Devil's Attorney (Game)

Devil's Attorney

GAME » on October 11, 2012

Android (Platform)iPad (Platform)iPhone (Platform)

A courtroom strategy game set in the 80s focusing on an unscrupulous lawyer named Max McMann.

Overview

Max McMann

Devil's Attorney is a point and click, turn based puzzle game. Using a variety of lawyer tricks such as Reverse Psychology and Courtroom Drama the player must attempt to undermine and ultimately discredit the case against their client. By purchasing clothing and decorating their home, players acquire Vanity, Decadence and Materialism points which unlock additional tactics.

Each case has a short audio dialog between Max and one of the many prosecuting attorneys, from the pestering Duchee to the alluring Susan Maple.

The game comprises of three chapters with over 50 cases. Clients include Daniel Lacrosse, a teenager who is on trial for using an illegal kick in a karate tournament and Charlie Shine who was arrested for doing donuts at a stop light.

Gameplay

Courtroom

The basic format of the game revolves around the player's day in court. Some brief banter between Max and the opposing prosecutor sets up some inconsequential details of the case, or simply gives the two attorneys a chance to trade barbs. Once this is finished, the player's turn begins.

Players are given a pool of action points and are tasked with doing enough damage to evidence and witnesses to win the case. Depending on the difficulty, the player's starting case strength (life total in conventional gaming terms) and action points vary. Easy starts players with 10 action points per turn and 10 case strength, normal reduces these to 9 action points and 8 case strength, hard further reduces these to 8 action points and 5 case strength. Once players have depleted their action points, the prosecution is given a chance to respond. Any witnesses, evidence, and in some cases the prosecutor will deal their damage to the player's case strength. Players will lose the case should their case strength be reduced to zero.

Each case has a cash reward for winning the case, and a bonus for winning within a set number of turns. This money is used to purchase accessories that deal with various upgrades.

Enemy Types

Each case pits you against several different enemies in order to win the case.

Witness - People that cause damage to your case. These enemies must be eliminated in order to win a case.
Evidence - Items that cause damage to your case. Some skills may only target evidence. These skills are somewhat unique because while skills that damage people can affect all the enemy types other than evidence, evidence skills are limited to evidence only. These enemies must be eliminated in order to win a case.
Prosecutor - These people have special abilities that may or may not require them to be eliminated from the case in order to win. Any prosecutor that does not have a damage dealing skill does not need to be eliminated.
Coach - These people grant additional damage bonuses to all witnesses. It is not uncommon to have multiple coaches each granting bonus damage to witnesses. These enemies will be eliminated when all witnesses have been eliminated.
Expert - These people grant additional damage bonuses to all evidence. It is not uncommon to have multiple experts each granting bonus damage to evidence. These enemies will also be eliminated automatically if all the evidence has been eliminated similar to coaches.
Witness Protection - These enemies will prevent a set amount of damage from going through to any witness. For example, if a witness has protection of 2, and a credibility score of 5, you must do 7 damage in a single attack to eliminate them. If you only manage 5, 3 of that damage will get through to their life total reducing them to 2 credibility. If you attack again, the witness protection will continue to block the first 2 damage, requiring you to do at least 4 damage in a single attack.

Upgrades

Items are available to purchase at stores throughout the course of the game, and a few are given by grateful clients after various cases. These upgrades in most cases increase one of three base skill lines Materialism, Decadence, and Vanity. Some items grant other abilities like increasing the number of uses of a unique skill, increasing the minimum or maximum damage of a skill, increasing the starting point for the player's case strength or action points, as well as some others.

Skills

Each skill in the game is given a specific color. Purple skills deal with doing damage to the credibility or health of a piece of evidence, or a person. These skills are under the materialism category. Orange skills deal with temporarily reducing the damage of a piece of evidence, or a person. These skills are under the decadence category. Blue skills are special skills that can only be used once per case. These skills are under the vanity category. These skills do a variety of functions such as adding extra damage to attacks, restoring case strength or adding action points.

Each skill tree contains 4 skills located at different points with the final skill being awarded at a 10 point investment.

