Hello,

I have an idea for an Ace Attorney fangame which I have begun to develop myself. It doesn't use any casemaker, I am coding the whole thing from scratch myself in Python. There is one aspect that makes this different though, which is why I want feedback but we'll get to that in a sec...

First things first, I am not just writitng the game, but an engine to make the creation of the game itself easier. Rather than calling the same bunch of statements over and over to make the actual script long and messy, it will use a simple class/function structure. For example, rather than writing a whole bunch of code to support dialogue, you currently need to write: dialogue.saym("Gumshoe","Aw man that really sucks pal,", "I wish I could give you this evidence", "but you know what Edgeworth is like."). You simply write out the name and their (3) lines of dialogue and the engine handles the rest for you! It even adds sounds; notice the dialogue.saym to specify which gender is talking, it will add the talk-blips for you after each line.

I plan to release this as freeware when I've done a few episodes so other people can use it. That as well as a full range of Docs to cover each class and how to use it. it will even come preloaded with all the Ace Attorney sounds and music you know and love!

*realizes this is beginning to sound like a cheesy infomercial*

Anyway, the game/story I am planning will have a mainly new line of of characters: new attorney, new aide and a new enemy. Of course there will be familiar faces and references to existing games!

So now for the part I skipped so I could shamelessly attempt to market my caffeine induced coding:

This engine is remarkably easy to use for anyone even if they don't understand programming but there is one thing missing and it's big, which is exactly why I'm asking whether or not anyone thinks it's worth carrying on. it has taken a decent amount of time and effort thus far and I want to make sure it's worth carrying on before I waste more time (and coffee) on it when I could be studying.

Anyway, here goes: There are no graphics.

*Braces for tomato throwing*

Yup, it's hard for me to omit what makes these games so great but I am no artist and implementing sprites from scratch is pretty time consuming and I'll also admit, I've not go the foggiest where to start...
I'm going on the basis that this game will tell a story and hopefully it will be a good one. There will still be full sound so it's not strictly text based but I can understand that everyone (including myself) believes that this kind of game is outdated.

I have the drive to do it and want to carry on to the best of my abilities and give something back to this awesome community! Please let me know if this is a waste of time or if it could be a good idea. The dialogue works, the sounds work and I'm now working on testimony (props to the actual AA devs, the flow control is nightmarish). I also hope you guys will be more inspired to make games in code rather than using casemakers as it's so much more rewarding! Please leave all feedback, ideas and verbal abuse below.

Thanks for reading!

NB: I am not a spam account or anything (even though this is my first post) and this is 100% genuine XD

I think the whole no graphics thing is an interesting concept, but I wonder if many people would play this, knowing that. As a casewriter myself, I can completely understand the motive for not putting in graphics, as it takes up a huge amount of time and effort to make them and not everybody has the capability of making quality sprites. How will the game appear? Would it just be a text box and the occasional button to press?

---

If text only, that would be an interesting change for an ace attorney styled game. I think people would play it because how it would stand apart from other fan games. I think I would, at least until I end up in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.


No one will get this joke...

---

I'll likely start with it being entirely text controlled in a console with textual commands like selecting options with numbers or keys. I'll then transition to making a proper sort of GUI with Tkinter when I know the rest of the game actually works. Furthermore, displaying labels still requires a lot of time and I will have to rewrite the functions to make it display and object rather than plain text.

None of this will affect the gameplay though, you'll still have the full range of options in court: viewable court record comprehensive questioning, presenting evidence when asked by prosecutor/judge but this is all fairly trivial in comparison to graphics.

I could go on about the difficulty and challenges associated with displaying graphics that look good but thank you for your feedback! I will try to address making it look interesting when the engine actually works fully!

Thank you! I'll crack on then!

I don't see any problem with a completely text-based AA game.In fact,I would like to see a fangame that tries to do something original to solve the problems that come with trying to use original content,rather than just requesting some custom graphics and then giving up two weeks later.So yeah,I am going to keep an eye on this project and see how it goes!.

---

Thanks, it's great to have some support from the community! ^^

I wouldn't recommend an AA engine then in this case. But if OP can pull it off go for it

I will be using an engine, but I'm writing it myself in Python rather than using a casemaker or other pre-written engine.