Ace Attorney Case Developer Beginner Book

This book is a compilation of forum posts made by various members in the community. This guide is meant to be engine agnostic and so all mentions of case editors will be removed. The forum posts will also be edited to fix spelling error and other things to make this book like. This puts everything in one place as well as preserves useful information in case AAO shuts down, as this is where a majority of the tutorials come from.

So you want to be an Ace Attorney Case Developer?

(WIP) AAO’s Truly Comprehensive Guide for New Authors

I. Planning

A. Case Planning

B. Pre-writing and Research

C. Gathering Resources

Writing Stories

Story Planning (Enthalpy)

Improving your style of writing (Ryu Ushiromiya)

Writing stories (Ryu Ushiromiya)

Creative Writing for Ace Attorney (And others!) V1.0

Criminal and Legal Glossary / List of Terms (AP-master)

Writing Trials

Structure of a Trial (Meph)

Writing dialogues (Meph)

Writing prologues (Meph)

Writing contradictions (Jean Of mArc)

Types of contradictions (Jean Of mArc)

Making More Challenging Contradictions (Jean Of mArc)

Writing understandable questions (Meph)

Cross-Examination and Contradiction Design (Enthalpy)

Opening Statements and Detective Testimonies (Enthalpy)

Tricks to a Good Cross Examination (Enthalpy)

How to Frustrate Player’s Properly (TheDoctor)

Nelon’s Bill of Player’s Rights - Adapted for AAO Cases (Ferdielance)

Writing Investigations

On the Design of Good Investigations

Investigation outlining (Jean Of mArc)

Giving and Receiving Feedback

Giving good critique and accepting it gracefully V1.0 (Ryu Ushiromiya)

Code of Ethics for Reviewers and Critics (E.D. Revolution)

(WIP) Intro to New Authors

(WIP) AAO’s Truly Comprehensive Guide for New Authors

Original guide written by E.D.Revolution, SuperGanondorf and Phantom

Written by E.D.Revolution for Ace Attorney Online

So you have joined AAO because you thought that it was cool to try to make a trial. That's great! We, at AAO, encourage trial-making here. We love to play your trials, and it's a good way to show us your work. But there are many pitfalls when it comes to doing these types of projects on AAO, especially if it’s your first time.

Consider these as guidelines that you, as a newbie trial author, should consider. Remember, this is something you should read first before creating a new trial. It should help you learn what the general process of making a fancase is. You can do all sorts of theory with the Editor or fanfiction or whatever. However, making a fancase is quite a different beast from other forms of writing. In fact, making a fancase is a whole project on its own. This guide should help you make the project a lot easier to deal with.

There are four categories, or phases, to this guide. It will be divided in the following way (Use ctrl+f or apple+f to search for the section quickly)

Planning

Case planning
Pre-writing and research
Gathering Resources
Setting Timetables

Writing/Development

Getting Started with the Editor
Main Writing Tips
Implementing Music and Sound Effects
Very Useful Editor Tips

Execution/Presentation

Playtesting and Betatesting
Preparing the Trial Thread

Reviews and QAs

From the General Crowd
Recommending for QA

There is also a Helpful Tips section, which is highly recommended if you don’t want to read through the 4 phases. It also contains some tips not covered in the other sections.

Expect this guide to be long, but it will be worth it in the end. This guide contains advice from experienced authors in the AAO community, not just my own. After all, the community likes to see authors succeed in making a fancase.

While you don't have to take the advice written in this comprehensive guide, it is highly suggested that you do. This is called a comprehensive guide for a reason. Everything in here has been tried and true, and this guide aims to explain why these things work and why certain things don't work. For this, each section will come with a summary unless that section does not have much in the way of content. And because comprehensive guides tend to be long and most people have ADHD (really, 20 minute focus), every section has been spoiler tagged to save space and to make it easier to read the sections you want to read. Still, because it is a comprehensive guide, even those spoiler parts are long.

For our friends at CR who are writing PyWright or RenPy or PWLib (dead lol) cases, plenty of stuff here might not apply, and there are plenty of stuff which may apply but have to be translated for your system. For example, the QA system is specific to AAO. Frames, here, refer to 1 frame of dialogue, NOT the number of frames of an animation. On AAO, there's a separate Player and Editor. The Editor is a GUI-based scripting system. PyWright and PWLib uses scripts, which can sort of be equivalent to the Editor. The Player on AAO is equivalent to the app (PyWright, RenPy, PWLib).

As an addendum, this guide is written with the assumption that you will be making a normal Ace Attorney case.

Without further ado, enjoy reading this guide!

I. Planning

A. Case Planning

I will tell you right off the bat that writing an AAO case requires a lot of writing. What makes writing an AA case different from writing a short story is that everything is dialogue. If you see fanfiction that is mostly dialogue, then you have a good idea of what you will be getting yourself into. Good or even decent stories take more than a day to develop. And good stories require having a good blueprint or plan for the story. In order for your case to be any good or at least presentable, you will need to do a lot of planning for your case.

The most important part about planning is answering the five Ws of fiction: Who, what, where, when, why, and how (I did say 5 Ws )

Who: Who are the characters in your case? Who will be the defendant? Who will be your lawyers (and which sides?) Who will be the victim? Who committed the crime? Possible accomplices? Any other secondary characters, such as witnesses, detectives, judges, etc.?
What: What is the crime? What is your story about?
Where: Where did the crime take place? Where will the crime be tried? Courtroom No. 6? Courtroom No. 7? The most important question of "where" is where the crime took place.
When: When did the crime take place? When does the story take place? When will the crime be tried? Do note that, contrary to AA convention, you don't have to try the crime the day after the defendant is arrested. First cases usually don't have trials the day after the murder.
Why: Why did the criminal commit the crime? Why were the characters where they were? Why did the crime happen at that particular place? Why did the criminal do what he do and didn't do what he didn't do?
How: How was the crime committed? What method did he use? What tools did he use to commit the crime? How did he come up with the alibi?

Though these questions are not an exhaustive list of questions to answer, they should all be answered when you plan your case.

Now, there are a couple of "when" questions not listed above that you should consider: If your story is supposed to take place sometime in the canon timeline, when in the canon time line did the story take place? This means you need to know your Ace Attorney timeline well. While you don't need to know the year such stories take place, you should relate it to the AA universe in terms of case occurrence. From a purely game-centric point of view, the order of the cases is as follows:

Prequel:

GK2-3 (Gregory), GK1-4, 3-4, 3-1

PW Era:

1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, 2-2, 2-1, 2-3, 2-4, 3-2, 3-3, 3-5

Edgeworth Era:

GK1-1, GK1-2, GK1-3, GK1-5, GK2-1, GK2-2, GK2-3 (Edgeworth), GK2-4, GK-2-5

Apollo Justice Era:

4-4 (MASON flashback), 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4 (Current)

Dual Destinies Era

5-2, 5-DLC, 5-3, 5-4 (first half), 5-1, 5-4 (second half), 5-5

Important events to remember:

IS-7. Gregory Edgeworth's last case took place in GK2-3. This lead directly to...

