Major Update — The Contradiction Overhaul

Major Update — The Contradiction Overhaul

The trial no longer lets you brute-force your way to the truth. Evidence stays sealed until it's time to examine it, forensic work now demands that you say what you're looking for, and raising a contradiction has become a phase of its own — where the hearing record you built is the board you play on.

A restructured hearing — now six phases

• Case Introduction → Opening Statements → Witness Testimony → Evidence Review → Contradictions → Deliberation

• Exhibits are sealed until Evidence Review. Previously they unlocked during opening statements, which meant you were contrasting evidence you hadn't been allowed to study.

• New Contradictions phase. Pick a statement straight from the hearing record, select an exhibit, and challenge it. The mandatory-contradiction gate lives here now — no more being kicked back to testimony when you tried to move on.

• Ruling on an objection no longer shunts you forward. You stay on the record and keep working.

The record of the hearing

• A running transcript is now always on screen, next to the witness feed. Every clerk line, both opening statements and every word of testimony, in order.

• Re-reading costs nothing. The old "Question" button silently rewound the testimony and burned a judge action to replay a line you'd already heard — it's gone.

• "Add to notes" also flags the line in the record. Flagged statements show a marker; solved ones get a green check, so you can see at a glance what you've broken open and what's left.

Forensic examination is now a decision, not a click

• No more outlined hotspots. Nothing on the image tells you where to click any more.

• Choose an instrument first — timestamp, fingerprint, inconsistency or note — then examine the area where you expect to find something.

• Every exhibit has a limited number of passes. A find costs nothing. Wrong area, or right area with the wrong instrument, burns a pass — and each failure tells you which of the two you got wrong.

• Run out and the exhibit stays partly examined, which means it can't be used to challenge testimony. You can request one more examination, but it raises courtroom tension.

Cleaner bench, fewer redundant buttons

• Removed "Interrupt"— it skipped ahead and cost you testimony you'd need later.

• Removed "Mark suspicious"— "Add to notes" already did the same job, and now carries the flag.

• Removed "Identify the contradiction"— it was a strictly easier duplicate of contrasting an exhibit, and its mere presence revealed which statements hid a contradiction.

Balance and clarity

• Every contradiction in a case now counts. The old optional tier meant cases showed "0/1" while holding two findable contradictions, and let you rule with half the case unexamined.

• Contradiction tally, front and centre — pips plus a count, on the record and in the decision bar: how many exist, how many you have, how many are left.

• Objectives no longer spoil the puzzle. Pending contradictions are listed anonymously; the full description is your reward for finding them, not your instructions.

• AddedFixed a misleading messagecontrasting an un-examined exhibit reported "No contradiction — tension rises", when in fact nothing was wrong with your pairing and no tension was added. It now tells you plainly that the exhibit isn't examined yet.

Interface

• Exhibits are a vertical list of larger cards; sealed ones carry a clearly visible brass padlock.

• The witness feed and the hearing record sit side by side, both at full column height.

• Wider decision text, larger primary button, tighter notes column.

• Tension and credibility meters stay visible during Evidence Review and Contradictions, so the cost of an extra examination is something you can see.

Localisation

• All new text ships in all 27 languages on day one.

• Swept out every hardcoded English/Spanish string left in the courtroom, case docket, verdict and ending screens — around fifty strings that other languages either saw in English or, in a few cases, not at all.

• The in-game language picker now lists all 27 languages. One of the three pickers had been stuck on four.

Existing saves and career progress are unaffected.

As always, tell us what breaks and what feels unfair — the contradiction phase in particular is new ground, and we're listening.