Jury Trial 2025 Development Retrospective

Greetings Counselors,

As the year comes to a close, we wanted to take a step back and reflect on the past months of development on Jury Trial. We felt this was a good moment to look back at what has been introduced, tested, and refined so far.

Since releasing our initial test case, The People vs. Kareem Estumo, development has largely focused on two parallel goals. First, incorporating the valuable feedback we received from players. Second, continuing to build out missing core systems and expanding the tools available for creating deeper and more reactive cases.

So let’s take a look at some of the most notable additions and changes from the past months, some of which have already made their way into the test build, and some that give a glimpse at what is still to come.

Save System

One of the most requested quality of life improvements was the ability to save and load during longer courtroom sequences. Court days can be lengthy, and dialogue can take unexpected twists and turns, significantly extending their duration. Because of this, we decided to push the first major expansion of the save system earlier this year.

Players can now take a recess and save during

• Meetings

• Opening arguments

• Closing arguments

• Witness questioning

This allows testers to step away whenever they wish and return exactly where they left off. While this feature required far more work under the hood than it might appear, it has already proven to be well worth the effort.

Facial Expressions Enter the Courtroom

Facial expressions have officially made their way into Jury Trial.

Case Creators can now influence the facial expressions of NPCs directly within dialogue by using simple expression keys embedded in speech bubbles. This allows for more nuanced emotional feedback during testimony and questioning, without requiring complex setup or animation work from the Creator. While visually subtle, this addition adds a surprising amount of personality and clarity to courtroom interactions. It also helps players better judge when to press for an answer and when it might be wiser to ease off a witness in order to achieve the best outcome for their client.

Jury Actions and Juror Investigation

A major area of expansion this year was the introduction of additional player actions, specifically focused on how players learn about jurors.We introduced jury related actions that allow players to uncover juror traits during a case, including

• Public record research

• Social circle analysis

• Online background research

• Court appointed psychiatric evaluations

Each of these actions helps the player gradually understand who the jurors are, what biases they may have, and how they might react to certain arguments, all without questioning them directly during the Jury Questioning Phase.

As is typical for systems introduced into Jury Trial, Case Creators retain full control. They decide which actions are available, how often they can be used, and how many traits can be uncovered. This system adds a strategic layer to jury selection and trial planning without forcing any specific approach, allowing players to decide which jurors deserve closer scrutiny in preparation for a successful jury selection process.

Evidentiary Actions

Outside of the courtroom, we spent a significant amount of time expanding how cases can progress through player driven investigation.

In addition to actions that uncover juror traits, we also introduced what we call evidentiary actions. While not every action is strictly tied to physical evidence, each one can unlock new evidence, materials, events, or narrative branches that push the case forward in different directions.

The evidentiary actions currently implemented include

• Endorsement outreach

• Media campaigns

• Evidence searches

• Witness searches

• Expert searches

• Evidence testing

• Witness or expert monitoring

Like other systems in Jury Trial, these actions are built on a highly flexible framework. Case Creators are not locked into predefined outcomes. When creating an action, the Creator defines:

• A custom message, which may include highlighted text or a newly introduced choice based message type

• Automatic unlocks such as evidence, materials, persons, or arguments How the action behaves

• Whether unlocks act as triggers for future events

• When the action becomes available and when it expires

• Any delay between initiating the action and receiving results

• And how often the specific action type can be used

Building a system this flexible naturally takes more time than a linear alternative, but it allows for everything from very simple cases to deeply branching investigations. Importantly, nearly all of the systems within Jury Trial are optional, giving the Case Creators the freedom of choice of which systems and actions to include.

Newspapers for Reactive Storytelling

Another system introduced this year is the newspaper system.

Case Creators can now design newspaper editions with multiple columns of text. These can be used purely for storytelling or enhanced with highlighted passages that provide the player with new information.

Newspapers can arrive on specific in game days or be tied directly into the event system. This allows Creators to react to player decisions, reflect shifts in public opinion, or foreshadow future developments based on what the player has decided or uncovered so far.

Case Editor Improvements

Alongside gameplay systems, we also spent time improving the Case Editor itself. In parallel, we have begun writing the cases for the campaign. Since the campaign is built using the very same Case Editor that will be available to all players at release, this process has already revealed a wide range of quality of life improvements.

Whenever we encountered friction during case creation, we took a step back and addressed it directly. This led to additions such as full text search across large dialogue trees, visual highlighting of branches that use modifiers, and clearer visibility of elements that influence juror conviction chances, breakdown thresholds, and strike points.

Changes like these make it significantly easier to manage and navigate dialogue trees, which can grow very large over the course of writing a case. We will continue to invest considerable time into improving the Case Creator so that when it becomes available to everyone, it is already in a strong and well refined state.

Dialogue GUI Improvements and Player Clarity

We also revisited the Dialogue GUI and how question styles work during questioning. Previously, players were asked to choose between aggressive, neutral, or defensive tones very frequently. This not only felt excessive, but also conflicted with our goal of not forcing Case Creators to write multiple versions of the same question. As a result, the question text itself could not always reflect the chosen tone in a meaningful way.

This system has now been reworked. Tone choices only appear at key moments, and Case Creators can mark specific questions as aggressive, neutral, or defensive. These moments stand out more clearly, and choosing the right tone can now lead to stronger reactions from witnesses. Because the tone is defined up front, the Case Creator can also fine tune the question text itself to better match the intended approach.

To further improve clarity for players, we also added an option that allows them to read the full question their character will ask before committing to it. This helps avoid misunderstandings caused by short text aliases and gives players better control over how they want to continue the dialogue.

Looking Ahead

Jury Trial is steadily becoming more flexible, more reactive, and more capable of supporting a wide range of case designs. As always, thank you to everyone who has provided feedback, tested systems, and shared their thoughts with us. Your input continues to directly shape the direction of the game. With the year coming to a close, we would like to wish everyone who supported us throughout this time a happy New Year, good health, and continued success. With many core systems now in place and coming together, we hope you are as excited as we are to carry this project through its next stages and toward completion.

Thanks so much,