DL-6. Gregory Edgeworth's death. It would not be solved until 1-4. And as a reminder, that's 15 whole years.

SL-9. The case proper took place a several months before 1-1. It was truly solved at 1-5. According to the dialogue, it happened the same year as 1-1. 1-1 took place in June. SL-9 took place in February.

KG-8. It is a game-wide arc that does not get solved until the epilogue of GK1.

Phoenix's Arc takes place over three years. Edgeworth's arc takes place over a few weeks.

Phoenix's disbarment take place three months after 3-5. Hence why Edgeworth's arc is crunched into a very short timeline.

It's easier to establish your story if you use the games as a base and stick to the canon timeline as close as possible.

If you are using an alternate timeline, you will have to work harder to establish the setting, and you need to do it quickly. If your alternate universe forks off somewhere during the canon timeline, establish where it forks off and what lead it to your alternate universe. If your alternate universe is NOT based on the AA universe, then you don't have to use the games as a base. But you still need to establish it fairly quickly in your case.

Finally, when you plan your case, try to make your case as simple as possible. It makes it easier on all of us if you make a good, simple story. As a newbie author, it's more important to establish competency with the editor rather than go all complex. In the battle between Technician vs. Performer, the Technician always wins here. Another way to think about it is the KISS principle. While this is a military and business term, it applies anywhere. KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid! Also known as "Don't be a stupid dumbass and make life more complicated than it really is", but it doesn't roll off the tongue nicely. :diego:

To summarize this section...

No story can go without planning, and this is especially true for a visual novel game like Ace Attorney.
The "five Ws" must be answered: Who, what, where, when, why, how.
Consider your timeline as a basis for your story. If it's an alternate universe, you will need to establish what it is early in your story.
Your case should be simple enough so that it's easy for us to follow. This is not the time to go all complex and flashy.
Remember, the KISS principle, Keep It Simple, Stupid!

B. Pre-writing and Research

The previous step is to get you in the habit of writing down a general plan with the basic questions answered. This section is different from planning that it requires polishing up the bigger chunks of your story. In the normal process, this would be equivalent to revising your paper. You are, essentially, revising your plans. But in order to revise your plans for the story, you need to have a feel of what your story should feel like on a finished product.

Now before you even think about doing something in the Editor, you should go back to the official games and play through a case again. Even better, go play some fancases here on AAO, or even on CR (through PyWright and other engines). Now, don't just play the game. This is not an exercise in simply running through the cases. Pay attention to the details. How is evidence presented to the player? What kind of details are presented to the player? How does text change? How does sound effects (and graphics effects, gfx) affect scenes in a case? How does the text speed reflect the mood? Many new authors neglect to look at the smaller details, but those details can be the difference between a case that feels natural and a case that feels stiff.

After playing some fancases, read through the comments and reviews of said cases. They contain important feedback about the case, such as storyline, case difficulty, graphics, presentation. Seeing these reviews should give you a good idea on what kind of feedback you want to receive for a case and what kind of feedback you don't want to get. Note the things that do work for a case and things that simply do not work for an AA case. Remember, you're creating a mystery (usually) and you want your player to find the truth of the mystery.

You have your basic summary from the previous step. The next few paragraphs will discuss things you need to consider while researching to put in your pre-writing document. You are planning to make a Word document, right? If not, GET TO IT! You absolutely cannot write a story without having a written record of your plans.

Most fancases are murder mysteries. Therefore, it becomes important to know how to kill the victim realistically. And also, it becomes important to know your basic anatomy and physiology. I'm not just talking about knowing how many bones are in the body or how many organ systems are there or what the senses are. I'm talking about knowing your circulatory system inside and out. I'm talking about knowing where the weak points of the body are. And not just knowing the body, but knowing some nuances of the human body. How much a person can weigh with relation to height. How much force a person can stand. How resilient the body can be. Anatomy talks about the body parts and physiology talks about the body form. Now, I'm not saying you should get a M.D. in order to write a realistic murder scenario with the victim. I'm just saying that you should have a good idea of what the body does. This is a good place some textbook A&P stuff.

Now, when it comes to general plots, it should not be similar to what exists already, particularly in AA and AA fancases, unless you're doing a re-imagining or parody. In fact, if plots are way too similar even if the names are changed, that counts as plagiarism. That is a crime punishable on AAO. Be careful if you have similar plots. Tweak your plot if you think it's way too similar. On a similar note, try not to rip off case names. There are plenty of unclaimed (and unpublished) fancases whose titles are in the form of "The X Turnabout" or "Turnabout X" or "X to the Turnabout". This should be obvious, but don't use canonical names of cases. We don't need to see 22 "The First Turnabouts" (The one debuting Phoenix Wright as a lawyer) or 69 "Turnabout Beginnings" (The one debuting Mia Fey as a lawyer).

When you make your blueprint for your case, you need to aim your story for an audience. This may be seem like a "D'oh!" kind of a thing, but for some reason new authors neglect to aim for the right audience. In most cases, the audience is the AAO community. You should find out what the community is like and find out general likes/dislikes so you can adjust storyline details accordingly. Although you may have a specific audience in mind (your friends), your primary audience will be the AAO community, so focus on them.

Ace Attorney is a visual novel video game. This is important to note because there are two basic categories of gameplay: novel format and game format. Although visual novels are a subset of video games, there are differences between novel gameplay and game, uh, gameplay. AP-Master has a great explanation.

AP-Master wrote:

If you want to drive the player through a fixed story of emotion, conflicts and solutions, you are going for the Novel orientation (a Visual Novel, which is what Capcom did with Trials & Tribulations and Apollo Justice). This means you have to put a special focus on storytelling and character development (the player won't have a lot of control over the direction the case takes) AAO Example: Hope Springs Hotel.

If you want the player to work his way through conflicts by controlling a protagonist character, you are going for the Game orientation (the prime characteristic to a videogame is the decisions the player can make. The first Ace Attorney had a LOT of dialogue decisions to make). This means that you have to focus on the player interaction with the development of the story: the player MUST feel that he was the responsible of the case's ending.

At some point, you want to have a general game plan for the actual game. As in, the cross examinations. Though most authors advocate "working backwards" from how the crime happened, I would supplement that with a "skeleton method". Meaning, you have your topics for your cross examinations listed in outline format. You set up each CE with its own outline. The main topics of that CE will be your statements and your subtopics will have some details of your press conversations. This may include notes about revealing new information or revealing new statements. Have the "working backwards" notes run anti-parallel to the "skeleton" method. On your first set of notes, show how the crime actually went down. Then on your "skeleton" notes, construct how you want the case to appear. More details in this guide.

