Hey guys, there've been a few changes since the last update, so let's get started. First off, I have an announcement you all should know about. Some of you probably saw this coming, but hopefully it goes over well. Please watch this video:

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That's right, Ace Attorney Turnabout Creator is coming out (a bit after) this Christmas! Fun fact, the whole video was made solely with the in-game editor. The screen at the end was just a custom background that I flashed on screen:

However, there is a slight catch, that being some of the things that were originally promised won't be making it into the initial release. I had underestimated the amount of time making the editor would take, as well as the amount of time adding all the characters will take.

So, unfortunately, the perceive function, the characters/backgrounds from the Investigations games, and all but the a few key AA4 characters/backgrounds are getting axed from 1.0.

But that's enough sad stuff, on to the glad stuff!

The editor is nearly complete

As you were able to see from the above screenshot, the editor's almost done. The way it's laid out now is approaching its final form, and parts of it are getting fresh coats of paint.

As you can probably see from the screenshot and gif, it's still a little rough around the edges. I know you all really want to see more than a glimpse of what the editor's gonna look like, but please be a little more patient. I'll try to show off how it looks before the release date, but I make no promises!

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection UI Style

As you could see from the release date video, on top of the styles that were already announced, I'll be adding the UI from the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection to Turnabout Creator! This might've been seen as an inevitability, but I just thought to get the info out there so there won't be any need for speculation.

What's next?

There are 5 main things left to do before release, those being finishing the editor, importing all the characters/backgrounds, making the title screen, one last round of polish, and last but certainly not least, finding and fixing all the bugs.‎

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Finishing the editor

This one's the most obvious, with this project being a giant editor and all. The main thing that hasn't been created yet is the sequence organizer, where all the various sequences connect via player interaction. So far, my focus has been on making the sequence editor itself intuitive and polished, so I haven't had the time to work on the organizer. Naturally, this will also involve UX testing to make sure both the sequence editor and sequence organizer are easy to use.

I'm also planning on adding the option to remove some of the bigger animations (eg, the scrolling grid, preview transition). While I'm not personally distracted by the animations, I can imagine how someone could be.‎

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Importing all the characters/backgrounds

The part of this project that's been the most surprisingly time consuming is bringing in all the characters. In the interest of saving space and being nicer to lower end GPUs, I decided to slice everyone into parts and re-assemble them in Unity manually.
Does it really matter, considering it's [current year], and most computers can handle visuals way more intense than Ace Attorney? Honestly I'm not sure, But it's the idea that I went with, so here we are.

If you're wondering if you'll have to do something like this once custom characters get added, you won't. I only really care about file size for the base game. Once you get into the realm of player made content, especially custom assets, it becomes harder to make sure it's all properly optimized.

Backgrounds don't have this problem, though. For those I just drag the image files into the backgrounds folder, label them, and call it a day.

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Title screen

This one's fairly self explanatory. Currently, there is no title screen. There should be a title screen. I don't know what else to say.‎

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Polish

Again, fairly self explanatory. This is mostly a lot of sanding down the rough edges (janky animations, abrupt transitions, placeholder UI, etc).

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Bug fixing

Finally, there's the never ending hunt to find and remove all the bugs from the game. Some of the bugs that I've come across so far have been really interesting. For example, there used to be an issue where if you change the text colour too many times in a single line of dialogue, everything would freak out.

Needless to say that's been fixed now.

The bottom line is that bugs are everywhere, especially in unusual interactions that I wouldn't think to test. Which brings me to my next topic:

Calling all playtesters!

So far, testing's been mostly me and a couple of friends screwing around, but I'm not really the best person to stress test my own game, and there's only so many times you can use your friends before they stop being your friends.

So, if you're interested in playtesting and/or bug hunting, then please fill out this form and I'll contact you when I need your help!
(Note: I might end up needing your help later rather than sooner.)

UPDATE: Thank you all so much for the responses! A lot more people signed up than I was expecting, so I'm closing down submissions. If you didn't get the chance to fill out the form, please be patient for the final release!

I know it's been a little lighter in terms of content updates this time, but I'll try to be more active on Twitter with smaller updates and silly bugs. And also Laytonposting. So beware of that.

Okay, that's all from me for now.
Good luck!