Skill	Category	Obtained	Effect	Action Points
Patronize	Materialism	Default	Deals 0-1 damage to people	1
Interrogate	Materialism	Default	Deals 1-5 damage to people	3
Cross-Examine	Materialism	Default	Deals 3-5 damage to people	4
Analysis	Materialism	Default	Deals 0-1 damage to evidence	1
Expert Analysis	Materialism	1 point in Materialism tree	Deals 2-4 damage to evidence	3
Discredit	Materialism	4 points in Materialism tree	Deals 1-3 damage to people	2
Intimidate	Materialism	6 points in Materialism tree	Reduces credibility by 50%. Once per case	2
Tirade	Materialism	10 points in Materialism tree	Deals 2 damage per action point spent	Variable
Mesmerize	Decadence	Default	Reduces damage of people by 1-2	1
Tamper With Evidence	Decadence	Default	Reduces damage of evidence by 2-4	2
Objection	Decadence	2 points in Decadence tree	Incapacitates opponent for 1 turn. Once per case	2
Hypnotize	Decadence	5 points in Decadence tree	Reduces damage of a person by 3-5 points	2
Reverse Psychology	Decadence	7 points in Decadence tree	Causes person to deal damage to themselves. Once per case	4
Courtroom Drama	Decadence	10 points in Decadence tree	Reduces damage of all people by 1 point	1
Ego Boost	Vanity	Default	Adds 3 damage to next attack. Once per case	2
Epic Speech	Vanity	1 point in Vanity tree	Adds 5 points to your case strength. Once per case	2
Deep Voice	Vanity	3 points in Vanity tree	Next attack does maximum damage. Once per case	1
Swagger	Vanity	7 points in Vanity tree	Reduces case strength by 5, but adds 3 action points. Once per case	1
Great Posture	Vanity	10 points in Vanity tree	Adds 3 case strength. Once per case.	1

Characters

Jack B'ourbon'

2444975-jack+bourbon.png

Jack Bourbon is one of the common prosecutors players face in court. His special skill is dealing damage directly to your case strength. After each round, the damage he deals increases by a set amount. Typically the damage he deals can be easily taken during the first round, but it begins to ramp up significantly.

Roger Mansel

2444979-roger+mansel.png

Roger Mansel is another of the most common prosecutors. His special skill is restoring the credibility of witnesses each round. This skills adds credibility regardless of the original crediblity score of the witness. If ignored for too long, this could add enough health to a witness to become a considerable problem. He does not deal any damage on his own, and will be eliminated if all witnesses are taken care of.

Mike Spencer

2444980-mike+spencer.png

Mike Spencer is the third prosecutor that is faced on a regular basis. His special ability is adding damage to witnesses. While he does not directly deal damage, he can significantly boost the strength of other damage dealers. He can be removed by taking care of the witnesses directly and ignoring him however. Depending on the credibility of the witnesses in the case, and Mike's credibility, it varies on whether taking him out quickly to reduce the witness damage values is the more beneficial move.

Margaret Jones

2444988-margaret+jones.png

Margaret Jones is the fourth and final prosecutor that is commonly faced. Her special ability is that her damage dealt is always equal to her life total. This creates one situation where using the Reverse Psychology skill (deals damage to a person based on their life total) will always eliminate this prosecutor. Another viable strategy to dealing with this prosecutor is to deal enough damage to either bring her damage to a withstand-able level, or couple that with some temporary damage mitigation.

Richard Brooks

2444995-richard+brooks.png

Richard Brooks is the final prosecutor of part 1. He shows up occasionally throughout the rest of the game as well. His special skill is that he reduces the number of action points that can be used by Max following the initial turn. One effective way to deal with this prosecutor is to use the Objection skill. This skill prevents the target from doing anything for one turn. This will allow you to have your full action points available for at least 1 more turn to deal with the remaining evidence and witnesses, or to take the prosecutor out. Since his ability is not damage dealing, you can complete the case without directly attacking him.

Susan Maple

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Susan Maple is the first prosecutor you face in part 2. She becomes the target of Max's affections and their banter quickly turns into Max trying to persuade her to go on a date. Her special ability is to restore all of the witnesses credibility to their original values each turn. The best method of dealing with her is to focus on witnesses that can be taken out in a single turn. Spreading your damage across multiple witnesses will yield poor results as they will immediately be back to full strength.

Wayne Walker

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Wayne Walker is the final prosecutor at the end of part 2. He is a prosecutor that deals damage and must be eliminated before you can win the case. His damage is determined by subtracting his current life total from a set damage stat. The more damage you deal to him, the stronger his counter attack will be. This means that his beginning attack values are relatively low, which allows you to ignore him, or use small damage mitigation skills to prevent his damage. Once you start attacking him directly though, it's a good idea to finish the job.

David Ducheé

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David Ducheé is introduced at the beginning of the 3rd part of the game. His special skill is that his starting damage will always equal your current case strength. If you don't prevent at least some of his damage each turn, you will lose the case. One strategy for dealing with this prosecutor is by using the Swagger skill which reduces your case strength and adds action points. This will provide you with a smaller damage value to deal with in the form of the temporary damage prevention skills, and allow you to take out more of the evidence and witnesses during your turn. Another option would be to use Reverse Psychology skill to quickly dispatch him while your case strength is high.

Max McMann Sr.

2446974-max+mcmann+sr.png

Max McMann Sr. is the final boss of the game. His special skill is the ability to replace any eliminated evidence, witnesses, or support during his turn. This is the only case in the game where the goal is not to eliminate the witnesses and evidence. The win condition is simply to eliminate the prosecutor. The best method of defeating him is to eliminate witnesses or evidence only if they cause direct and substantial damage. He will replace them with others, and as long as you eliminate only the substantial threats he will eventually replace them with weak or harmless ones.

At that point you can focus all your attacks directly on him. The Intimidate skill is particularly effective.

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