Once you have a general plan for your case, stick with it and DO NOT IMPROVISE. This cannot be stressed enough. Having a general plan and sticking to it will ensure that your story makes sense and will not contain plot holes. Once you start to improvise while writing, you risk making plot and logic holes that will leave players scratching their heads.

In summary...

Highly recommended that you go back and play the official cases and carefully pay attention to details.
Play through some fancases, including ones for PyWright and PWLib. Pay attention to the reviews and comments on their threads.
Know your basic anatomy and physiology. It would also be a good idea to look for trivia regarding the body. A&P does not necessarily cover that.
Make sure your case does not even remotely resemble any existing cases. You may get a pass if this is a retelling, re-imagining or parody but this is not the time to do that. Those require higher level writing skills.
Make sure you have the correct audience in mind.
Know which gameplay orientation your case will take up. Novel format focuses more on story and development while game is more about interesting gameplay.
When writing your crime for your blueprint, you should work backwards from how the crime started all the way to how it looks like at first glance. Then complement that with the "skeleton approach"; have your topics in outline form and make a path from one CE to another.
NO IMPROVISING!

C. Gathering Resources

Now, because Ace Attorney games are visual novels, they require audiovisual assets. In other words, you are going to need character sprites, evidence icons, music, sound effects, backgrounds and other visual assets. There is some good news about gathering resources: You don't have to! All of the canon music, including PL vs AA, are in the Editor.* Most of the canon character sprites are in the Editor. If you plan to use stock resources, you don't have to gather them yourself. However, there is some bad news. Currently, the canon music has been truncated to save server space and bandwidth. The problem with the cuts is that it's a total crap job. Fades where there shouldn't be, inappropriate cuts to the music, etc.** You are better off finding the music and looping them yourself.

* As of August 29, 2014, not all music is available on the Editor. The Dual Destinies and Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney OSTs have not been added to the Editor. They should be implemented in the future.

** As of August 29, 2014, there is a project going on to replace all the music with appropriate cuts. However, no news has come of it yet. For now, you are still better off finding and learning how to loop the music properly.

That being said, not all of the resources available on Court Records is available on AAO. As far as evidence is concerned, only the most common evidence used in trials are available readily on the Editor. Also, you may be looking for someone to create custom content or look for custom content, including evidence, sprites and backgrounds. There are protocols in place on AAO, and you really should follow them.

The protocols in place are as follows:

On AAO

Look around the art section to see if there are sprites you would like to use. If you like the art and would like to use it, please read requesting and permission rules stated on the main post of their thread. If they approve, you must give credit when used (unless stated otherwise). If you don't follow this rule, this is considered STEALING, which is a severe offense on AAO.
There are a couple of threads that have resources that are free to use (with or without strings attached). They are SFX, Additional Canon Character Poses, Random Characters, and Evidence and CR Items.
If you need to ask for resources, go to the request thread. I must stress this: this is your LAST resort. It takes plenty of time to do spritework, and not every artist is available to take your request.
You may NOT hotlink from their their page or links. You must download it yourself and upload them to a website that allows hotlinking such as photobucket or imgur. If the artist notices these links in your trial, you might get a visit from the mods.***
If you have questions about using art, you'd best send a PM to Danielinhoni.

On Court Records

Anything on the Media section of Court Records is free to use.
Anything posted on the Custom Sprites section of the Fanworks section of CR is free to use, but you must give credit.
If you go to the forums, you must follow their rules.
You may NOT hotlink from their website. You must download it yourself and upload them to a website that allows hotlinking such as photobucket or imgur. If your trial contains hotlinks to these sites, your trial will be removed.
You may NOT hotlink from their website. You must download it yourself and upload them to a website that allows hotlinking such as photobucket or imgur. If your trial contains hotlinks to these sites, your trial will be removed.
You may NOT hotlink from their website. You must download it yourself and upload them to a website that allows hotlinking such as photobucket or imgur. If your trial contains hotlinks to these sites, your trial will be removed.

On Ace Attorney Wiki

You may NOT hotlink from their website. You must download it yourself and upload them to a website that allows hotlinking such as photobucket or imgur. If your trial contains hotlinks to these sites, your trial will be removed.
You may NOT hotlink from their website. You must download it yourself and upload them to a website that allows hotlinking such as photobucket or imgur. If your trial contains hotlinks to these sites, your trial will be removed.
You may NOT hotlink from their website. You must download it yourself and upload them to a website that allows hotlinking such as photobucket or imgur. If your trial contains hotlinks to these sites, your trial will be removed.

Why am I repeating these words in increasingly bigger font? Because new users are NOT reading the game creation rules. The rules MAKE IT CLEAR that you are NOT allowed to hotlink from those sites. Read. The. Case. Creation. Rules. Please.****

**** As of January 22, 2015, there is a request to have the hotlinking rule amended to site policy rather than being kept to the "Your Art" forum. More information here and here. The current issue is that while it is technically site policy, it's only reflected in the "Your Art" forum and therefore one might not realize it also applies to the "Your Trials" forum.
Anywhere else

If you're looking for music, make sure you download it legally. If used, you must obey Creative Commons and Fair Use doctrines for intellectual property, especially if they come from the US. However, since AAO is based in France, the Creative Commons and Fair Use doctrines may or may not apply. Seek advice from Unas first.
If you're looking at flash games, contact the author and/or music director regarding their music and resources. Credit must be given to the artist.

*** As of August 29, 2014, AAO artist mercurialSK is the only person that allows, even encourages, hotlinking from his thread.

If you can't find the stuff you are looking for, find alternates. For example, if you can't find the *right* music, find something that fits what you need best. For sprites and other visual assets, plan to use stock sprites as placeholders.

D. Setting Timetables

Now, this may be an odd thing to see here, but this is a crucial part of making a fangame. As stated more than once, you can't make a fangame in just one day. Every video game in existence has taken months, even years to complete. If you think you can make a case in one day, you are already on the path to failure. There are several things that needs to be done in addition to your normal writing process. You have to gather resources, write out the dialogue in the Editor, place special effects, set up frames in the Editor, playtest, betatest, etc. Making a fangame is not easy. Anyone telling you otherwise is a big f.u.c.k.i.n.g. liar who has not done this before. No reputable author will say that making a fancase is easy work. It is hard and long work. But when you make your schedule, this makes the whole process of making a fangame much easier.

Part of setting your timetable is having a good idea on how long your trial is supposed to run on a perfect play with no frame skipping. That will give you a minimum runtime of your case. Good first cases should run for at least 25-30 minutes. Longer first cases, such as 3-1 and 4-1 can run as long as 1 hr 15 minutes. But most of us don't define length of a case in terms of runtime. Most of us determine length of case in terms of frames. That is the standard unit of measurement because you will be dealing with frames in the Editor.

