For the part where your time is limited, I can see why there would be a slow text pace, but I found the slow text -- particularly in the intro -- frustrating and it kinda killed the fun for me. I did like the idea, though.

Beautiful, beautiful game! Kept me on the edge of my seat for the full 10 minutes!

Man I wish I had the time to do everything. For a minimal game, that had a high amount of depth. That kind of balance is what makes minimal games so much fun. Great work. No complaints.

The game crashed for me with 20 seconds left, out of nowhere. The second time through I didn't ask any questions and just waited to see the ending but I don't know if that makes a difference.
Crashed the second time too at "25 years minimum"

I think you used the theme really, really well any way you look at it. I liked that you had to pick the right questions with limited time, but most of the questions seemed irrelevant to me anyway.

In the end I would offer the pleabargain no matter what, because I don't believe in capital punishment, so that made it a bit less thrilling for me.

Wow that was deep.. great dialogue during questioning, nice work.

It crashed for me as well, but i was really into it, very good game !

To anyone who it crashes on: please tell me what version you were playing, and if it's the web version which browser. So far I haven't been able to reproduce anything.

Who killed Chuck D? Excellent game...a little slow paced though.

Very interesting idea with persuasion..

Great use of suspense! Good game!

This is a game with amazing depth for a game made in 48h. It is a moving game. Great dialogue that keeps you wanting to play. Perfect!

I really like the idea and feel of this -- but the pacing was slow to the point of frustrating.

Very thought provoking. Agree with some other comments that being unable to speed through text - if you read fast - is an issue... It's essentially a play, albeit interactive, in a very novel format. If I was reading a play would read about twice the speed, especially the shorter (bulk) of sentences. Difficult to resolve that with the ticking clock though. Suspense of choosing when to reveal is VERY GOOD, I felt responsible.

Yeah same here crashed at the end god damnit. Just when we were getting into the good stuff! Good job though! :D

I have never seen the use of silence during dialogue in games. It worked really great for this one.

I played this on the Unity web player and have to say I was very impressed. I love the simple conversation mechanic and I played it three times and may play it again.

A part of me likes that there is no audio, it adds to the tension of the game but at the same time it would have been nice to have something getting slowly louder as the timer runs down.

Well done on a fun game.

A very impressive experience. I don't know if there is differences in function of your questions + revelation of gun. But I believe in it all along, and so enjoyed it !

Pretty interesting. I haven't tried to play it through yet due to time constraints. I wish I could skip through the intro.

I like it. Suggestions: a little audio would have gone a long way, as well as a way to skip some of the slower parts (for replay). Very on-theme. :-)

As others have said, the slow text did drag things down by drawing them out excessively. As for the timer, I felt like I had asked all the questions worth asking in the first couple minutes, so I just kind of killed time for the rest of it, or so it seemed to me.

I ranked the innovation and theme high for this one, since it's certainly minimalist and it's a rare move to make a game that's about talking like this. I was interested in what was going on, though the message (if any) seemed a bit confusing.

Was the point supposed to be that the defendant woman gained Ben's sympathy when she was actually quite dangerous? The way she and her attorney went on with their preaching, it seemed like there was a message against the death penalty going on, even though her actions were pretty excessive for just seeing an officer around (very excessive). Still, I recommended minimum 25 years in prison, and then she gets in fights and her family doesn't visit. I only plead her case because I figured it was a one-shot bout of violence that would not be repeated.

Since she's clearly prone to violence, choosing to attack others while in prison, the message seems to me to be that she should have been given the death penalty right away, since it's not like she got more time with her family and her being around others made things worse and prison did not rehabilitate her.

Anyway, that's besides the point. Neat game!

@Cybearg: Aside from the text being to slow (an issue that I am pondering a solution to), I think your comment demonstrates that the game achieved exactly what I wanted: making you think.

It crashed for me and windows told me it ran out of RAM (12gigs...) so there's definitely something going on. That was the standalone version. Win7 64bit. Maybe a memory leak? Too bad because I was really caught by the story.

@timtipgames: That's bizarre. I really haven't been able to reproduce this. I'm going to take another look at it, but it may be an engine problem. I have asked it to do some strange things.

@timtipgames: YES! I checked it in the process manager, there is in fact a memory leak! I'm going to try to find it. Wish me luck.

Addicting. It seems to work fine for me, great job!

The dialog felt completely fluid, good job on that. I did however feel a bit uneasy at the stereotypical portrait, I would rather have seen a scenario that was free from any type of bias. Could have fleshed out the relationship between the victim and the murderer more instead of a random act of violence.

But then again, it would probably not be as provoking as it is right now.

All in all, excellent work!

Brassawiking: I should probably mention that I lived in Qatar for two years. I wouldn't have felt comfortable writing an Arab if I didn't have that experience, for precisely that version. There is some stereotype there, but in general it comes from real experiences.

I'm glad that you liked it :)

*version = reason

Real experience from cold blooded murder?

brassawiking: OH CRAP! HE KNOWS!

Wow, I played it like if I was sitting on that chair oO It's so immersive. Very good job !

Good game! I really liked the multi-choice style but the game crashed near the end! :/ Wish I could have played it all but I liked it, so! :)

Nice idea of making a lawyering-game!

