Could an AA game work if it was mostly dedicated to Prosecuting the Defendant instead of Defending them...

Could an AA game work if it was mostly dedicated to Prosecuting the Defendant instead of Defending them? I had some few ideas but they sound either retarded, too complicated or not fun and too predictable.

Prosecution always have the upper hand in the AA universe. There's barely any challenge if you don't make some wild changes.

no. The Prosecution always had the advantage and the series in general was a shot at japan's legal system and how Defense Attorneys always had a harder time.

Fuck yes, it could.

They might have an air-tight alibi, lack of evidence against them, witnesses who confirm their side of the story, etc.

It would be up to you to use what little/if any information you had to establish enough doubt for a jury to convict and your cross examination skills to get him to slip up.

Hell, you could even have a jury selection section.

Fuck that would be one bad ass game.

Some mutually exclusive ideas:

1) A poker-face mechanic. The player has to actively maintain composure, more so when events go out of control. Losing composure means the witnesses will lose faith, or that the defending lawyer will feel more confident in their conjecture. Managing to interject during the attorney's summaries and cross-examinations helps restore composure and gives you the opportunity to shut down chaos early on.

2) Bluff/manipulation mechanic. Outside of the courtroom and during intervals, the player can coerce the witnesses into telling the truth or keeping quiet on things that could ruin their credibility or your own. Inside or outside of the courtroom you have opportunities to reject evidence, tamper with evidence, and bullshit your way to a quick Guilty verdict.

The reasons behind seeking a Guilty verdict vary from case to case - a gut feeling that the client is a monster; a healthy cheque from a higher-up who wants things dealt with smoothly; personal pride.

With either of these ideas, naturally the earlier attorneys you'd face off against are more transparent and gullible, while later attorneys are either much more crafty or genuine in seeking out the truth.

Poker face makes you look less sympathetic to juries; you need to express some level of empathy and shock.

Look at the Lizzy Bordentrial.

Or even Zimmerman laughing.

Cases are won or lost in the jury selection.

That's why super high profile cases will bring in top-tier psychologists and other experts to identify potential jurors who are most likely to be convinced of the defendants innocence.

I was actually thinking About a bluff/Coercive mechanic that could be used in this hypothetical game. I didn't think about the hiding of information for the benefit of your case though

I was thinking that you had a murder and you could choose to pursue any number of suspects. But you would need some evidence against them to prosecute or the DA or whatever wouldnt allow you to persecute. And in the courtroom the Defense would try to slander the victim, Try to discredit the witnesses or nitpicking their testimonies, etc.

>They might have an air-tight alibi, lack of evidence against them, witnesses who confirm their side of the story, etc.
>It would be up to you to use what little/if any information you had to establish enough doubt for a jury to convict and your cross examination skills to get him to slip up.
Aren't you basically describing the Investigation games? Only difference is you're not in a courtroom.

>Cases are won or lost in the jury selection.

I was going to ask, how would the endgame for cases work? Would it come down to the jurors' vote, or the client confessing, or the attorney having no rebuttals?

Well the prosecutor makes a closing statement.

Then the defense makes a closing statement.

And then the prosecutor gets the final closing statement.

I think endgame would be determined by the amount of holes you're poked in his story, presenting overlooked evidence and each juror having a certain % of believing different aspects of the case, ie. Evidence, testimony, rebuttals, cross examinations, etc.

Each case will be different and have many different aspects so jury selection is VITAL to winning the case if the evidence is weak.

You may even mentally break down a witness or the defendant and a mistrial motion can be declared.

It can as streamlined or as complex as you want it to be.

I think it's a bad ass idea.

You can even have the option of having evidence planted or fabricated but risk getting caught and disbarred.

>You may even mentally break down a witness

If you handpicked that witness it could be a vicious blow to your own case. I imagine the attorney may use similar mindgames to their advantages.

This sounds like a good idea, but I would say that on the idea of having a poker face mechanic or coercing the witness, you should have a penalty if you fuck up badly. And the flip side of these games would literally be that every client that came in would be guilty as all hell, but evidence and testimonies are sparce. Defense would call for an end to trial due to the fact that there isn't enough, but through deductive reasoning, info, evidence, and so on, we get to the root of it all. Also: would recommend there to be a case where a high class defense attorney gets found out to be no more than an ambulance chaser and a forger of evidence to get his clients off. Think anti-phoenix wright. "My client is guilty, but I don't care. I'm here for a paycheck and will put my time in."

You must also consider the fact that if you hand pick witnesses, it could come back to bite you in the ass, like with edgeworth and karma where a lot of the witnesses were either hiding something from both sides, or they were in turn the guilty party.

Well the prosecutor and defense get a certain number of unquestioned potential juror dismissals.

And yeah, if you're going against a good lawyer then he could read the jurors and adjust accordingly.

But in all honestly, more jurors are already primed that they defendant is guitly; why else would they be there to begin with?

Also, I don't really think you should be able to choose jurors. If we are going off of the phoenix wright version, it is the judge who has the final say, so you would be more focused on witnesses and evidence or lack there of. As a prosecutor, you need to make sure that your witnesses can't be tampered with, because with some defense attorneys, especially at lower levels, they can be anything from sleazy as fuck to charming and causing the witness to change their story multiple times on stand, hurting your case. However, that can be a pre planned thing to put in the game.

here's your character design

What about the design for the Defense Attorney?

If there was going to be a prosecution focused AA game, it would probably just have a lot of the elements from the Invesitgations series where you would have to construct the crime scene and interview witnesses. Breaking down witnesses is probably the most enjoyable part of the AA series and I don't see too many ways to make it more prosecution based, unless it was about trying to steer them into a conclusion rather than pointing out contradictions.

I assume it'd be a different one for almost every case. First one would be a wimpy veteran who easily loses control of the case, and your job is to set the facts straight. The second one would be the high-class lawyer that brought up - he's much more charming/manipulative than the first lawyer. At that point the game starts teaching you about bending the rules and hiding evidence for your own ends. At least one attorney would be the defendant in their own case, where it's implied that he really isn't guilty. Perhaps the last two cases feature the same lawyer who's honestly fighting for an innocent client each time.

That sounds amazing.
I would imagine that at the end of the game the protagonist would leave the Law profession because he locked up an innocent person who got the death penalty.

>I would imagine that at the end of the game the protagonist would leave the Law profession because he locked up an innocent person who got the death penalty.

Justice For All and Apollo Justice both end with the player deciding the verdict of the last trial. The story's end could be down to the player as well. It's entirely possible the protagonist could throw the last case while questioning what form of Justice he was seeking. Or he may be given the chance to seek the truth and turn away, believing that only the incarceration of every arrested felon will bring him peace of mind, while dooming untold innocent lives. Or, as you say, he could ultimately make his own choice and hand in his badge.

If the player has been hiding evidence and training witnesses then they go down the bad end route

The game shouldn't tell you there are routes in the game

just like real life.

>The game shouldn't tell you there are routes in the game

This. Just give the player alternate outcomes and dialogue here and there, alongside the alternate ending. Putting it down to a final "guilty or not guilty" choice would look very strange if the player was actively doing only malicious or only pure things.

...

Like make the game flowing and not into nearly independent epsiodes.
Like you could fail one case but continue to the next one but its altered

>"...unless it's my son, in which case Fuck You Got Mine"

bump