Now, while number of frames does not necessarily correlate with runtime, it does give a good estimate of runtime. You should aim for your first case to be at least 2000 frames. That might seem like a high number, but it's not. It's a benchmark number to be able to complete a good first case that feels complete and paced correctly. A case that has 2000 frames usually runs somewhere between 30-50 minutes.

In comparison, many first time authors have fewer than 500 frames, as low as 35 frames. They usually run for 10 minutes. Think about it. Do you think you can get a whole case going, running and wrapped up satisfactorily in 500 frames of dialogue? Nope, it ain't happening. It just doesn't work that way. If 500 frames of dialogue makes a case feel rushed, much more with 35 frames of dialogue. There's basically no content.

I will tell you why 2000 is a good benchmark from a developer POV. One of our members, Jean Of mArc, reverse-engineered "The First Turnabout" up until the 1st CE. It took him approximately 950 frames to complete it. This includes the opening, the lobby, the initial court sequence AND the 1st CE. Based on this, if one were to fully recreate "The First Turnabout" faithfully, you'd need at least 3000 frames. However, don't get me wrong. I am NOT advocating copy-pasting official cases into fancases. It's illegal and can get you banned. But from a developer's POV, creating such a simple case is not as simple as it seems. In fact, it's not as short as it seems.

To drive the point home about aiming for a high enough frame count, go play some featured cases and count the number of frames that go by WITHOUT REPEATING anything. You will see that none of the modern cases go below 2000 frames. Why are those cases featured? Because they tell a complete story that, are paced properly and are also fun to play. Hell, even "first case" style cases go for at least 2500 frames. We'll go more into featured cases in the last section. For now, the ballpark number to aim for regarding the length of the case is 2000 frames, even though that is a lowball number.

Once you determine the approximate number of frames your case should have for completeness (it will definitely go up by the time you actually are ready to publish), you need to find a way to go about completing that case. Now, it is VERY unrealistic to create a 2000 frame trial in one day. It's not going to happen. You don't have enough hours in the day to make that many frames, unless you decide to forgo your basic bodily functions doing marathon runs on the Editor until you die. A more realistic pace would be 50-150 frames completed per day. However, most people don't think that way UNLESS you are doing a case competition, where there is an absolute time you have to submit your entry. A more realistic way to think about making timetables is in terms of what you want to complete by when. In other words, short, attainable goals that help toward you overall goal of completing the case.

Think of your goals this way: Your overall goal is to complete your case and have it published. But that is one big lofty goal. So to make that lofty goal attainable, you will have to set up a series of smaller goals/deadlines as stepping stones to completing your case. Think of it as building a skyscraper: it goes up slowly, floor by floor. Using this similar metaphor, you should make your smaller goals attainable. For example, your first checkpoint in making your case is completing your prologue AND lobby scene. You should schedule a deadline for that. You may NOT go into other checkpoints without completing that checkpoint completely. Otherwise, you may not see progress. Here is a theoretical scenario:

Goal: Complete "The King of the Turnabout"

Checkpoints:

Complete the prologue and lobby scene by Date A.
Complete courtroom introductions by Date B after previous checkpoint is totally complete.
Completely script the first testimony and cross examination by Date C only after the previous checkpoints are completed.

etc.

Plan on spending at least a couple of days per section.

There are two main reasons you need to have an approximate schedule for making your fancase. First, it forces you to focus on getting the case done in a timely manner. Second, it will help you see your project come to like the same way you see a building being built. This leads to being motivated to complete your case.

Finally, there is a good piece of advice that will see counter-intuitive to what I've been saying so far: take your time. Making a fancase is not a rat race. There is no prizes for completing your case in the shortest amount of time. There is no competition for that (save for case competitions, but that's a different story). You do not need to rush the development of your case. Setting timelines is one thing. Rushing to meet your timelines is something else. If you feel that the quality of your case is going down, slow down. Take a deep breath and put things into perspective. Life is more important than making a fancase. Take your time and slowly develop your case. In fact, the crappiest cases are cases whose development has been heavily rushed.

To summarize this section...

Aim to keep your audience engaged for at least 30 minutes of their time when playing your case.
For your case, the benchmark number of frames is at least 2000 frames for completeness and pacing purposes.
To help you complete the lofty goal of publishing a case, create smaller goals as your stepping stones toward completing your case.
Plan to spend at least a couple of weeks (perhaps a month) doing this one project.
Try to complete 50-150 frames per day.
Don't rush the development of your case. Take your time. There are no prizes for finishing your case the fastest. In fact, the prize for finishing your case way too quickly is producing a bad product.

Last Words regarding the Planning Phase

The purpose of the planning section is to have a blueprint of your case down. Unlike a real blueprint, it doesn't require you to have all the intricate details down, just the main points for each section. Once you start to go on the Editor and create your case, you will be in the next stage of case creation, called "Writing/Development".

II. Writing and Development

A. Main Writing Tips

This section is for giving you tips on writing for an Ace Attorney case. This is going to be a long section, and it is not going to be exhaustive. However, these are writing tips you should keep in mind when you script your case.

This section will be divided into crime development, characters, and pacing.

Crime Development

For any Ace Attorney court case, your case should focus primarily on the crime. People play Ace Attorney cases for the love of the mystery, finding the truth, and proving it in court. That is the appeal of Ace Attorney: lawyers proving their case to the court in the most awesome ways possible. The backstory of the case is there to serve as exposition and to explain how the case came to be in the first place. Most court-only cases are heavy in the gameplay department. Therefore, you need to focus more on the gameplay aspect of solving the crime rather than giving too much weight to the story. Otherwise, you're just playing a nonplayable visual novel. Your case should be about 60-40, gameplay to story.

When you write the actual crime for the case, make sure everything makes sense and is completely plausible. In other words, don't put anything that isn't realistic to the story or in general. As an example, a victim that has been shot point blank at the heard is dead, PERIOD. Do not pull an ass pull and say that a Trauma Center character used his "magic hands" to revive a character. It is impossible to revive the dead, and I'm not including using the Fey family to summon the sprits. :mia: As another example, if the victim was slashed in the jugular vein/carotid artery, the victim is as good as dead within 15 seconds due to shock and blood loss. It is nearly impossible to stop the bleeding in time, and putting pressure on those areas can actually cut off oxygen blood flow to/from the brain. There is a reason why you will die quickly if you hold your breath too long, and it's because of the oxygen.

Ninety-nine point five percent of cases involve murder. However, very few of those cases involve overkilling the victim. There is a reason there is a T rating in Ace Attorney games: the crimes are not that graphic. Aside from that, it is not necessary to kill the victim more than necessary. It's to have the victim beaten nearly to death and then shot. However, it becomes overkill when you decide to add arson to the mix. This goes hand in hand with the next point.