The intro is painfully long though

Very refreshing. I'm Glad that I could play it and experience the story where you are put in the body of a district attorney, who might have to deal with such cases many times in the job.

10 minutes with minimal interaction and slow text is tough to sit through and really kills some of the fun. Nevertheless it was thought provoking and meaningful. Interesting idea.

Unfortunately, I was unable to save her. :(

It was very suspenseful and I enjoyed the story. I'm a bit reluctant to restarting it since the dialogue is unskippable by design.

That said, it's a solid game, and a very good take on the concept. Great work!

Gorgeous entry, not in graphics or audio, but rather in innovation of the theme, as well as the mood. I had to dock off some points due to the slow paced nature of the text, and this is coming from a frequent visual novel reader. The situation definitely proved as tense, though some of the writing could have gone better-of course, I suppose, this is forgivable, given that this is a 48 hour solo entry. Definitely consider polishing this post-compo, because I'd love to play this in a polished form!

Enjoyed the feel of the game, was a bit slow paced for me though

Super happy to find this gem when I finally get the chance to sit down with your game. I definitely like the aesthetic, awesome concept, and thought the pacing clocks (timer, stairs) were great touches. Very cool entry, and wonderful job! (:

Even if i missed much of the game (1024x600 netbook screen) it was partly playable and i would not have recognized it if i weren't told that the game screen shows more than a coloured line, text and questions. Great job, intense story :)

Pretty deep for a LD game. Well done!

Wow! This is incredibly detailed. Great dialogue work. You should try doing a team next Jam.

I liked how minimalist the graphics were, but sometimes the text seemed a bit too slow and it would have worked well with some kind of bgm.
Interesting game though :)

Wow, that was so immersive. Loved every second of it. Great job!

Original idea, but I don't understand that game. The legal jargon makes no sense to me. I have no idea what the goal is. Does asking questions change anything in the outcome or is the only real game-changing choice at the very end? The ending I saw felt strange and unpleasant.

A real suspense-full thriller, got to take your time. Keep the interesting questions for later... An interesting balance, but also relatively straightforward to create content for - which is smart. Pauses during the dialog line did nicely to add another layer of communication too.

Interesting idea that fits well with the theme. I agree with the other comments that it would be nice to speed up the pacing.

Personal taste maybe, but I think the story would be better if the lady had a better reason for the murder. She killed for no reason, so it's hard for me to have any reason to defend her.

I sort of wanted Fadiyah to stop being such a jerk, but I also knew I would have to reveal the gun at the end, because she obviously killed the officer. Unless of course she didn't and was just disgruntled and angry, in which case I hoped she would stop making it sound like she murdered the officer and just answer truthfully. Very immersive for a game with stick figures and a whole lot of unused screen. The silence in dialogue helped, and I don't think the text was too slow; it seemed just right. Sound would have been nice, I think, if only just ticking of the clock or ambient noise.

That was really great. I really enjoyed learning all the aspects of the story. My only suggestion would be to either allow the player to advance the text, and/or speed up the game clock. Excellent story telling!

I felt the argument was a little one-sided since I had not seen the whole court case from the beginning.

Interesting way to make a "game". I'm all for things that make me think, but I'm not into things that make me pre-judge people.

Well written, very engaging dialog. I was definitely enjoying it, but the mac app did crash on me. Other than that, nice work.

@shawn42: Ah, the way it was packaging the Mac Version was weird. I believe I fixed it.

Great mood! Really immersive game. Congratz!

The silence, timer, and slow dialogue really sucked me in. Great game.

In my play through it came out very early that she deliberately killed the officer; it seems a shame there was not a lot of question to the events.

Very well done. although the graphics fit the theme, they could still use a considerable amount of improvement.
Seriously though, the dialog and concept are really well done.

Excellent game. The whole dialogue was really well developed but the speed of the text should be a little slower (or have a next button).

I found the game a little slow in some moments, but the idea is awesome. Great Job!

Nice entry, a lot of work there! It had a lot of depth to it, keeping it minimal... Gratz!

I think the mood of this game was great. The trilemma is great, and I love the storytelling.

That game had a good solid concept I must say. But waiting for
the text to appear is a bit annoying,overall I think I would
rate it 8/10. Profound too, I must say.

I really loved this. The dialog are well written and played.

Brilliant concept. Absolutely loved it. Stays true to the theme while making you think! Great job,sir!

Nice concept, though buggy (dialog clearly meant for one character was drawn as if coming from another. Also, at one point, there was a dialog line but no text, and then the defense responded like there was dialog). The entire game without sound, only to have a sudden, loud, creak, was a bit unnerving. Other than that, excellent game!

Awesome it was fun I liked the slow text made it seem like they were actually talking.

Played it through twice, quite captivating. I think the reveal mechanic really adds a lot to this game.
I experienced a bug in the question asking her opinion on capital punishment where a line of text is missing.
Skip intro would be nice for replaying.

This was absolutely fantastic. By far the best I've played from this LD, and much better than mine. Make more games.

This game was really good, and fit the theme nicely. The only critique I have, would be on the morality. Although killing a person is an action which is very impossible to forgive, what would you do when you are being harassed by a police officer, and that police officer is supposed to be the law?