Any advice for writing Ace Attorney style mysteries?

[Carter]

I already have my code all set up, I've tested it and it all works great, so now I just have to write the dang mysteries.

My biggest concern is difficulty. I want it to be clear which statements are important and how they relate to each other, but I don't want it to be so obvious that it's a no-brainer, and at the same time I don't want the player to have to make leaps in logic. There were lots of times playing Ace Attorney where I felt like the game was expecting too much of me, and there were other times when the game seemed to hold my hand through every step of the mystery.

Generally speaking, I know what I have to do. I'm just not exactly sure how to do it, if that makes sense.

Any advice for this poor VN dev?

[Zelan]

I'm afraid you've probably got no responses here because it's a tough question, lmao. I've never tried to write a mystery so this may not be a whole lot of help, but I think your best bet is: 1) keep in mind what you did and didn't like in games like Ace Attorney (and other similar games you've played) as a model for how you do your own game, and 2) get a LOT of tester feedback on whether the mysteries are too easy and/or too hard. It may be helpful to get people who are super familiar with the genre and have played lots of mystery games as well as people who aren't so familiar with them, so you can see if your game is friendly to newer players.

A personal recommendation - I think Occult Crime Police (free game!) handles its mystery pretty well, and could be a good model for you to use.

Good luck! I'm a huge fan of mystery games so I'll be on the lookout for more from you.

[niho]

Maybe this would be useful? It's an in-depth analysis of the two main types of cases in the Ace Attorney series and how they're structured.