Follow the Law of Conservation of Detail. The short version of this law of fiction is that the amount of details you give to certain items are proportional to its importance to the story. Meaning, the more important parts of the story are given more detail than lesser important parts of the story. For example, if your story involves somebody dying in a knife fight inside a house, give more detail to the knife fight than, say, what one of the fighters ate that morning. This also goes hand in hand with yet another point already mentioned.

Keep the story as simple as possible and keep details as simple as possible. Adding details unnecessarily can complicate the case rather than making a case complex. Making a complex case is very difficult, especially for a first timer, so details should be kept short and succinct. Going back to the victim being shot at point blank range, it is understood that the killer was shooting the victim within a few feet of each other. You don't need to say that the killer shot the victim at 2 feet 4 inches. Not necessary at all.

Characters

Part of the appeal of Ace Attorney is the loads and loads of colorful characters in the series. In the fandom, after the story, most people talk about the characters, including their favorites/least favorite and shipping. As you might guess, getting the character down is going to be a major part of writing your case.

There are two major challenges in regards to characters: keeping canon character faithful to their character and creating new characters.

Most of the time, you will be using canon characters in your cases. The major challenge with using canon characters is making sure they stay consistent with their character in the games. If you need help in that regard, you can always ask for help in the fora. Or you can go play the games again and pay attention to that certain character. Alternatively, you can play the game yourself again to see how that character acts in a certain situation.

This is relatively easy for characters that do not change too much between games, such as Adrian Andrews or Apollo Justice. For characters with several forms, such as Mia, Edgeworth, Franziska, and Phoenix, this can get tricky. For example, in the prequel era, Mia is quite a shrewd character who takes no bullshit in her Lawyer years. As she shifts to mentor, she becomes mature to suit her role as a mentor. Edgeworth is quite an intersting case. His two prequel forms are quite different. In GK1-4, he is a newbie with shades of his 3-4 character. Unlike his 3-4 character, he gets embarrassed a lot more often (probably because of this Babbler In The Court House -> :calisto: ). In 3-4, he starts off dominating the case before losing control of the case towards the end. He stays that way until 1-2 (really, 1-4), when he starts to develop the need for the truth. You can see why this can be tricky. Be sure that the canon character acts the way he/she is supposed to for that era.

It is very likely that you will be creating new characters for your case. Since the audience doesn't know that character from the start, you will have to work very quickly (in your story) to establish this new character. You can always develop his/her character as the story goes, but once that character is introduced, there is very little time to give the audience a good impression of the character. There is a reason why people say the first impression is the best chance to get to know that person.

The next part of creating characters is making your protagonist. Remember, the golden rule of any game is that we have to play as the protagonist. You need to put the most effort into characterizing your protagonist, which is tricky because you are playing as him/her. You need to make that protagonist memorable and likable because we are going to be playing that character. If the protagonist is boring, the game will end up being boring. If that character is a major JerkAss, you may alienate your audience. While it may be fun to watch JerkAsses in fiction, writing one as a protagonist is very, very tricky. It's easy to veer into Kicking the Dog territory rather than into Anti-hero land. Make it easier on yourself and don't write your character primarily as a JerkAss.

Don't forget to give your witnesses and minor characters... character. Many new authors don't have a problem with characterizing the main characters. It's the secondary characters that most often get lost in the sea of... character. You want to fortify the characterization of your minor witnesses and secondary character because if they don't have enough characterization (i.e. they are flat characters), then they don't have a place in the story. Your audience will wonder "What the hell is he doing here? He did nothing for this story and his appearance makes no sense whatsoever." This goes double for defendants, the REASON the protagonist is in court. If he doesn't have character and a good story behind it, you might as well not let your defense attorney defend him. Other than "right to a public defender" stuff, there wouldn't be a reason for your lawyer to defend that person.

And speaking of having reasons, make sure your characters have a reason to be there. You don't want to create a large cast of characters, especially for a trial-only game. You don't need that many. Any character that is in court needs to be there to advance the case or gameplay. The Law of Conservation of Detail is also in effect here. Realistically, there would be plenty of witnesses to testify, but if they're testifying the same thing, you're better off letting a lead detective summarize the witness accounts. Having witness after witness say the same thing is boring, and it does nothing for the case OR the player.

If you have custom sprites for custom characters, you can skip right to the next section: pacing. Otherwise keep reading.

It is possible that you will be forced to use stock characters for your OC. While you can make any character you want with custom sprites, using stock sprites for your OCs comes with additional baggage. Once people see that sprite, they will automatically think of the canon character, even if you changed their name. For this reason, do not just change the name, change the actual character. It will be a challenge, but it is very possible to change one character's sprite into a totally new character. The big pitfall of doing this is typecasting the sprite. Try to make sure your OC with stock sprites has a different character than in the games. Otherwise, people will start shouting "Carbon copy of X". Here are a couple of examples:

Furio Tigre

Typecasted character: a mob enforcer with anger problems. (Tigre is a gangster who runs "Tender Lender")
Original character: a rap artist. (It is a bit of a stretch, but it is doable. This characterization takes advantage of his overall appearance as well as some of his "angry poses" to make him look like he's cursing while recording.)

Vera Misham

Typecasted character: A Shrinking Violet. (That's her personality anyway.)
Original character: An aspiring author. (This characterization takes advantage of her sketchbook and her writing poses. Note: Though most authors are Shrinking Violets, some authors are more engaging and Mark Cuban-like, like Sherman Alexie.)

Valant Gramarye

Typecasted character: A showoff-y magician. (Valant is a magician anyway, so it might as well be called a "Valant Ripoff".)
Original character: A veteran game show host. (The difference between a magician and a game show host is in the writing. Replace flamboyance with the intelligence and wisdom of a 72 year old, Emmy Award-winning TV host.)

As an addendum, try not to use Richard Wellington. He's overused as some sort of artsy, musical, theatrical, gay fashion designer.

Pacing

This section talks about ways to make the story flow naturally, how to deal with down time, and how to pace your case.

Let's go back to the topic of running time for a case. Take your topic and ask yourself this: If people played my game, how long should the actual case run for while telling a complete story that ties up all loose ends? Can people be satisfied by my case that runs for 10 minutes or 50 minutes? If you say 10 minutes, you're just giving a short summary of your case. That's NOT telling a story. If you say 50 minutes, congratulations, you have a realistic idea on how long cases should run.

A good case paces itself properly. It should not be too fast that everything feels rushed. Yet it should not feel so long that people will stop playing in the middle because they are bored. A good case masters the concept of pacing. Not too fast, but not too slow.

For the first lobby scene, you really should take it nice and slow. Most newbie authors do not realize that it takes time to establish why we are at court. A typical newbie lobby scene goes like this.

