into an argument for the courtroom, does it require or should have a witness and, does it have or should have an evidence (evidence system is not implemented yet).
Intelligence
is your raw brain power. Its main function is determining the difficulty of converting dialogue into arguments or improving your arguments. It also limits what you can recognize in dialogue but mostly not probabilistic.
Charisma
is general impressiveness. Affects how well your arguments are received in court. Also limits how you can affect people’s and AI’s behavior.
Vigor
is your bodily limit. It was contentious. We wanted a metric for how much you can work (like constitution in D&D or Endurance in Fallout) in a given time frame. We also wanted a metric for your sheer will power that might or might not impress people. However, if they were separate they would be very niche and limited use. So, vigor is combination of those two. It affects how fast you can work on a dialogue or argument and has a slight probabilistic effect on your presence in court.
You get some points to distribute across primary stats and gain a new stat point per 5 levels
There are also secondary stats and contacts. I will post how we designed them when I got the chance because there is no technology to transfer code from my mind into the computer.
I want to criticize the trailer. I'm not really familiar with RPGs, so can't judge the game. But i could not do so in any case, because the trailer is too hectic. It's impossible to spend attention to the game.
The graphics remind me on Lucas Arts point an click a bit, so i expect a relaxing game, where i have no pressure to make decisions within time limits. I'd also expect some retro chip tune music form the shown pixel art style. But the dramatic music and fast cuts in the trailer give the opposite impression: I have not even enough time to read a single sentence on screen, and this feels not comfortable to me. I feel stressed, and i thinks the trailer goes totally into the wrong direction?
Another thing is the gfx glitch effect visible in second post. I propose you make sure this never happens while the player may attend to read something.
Yes, the game is really slow paced compared to the teaser. I'm thinking about creating another teaser or gameplay video soon. My aim for the trailer was doing something like a mock, exaggerated movie trailer and tell the background of the game. But you're 100% right that it gives a different feel compared to the design.
BTW, glitch effect only appears when the game starts. Just a small detail. But hey, thanks again for the feedback!
I'm attaching a gif to show the real pace of the game.
Hey hey, I’m back to explain rest of the player profile or player character stats, however you might call it.
Your secondary stats are empathy, manipulation and intimidation. They are derived from your primary stats. Primary stats, are measured over a scale of 1 to 10, while secondary stats are measured over a scale of 1 to 100. You get some skill points (derived from your intelligence) each level.
Empathy is your extended ability to see through lies, misdirection and hidden truths. Empathy operates much like a sixth sense. This is useful in your main tasks.
Manipulation is your skill to bend people and AIs’ mind and thoughts to your liking.
Intimidation is your capacity to threaten or imply some kind of harm without actually hurting / harming anyone to make them consciously do what you want
Finally there are contacts. Contacts are power of your connection in 4 different factions
Elite contacts passively increases the effect of jury goodwill on judge’s decision.
Bureaucrat contacts decrease credibility cost (your courtroom resource) of delaying trials or taking breaks easier. Also, decreases cost of your hirelings (i.e. secretaries, paralegals, interns etc.).
Academic contacts increase the effectiveness and decrease the cost of your expert witnesses. Also enables you to have expert witnesses on the retainer.
Underworld contacts are private investigators and fixers. If you need to find dirt on your opposition or need the name of the school that prosecutor’s kids go, you might work with underworld witnesses
I wanted contacts and secondary stats to bring in a sense of intrigue and power play to the game.
Do you have any ideas for stats and contact points? For example any stat type that a lawyer needs in a courtroom rpg?
There is case directory in which you can take cases, active cases. Case directory is all the open cases at the moment, but you can only take cases that is at or below your reputation. Case directory also shows name of the client, a case brief, when the court is due (not complete atm) and range of money you get from the case. You always earn some retainer.
Active cases are there to provide a place to switch between cases when you have more than one in the at the same time.
At this time, there is only one case but plan is to write 2 to 4 cases per month after beta.
I will keep updating this post as soon as I have time.
This is our dialogue screen. It’s practically an instant message app via which you connect to your client, witnesses and online courtroom.
There are controls on both some of your dialogue choices and some of client’s answers. Those controls are mostly randomized stat and skill checks but sometimes there are both checks and minimum limits for stats, skills and contacts.
If there is something to notice, think about or infer, controls are on dialogue from other party. Players always receive a success message if they succeed to realize something, extract crucial info or discover a deception. They don’t always receive a fail message. This is because we also add narration into success messages so that some characters are able to discover more about the story, client or witnesses.
If there is something to do, such as manipulate, bribe or push someone towards an uncomfortable topic, controls are on player choice. As a design choice, we decided to not to show player that there is a randomized check for a particular stat / skill. Players do not always receive a success or fail message. Purpose of this was to partially conceal the ways of navigating entire story atlas and reduce player incentive to min-max their characters.
I will try to explain perks next. Suggestions and criticism are all we need atm. Thanks!
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