"Hey, you're here. Are you ready to go to court?"

"Uhh... No... I'm still-"

"Welp, too late. We have to go now!"

Do you see the problem with this? We don't know what the hell we are doing in the courthouse. We don't know who we are playing as. We don't really get to know the defendant. We don't know what lead to this point. This lobby scene explained NOTHING at all. This is why you need to take the time to set up the story during the lobby scene. Use dialogue to your advantage to show, not tell (if possible), what is going on.

In the first court scene, you can take a bit less of the story time to introduce the characters of the court, such as first witness, prosecutor, judge (if not Judge Chambers or Arthur Chambers, non-canonical names for the judges). Again, use dialogue to your advantage.

The typical first case that is properly paced flows like this:

Lobby: Nice and slow, with important details fleshed out.

Court introduction: Think of it like you're walking: faster than a stroll but still taking your time.

First witness: a bit faster than the introduction.

First witness's first Testimony/CE: Back to a slow walking pace. After all, you're exploring the witness for the first time.

First witness's first contradiction: Strut.

First witness's subsequent Testimony/CE: Slowly going faster, like a slow accelerando.

First witness's final contradiction: about to go on a jogging pace.

Lobby break: walking pace.

Second witness: strut

Second witness's first Testimony/CE, same as the first witness.

Second witness's first contradiction: brisk walk.

Subsequent testimony/CE/contradictions: pure accelerando.

Witness's critical contradiction: Running. (You have your Cornered/Pursuit music at this time).

End game: Back to a strut.

Post victory: walking.

As you can see, you need to take it slow at the beginning and pick up the pace as you go along with the story.

Now, just because a case's pace speeds up at certain point doesn't mean it gives you an excuse to rush everything. Remember, everything needs to be explained. There is a good reason the pace of a case usually slows down once a witness starts to correct his testimony: he's introducing more information. At that point, you will have some downtime between major points of the case.

Use the downtime to your advantage. Don't use down time to drag the story along (known as padding) but to introduce new facts, information and/or evidence to the case. You should also use it to review the case before being prompted for answers. There must be a purpose to the downtime every time it appears. Case 2-4 used this magnificently because the purpose of that case is to find the guilty party while saving Maya's life from de Killer, thus requiring the need for down time to stall de Killer. Case GK1-5, however, uses this horribly, especially at the boss battle. You know he's the guilty party, but he's trolling the hell out of you like the politician he is and you are not going to take his bullshit. Plus the fact that the whole case is freaking long as the 1956 movie The Ten Commandments. But that's an insult to The Ten Commandments, where padding was kept to a minimum and downtime was used intelligently despite its Epic length.

Now speaking of downtime, that is usually the time to make your transition between one major point of the story to the next point of the story. In other words, changing scenes smoothly. You may not know this but transitions pretty much dictate the pace of the story. This is especially true when transitioning from one CE to the next. Transitions are not just about changing one scene to another. Transitions are also about how smoothly one scene changes to another. The unique format of an AA game does not allow for sudden cuts to happen often. Those are saved for climactic moments. For your regular transitions, you need to make sure that it is smooth. Smooth transitions usually means adding dialogue to ease the change of testimonies.

In all...

Your first case needs to focus primarily on the crime. You can develop the overarching story later, but the crime and the story of the crime needs to come first.
Everything that you put in your case must be plausible and make sense.
When developing your case, The Law of Conservation of Detail is in effect. Details about something must be proportional and relevant to its importance to the story. If you break it, your crime, logic and story will suffer.
Characters need to make sense. Canon characters, even if background is change, must retain their characterization.
If you are making Original Characters, you need to establish their character very quickly.
Your protagonist should be developed. Don't let other character overtake your protagonist. And don't let your protagonist be a jerk.
Characters need to fit in the story.
If being ultra-realistic with the details could threaten the integrity of the story, cut down on the realism enough to keep your case going. This includes having too many witnesses having the same account.
If you use stock sprite (not custom sprites), change the character, not just the name.
Don't rush with the pacing of the story. Slow and steady is often better.
The lobby scene must be developed so that the player knows what is going on and why they are at court.
Know how to pace certain scenes.
Use transitions intelligently. Make your transitions smooth and developed.
sDowntime should be kept to a minimum unless details are being introduced or facts are being reviewed.

B. Implementing Sound Effect

No matter what kind of music you use, the music you choose needs to fit with the story. Not only does your music need to fit with the story or scene, it also needs to feel like a natural fit for the overall experience. You can't go wrong with simply sticking to canon music for an Ace Attorney game. If you want to use custom music, feel free to do so. However, using custom comes with a set of challenges.

Part of the challenge is looking for music that loops. Remember, this is a video game, not a movie. Video game music needs to loop naturally, not END. Your custom music needs to fit with other music so that transitions between scenes flow nicely. Also, you don't always have to have "awesome, kickass" music. This can get a bit much for the average player. Don't go overboard with the music choices. Make sure your music isn't distracting. When you choose your music, you need to choose music that fits the scene well, not because it sounds good to you. In fact, music that might sound good to your ears might sound out of place when put in an Ace Attorney game. And finally, it must get along with other music that you plan to use.

Here are examples:

Discordant set, Music that conflicts with eachother way too much.

Court music: Ace Attorney
Cross Examinations: Street Fighter Alpha 3
Objection!: Bon Jovi
Cornered: Soul Calibur V

When you transfer from one scene to another, you will notice a huge change in music that is just jarring. Doesn't work at all.

Harmonious set, music that flows naturally between each other.

Court: Ace Attorney
Cross Examination: Ghost Trick
Objection: Ace Attorney
Cornered: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

If you choose the right soundtracks from those series, they will sound harmonious, and it'll be a pleasure to listen to.

If you are going to use custom music, there are a couple things to keep in mind. Cross Examination music requires two versions, at the very least: a Moderato and an Allegro. Ideally, you should find a regular version and an upbeat remix. If it's not possible, then stick with the classics. You can use one track as a base for Cornered. Regular Cornered has a powerup sequence before getting to the main melody. A Cornered Variation doesn't require a powerup sequence but a couple of "pickup notes", technically anacrusis, before the main melody kicks in. Oddly enough, it is possible to have one version of a track to be used as Objection! and another version as Cornered. It is usually denoted as v1 and v2.

A final note about implementing music: Know when to start the music and when to stop it. While there aren't really set rules, there are conventions to when you should stop music. You should stop the music after a hard transition (lobby to court), after a correct objection, to interrupt "power up" scenes. At the same time, there are conventions regarding when you should use music.

Prologue. It should stop before the lobby scene starts.
Lobby. Obviously, this requires lobby music. Start the music after the time-location frame and end it before you have your time/location frame for the courtroom.
Court introduction. Needs "court" music, obviously.
Introduction to witnesses. Normally, court music will suffice unless you want this character to have a motif. Save custom character music for important witnesses and killers.
Testimonies and Cross Examinations get those kinds of music. On earlier testimonies, use Moderato. On later testimonies (especially critical testimonies), use Allegro. If you are using AAI music, Presto only on the killer/final testimony.
Legitimate Objections get, well, Objection! music.
An objection on later testimonies that lead to critical revelations, use Cornered or Pursuit.
Victory music for the victory in court. Save this music for when you get back to the lobby.

One final thing about music... You don't have to put music on every frame. It will keep playing until you switch the music or override the music with a stop command.

When it comes to sound effects, you should know how to use them. For most cases, one sound effect per frame is enough.

Final Words regarding Writing/Development

At this step, you will be doing the majority of the work for your project. Take your time doing this. You are not under any real pressure to get this finished by a certain time. This is where you have to put the most effort in order to make your project successful. However, you won't know if you need to do a lot of cleaning or just some dusting up until you do the next phase: Execution/Presentation. Do note that you cannot skip the next phase if you hope to get reviews for your project.

III. Execution / Presentation

A. Playtesting and Beta Testing

Let's imagine you're in an English class (or a Writing class, what have you). You have a term paper to do. So, you do your prewriting and brainstorming. Once you have done your research and have your outline written, you start to write the paper. Then, you complete your paper after long hours of work (or a whole night, if you were procrastinating.) Then, you hand it in to your teacher and you're done for the paper, right? Unless you're in a phantom class for stupid, brain dead football jocks who only need to class for "sports eligibility", you are not going to get a grade back. What usually happens is that your teacher will give the paper back to you and return feedback to you, suggesting ways to improve the paper. The revision of the whole paper is essentially Playtesting and Betatesting, only in reverse.

There are only slight differences between playtesting and betatesting, but these are things you cannot skip.

Playtesting is when you play the game yourself to make sure things work the way they should. What? You think it's a stupid idea to play your own game? If you don't playtest your game, then you're being beyond idoitic. You really need to see the game with your own eyes. No reputable game developer in the real world has skipped this step. In fact, they have doing plenty of playtesting WHILE developing the game. So do everyone a favor a playtest your own game. And if you think you see nothing wrong, then you'd be lying to yourself. I will guarantee that if you let someone else see the game, they WILL find mistakes. You are better off catching these mistakes before you finish the game. The more mistakes you catch before publishing, the better it will be for everyone. And the more mistakes you correct before going into betatesting phase, the happier your betatesters will be.

Betatesting is when you outsource your game to have others look at it. This is useful because you may not see things that others may catch. In fact, even though you think you might have caught all the mistakes, there might be some that you haven't seen or overlooked. However, don't rely on others to catch all the mistakes before the game is published. There might be too much to document. And there are often times that betatesters, quite plainly, suck at screening for mistakes. When you go have your trial betatested, do NOT ever hire a nobody, especially a nobody who has not been in the community or fangaming business long enough. They do not make for quality betatesters. In fact, I go by the TVTropes rule on asking to be allowed to edit articles: check their grammar on their post. If they can't make a post that follows all the rules of English, even if casual, I don't hire them to do proofreading. Only after you have become established can you afford to hire nobodies. Your safest bet for a betatester is somebody who has published quality games in the past and is a crucial part of the community. They will be able to spot mistakes that other people can miss.

Now that both terms are defined, it's time to follow through on this part of the phase.

After you have completed all the frames, save the game and then click on "playtest" after the game has reloaded. Before you start your betatest, check for the following:

Evidence and profiles do NOT appear. If there are evidence or profiles that appear, go back to the editor and check that all the profiles/evidence has the box for "hide at start" checked. If you're testing a second or third or so part, make sure the evidence that appears at loading is evidence that the player should have at that point in the case.
Sounds and images are fully loaded. If the bars do not ever fully fill up, you will have to go to the Editor. If the sounds bar is not fully loaded, it may indicate that you have an empty box for music or sfx. Check on those tabs to make sure you have defined music on every cell. If even one is not defined, either set the music/sfx or delete it. If the images bar does not fill up, it indicates there may be problems with your graphics. If you have custom sprites, check that both the talking and blinking sprites are defined and the links are working. Then, go to the places tab and make sure each custom place is defined (if you have custom places), and the link is working. If you have objects on those places, go to the Place editor and check that the links are correct and each object is defined. After that, go to the popups tab and check that each cell is defined. If you have custom popups, make sure those links work.

When you do your playtest, you will have to check a lot of things such as...

Grammar, spelling, syntax. This is THE most important thing to check for, and you don't necessarily another pair of eyes to see errors in sentence structure, spelling, etc. This is also THE easiest thing to check for. If you don't check your grammar and there are massive grammatical errors and such, it shows a lack of care. Most people WILL be turned off by misspellings, awkward sentences, etc. because it will be hard to read. If your audience can't understand what the hell you're trying to say, they won't try to finish the case. This is the NUMBER 1 complaint most people have against newbie cases. For some reason, many newbie authors do not check their grammar before releasing the case. So do everyone a favor and fix those errors.
Four-liners. Remember, in the AA games, no piece of dialogue runs longer than 3 lines. This is usually a result of having long sentences. Either shorten the sentence or break it up into two frames. While DD games have only 2 lines, this engine is basically for the DS system, and the DS games have a maximum of 3 lines of dialogue per frame.
Timer/pause errors. This one is also easy to fix, since you can tell when something is supposed to run automatically but doesn't. Also, check if there are missing timers. Things that need automatic timers include speech bubbles, gavel sequences, Testimony/CE title sequences, gallery speaking, fade to black/from black, "Oh no!" sequences (those scenes with multiple "Oh no!" sfxes in a row), Guilty/Not Guilty sequences, etc. Remember, timers are in milliseconds, so a value of 1000 means there is a 1 second timer.
Profile/Evidence detail errors.
Redirect errors. If something redirects to a place it shouldn't be, you will have to retrace your steps to find the exact frame with the redirect error.
OOC-ness (Out of Character-ness). You might require a second pair of eyes from someone who knows their characters well.
Logic/Plot holes. You definitely need a second pair of eyes. Maybe a third.

As a note for the grammar example, there are many mistakes newbies make. However, I will not be covering every rule of English, only the ones most violated.

You may be tempted to use your browser's spellchecker to catch spelling errors. However, your browser's spellchecker is not sufficient enough to catch spelling and grammar errors. You need to use your eyes and read every line carefully. Spellcheckers cannot tell if you've misused a word or used a homophone, like "it's" vs "its". As far as spell-check is concerned, it's either spelled correctly or it's not. That's what spell-check is for. They don't care whether or not that word is appropriate for that sentence. This is especially evident for misuse of contractions and possessive contractions. Remember, apostrophes are not plurals. Or, more accurately, contractions are not plurals. So to check if your contraction makes sense, use the uncontracted form ("it is" for "it's" or "we're" for we are). If the contraction causes that lines to suddenly make no sense, then use the other homophone or another word. Remember, homophones are words that sound the same. So you have to use the heterograph for it, or different spelling for words that sound the same. This is important if you are using possessives. Most possessive contractions end with "'s", like "Mike's bike." The uncontracted form of the possession is actually "the bike of Mike" or, properly, "the bike that Mike owns". Remember, "Mikes bike" is not the same thing as "Mike's bike".

Playtest your game several times over. Playtest your game after applying fixes to make sure those fixes work. Playtest after fixing grammatical errors to make sure those lines flow naturally. Playtest your game to make sure your automatic timers are working as it should and that redirects go to the right place. Playtest your case until you're mostly satisfied that you've cleaned up your case as much as possible. After doing exhaustive playtesting, open your case for betatesting.

The process for betatesting is slightly different from the process of playtesting. For one, you're opening your game to other people to test the game. Ask for people to betatest your game. Ideally, you should have 3-5 people betatesting for you. Once those spots are filled up, add them to your trial as playtesters. Then, you must manually give them the link to the Player. Your trial will not show up in their Manager, so you must give them the link(s). Once you have your betatesters, assign certain work to your betatesters. You shouldn't have all your betatesters test for everything. It's not efficient, and it's hard for your betatesters to catch everything when they're told to do everything. You should ask a couple of betatesters to check for grammatical errors, one for technical errors, and one to look for storyline, logic and character holes. You should have one betatester in reserve to run through the case and give feedback on playability, difficulty, gameplay mechanics, and overall experience. That last betatester would be a preview of any reviews your case gets.

While you give your betatesters assignments, you should also give them a reasonable deadline to turn in reports. As a rule of thumb, two to three days is more than enough time for betatesters to play the game, record bugs in the report and turn it in to you. If they turn in really good reports, you should consider hiring them for future projects. If they don't send in reports or turn in a shitty report, you should fire them. It's better to have one less betatester than have a totally shitty one in your team. Apply the report to your trial before releasing your game. We'll talk about releasing your game and preparing your thread the next topic of the phase. Right now, I'll continue this section with advanced tricks for playtesting. You will want to read to the end, especially with the last part.

For advanced users, you should try to test your trial as you go. If you remember from the previous section, you should take your trial one checkpoint at a time, right? Well, after each checkpoint, do a playtest. At later playtests, you may want to take advantage of some advanced functions, all in the debugger. Let's say you want to test out a cross examination sequence, but you don't want to play through the beginning. The debugger will help you skip the crap you've already done and get to where you need to be. If you have collaborators, you need to teach them how to use the debugger. Playtesters will not be able to see the debugger.

Here are the things in the debugger you need to know:

Player status. This will help you quickly locate the frame that needs fixing. Now there is ID# and Index. Do NOT confuse the two. The Frame ID# is the actual frame number. The Frame Index is the position of the frame in the whole sequence. For v5 users, the Index is the TRUE frame ID#. So you can have a Frame ID of 25 but its index listed at 69. That means that frame 25 is the 69th frame to be played, if played thoroughly.
Variables. Unless you're doing some variable work, don't touch this. But if you are doing variables, you can define variables before the frame defines them for you. And if you don't, once you get to that frame, the fame will print out the variable and its name. However, once it is already printed, do NOT touch it. This is the buggiest part of the debugger, ironically.
Court Record. This part of the debugger toggles evidence and profiles on and off depending on the situation. Arguably the second most useful debugger function after player status. So when you need to skip to a certain section, you can toggle all the evidence/profiles that are supposed to be revealed had you played from the beginning.
Scenes. If you have an investigation going on (have investigation blocks), you can toggle locations that one can travel to. You can also toggle conversations on and off. Conversations toggled on can be read by the player and vice versa.

One final thing about betatesting/playtesting: most newbie authors do it wrong. Plenty of newbie authors post a Player link to their trial on the forums, asking for betatesters.

This is NOT betatesting. It's considered released. This is a very bad move.

Betatesting is done behind the scenes. There is no such thing as an "open beta" on AAO. It's considered an unfinished released product. The point of betatesting is to find mistakes and fix them before the general audience sees your trial. The general audience wants to play complete cases. Therefore, they should NOT be seeing mistakes at all. Nobody likes to play an obvious beta. That's basically what Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 is: a clusterfluck of a mess because they rushed production without fixing the bugs or testing out the game. So please do EVERYONE a favor: Don't EVER post a Player link for your trial in a forum post.

There is a service for you if you need betatesters: Case Assistance Thread. If anyone is interested in helping you, they will PM you. Again, do NOT post a link to your trial. Betatesting is done behind the scenes.

To summarize this topic

You absolutely must playtest and betatest your game before releasing it.
Playtesting is when you play your game to make sure everything runs the way they should. Playtesting also helps you catch mistakes before others see it. This will make betatesting less painful.
Betatesting is when you get other people to play your game and give feedback to you. Other people can see mistakes you might not see.
Before you go into betatesting phase, you need to check your game for grammatical, spelling, and syntax errors WITHOUT relying exclusively on your browser's spellcheck. Remember, spellcheck doesn't care if it's grammatically correct.
If somebody's asking if they can proofread or betatest for grammatical errors, go by the TVTropes rule: If they can't construct a post that follows all rules of English grammar, even if it's supposed to be a casual post, don't hire them. It's a very good sign that they aren't good at grammar.
You must add your betatesters as your playtesters to your trial.
You must give the Player link(s) to your betatesters. Your trial will not show up under their Manager.
Having all of your betatesters looking for everything is not an efficient way of using your resources. You need to assign certain tasks to your betatesters or divide up the work. Give them a reasonable deadline to turn in reports.
You MUST apply betatesting reports before releasing your game.
You and any other collaborators must learn how to use the debugger during the playtesting phase. This is useful if you want to test certain sections without playing all the way from the beginning.
Do NOT release the case or post the links to your case without betatesting it properly. Putting a link to your trial via forum post is NOT betatesting. Once you post a link to your trial, you are saying that your trial is finished.
There is a thread for recruiting betatesters and other forms of help: The Case Assistance Thread.
All betatesting is to be done behind the scenes. Do NOT post a link to your trial until you are ready to release your case.

B. Preparing the Trial Thread

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Final words for Phase III

Everything in this phase is meant to help you execute your case properly so it looks, plays, and feels the way you want it to feel. After fixing and testing your case, you will then present your game to the audience, which is usually the AAO community. You can opt to present your case to Court Records, though they tend to ignore AAO cases. After you have done all you can, you will be playing the waiting game. Reviews and posts will come soon enough. At that point, it'll be time to deal with the final phase of fangame making: Reviews and QAs.