We're finally here. After persevering through a challenging development journey, the courtroom drama series that kickstarted RobProductions' visual novel/hybrid style has returned. Over the past year and a half, I've been hard at work writing, composing music, creating 3D art, and programming to bring you a brand new story in the world of Burden of Proof, my most well known game to date. That's why I'm so happy to announce that this follow up title, Burden of Truth, is available now and will be 10% off for the next few weeks! So don't wait, go ahead and get the game now!
Bundles and Extras
Before we get into the game details, I first want to announce that I've partnered with the creators of Paper Perjury, Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle, and Pro Philosopher 2 to include Burden of Truth in the Debate and Deduction Bundle on Steam! Buying this bundle will grant you access to all of these incredible mystery/puzzle games with a 10% discount on the whole set!
I've also been working on assembling the Burden of Truth Soundtrack for release on Steam! On October 8th, you'll be able to listen to every song in the game, from the intense cross-examination tracks to the ambient mystery themes, through your favorite media player with these high quality .FLAC and .MP3 files! When the OST comes out, I'll also publish a "Deluxe Edition" bundle that includes the game and the Soundtrack so you can pick it up at a discount even if you already own the base game. Purchasing my music is one way to send extra support to my development efforts, especially because music is such a key focus of my storytelling!
What is This Game About?
Let's talk a bit about this new release. If you've played Burden of Proof to the end, you'll probably know that there's a gap of time within the story between Chapters 1 and 2 that has been largely untouched. During this time, Conrad Cross, our determined protagonist, has apparently switched from becoming a prosecutor to a defense attorney, and we are left wondering what circumstances could cause such a drastic change. In Chapter 3, we learn the truth; his childhood friend Sarah Fletcher was arrested and Cross, believing in her innocence, breaks free from his once fixed career path to defend her in court.
On the development side of things however, unforeseen complications and a lack of backup planning meant that Chapter 3 had to be cut much shorter than intended. In doing so, I was able to flesh out the ending of the game, but there was always a bitter taste in my mouth thinking about what could have been. I get the sense that many players have felt similarly about the abridged content. That's one of the reasons why I believed correcting this misstep by basing the next game entirely around this cut Chapter would help set my mind at ease and properly flesh out that part of the story that players have been asking for. Burden of Truth could be called a "midquel", a story that takes place during the events of the first game (but hopefully anything but "mid"!) However, it truly expands on every element of the plot and features so many new characters with a fresh narrative experience, and for that reason I consider it to be a full sequel, just one that jumps to a previous point in the timeline.
Doing Chapter 3 proper justice, so to speak, was both exciting and challenging. The limitless potential of creating a "Burden of Proof mystery" weighs on one side, but the constraints of getting characters into their proper places before Chapter 2 picks up weighs on the other. This is also a crucial moment for the series to pick up again after being on hiatus for so long, so the game has to reintroduce people to its world without alienating players of the first game. A lot to consider, but I'm more than pleased with how it turned out in the end.
You'll start the game in the Prologue Chapter, an impactful introduction to the courtroom mechanics and the new visual style of the series. You'll find that there's a little bit more to the first trial than was shown in the free demo, but anyone familiar with BOP trials knows that the true culprit of each crime can only hold out for so long. After that, you'll charge straight into the events of Chapter 3, the main meat of the game, which features multiple interconnected cases that must be solved in order to defend your client from all charges. You'll find a complete recreation of the short scenes that introduced Chapter 3 in Burden of Proof, and the full story that follows them. You'll have to investigate the crime scenes, uncover the motivations and identities of each culprit, and prove your case in each thrilling trial. At its core, that is what Burden of Truth is about.
Gameplay and Story Structure
Like before, Burden of Truth is primarily a visual novel with some mixed genre elements such as third person exploration and puzzle solving, which have become staples of RobProductions' VN games. But a few things are different this time around.
Every piece of evidence you collect will now be "tagged" depending on the context in which you received the item. These tags are additional pieces of information showing you, for example, whether you've physically picked something up or whether it was analyzed by the investigation team. This information helps ground the case with more concrete details, and can even be utilized as answers to logic puzzles. That means there's a bit of an extra layer of difficulty, and beyond that I've tried to amp up the complexity of each case to make revelations feel more powerful than ever before. Many details that were simply brushed aside in Burden of Proof are now discussed more thoroughly in the sequel, and this enhanced competency lets the characters feel more realistic too. But it's not meant to be overwhelming, because...
You now have access to a Hint System during cross-examinations! One of the big problems with players getting a stuck during a puzzle is that they can feel frustrated and even tab out of the game to look up solutions. But with a built-in system to provide hints that has limited uses, players can stay immersed in the moment if the answer eludes them, and those who don't need it can feel rewarded for pushing their mind to the limit. I think this is a great addition to the courtroom genre because it puts the power in the player's hands to make a puzzle easier without relying on an explicit difficulty setting that would necessitate puzzle differences.
Another way that I wanted to mitigate this was to provide reasonable alternate solutions to any wrong answer you might make. While I didn't get as far as to handle every possibility (that would be hundreds or thousands of unique responses...) I tried to tackle as many logically consistent ideas as I could manage. This was all possible thanks to more consistent playtesting and polish passes, something that was severely lacking in the first game. As a result, there are quite a few "mini branching paths" that try to adapt to your proposed solutions, so if an answer makes sense to you, try it out and you might be surprised with how the game has anticipated your response!
Investigations have also been made more convenient with the addition of new UI elements that show you when you've inspected everything to the limit! If you see a checkmark next to the "inspect" popup, that means you have seen all of the scenes that you can get from inspecting the item. If you don't see a checkmark, you can continue to inspect that spot to get additional optional dialogue. The self-awareness of the first game has been left intact, so some of these scenes include the 4th wall breaking comedy that was vital to the original presentation. Of course there are a ton of little jokes and more serious references throughout the story in general, and I believe anyone who enjoyed humor and drama in the first game will find a lot to love in this follow up.
Changes in Version 1.0.3
If you've played the demo back when it first released earlier this year, you probably know what to expect generally in terms of gameplay. There has been a few months since then, though, and there are quite a few polish adjustments that have been made for the full release! These changes have also cascaded down to the demo version, so I'll list a few important things here:
The Court Record has been cleaned up with a few visual fixes, and no longer gets stuck in the "open" state when an effect enters the screen
Evidence ordering issues have been cleaned up and will remain more consistent
The lighting, textures, and animations have all been continuously improved on Cross and other characters
There are more instances of cloth physics to give weight and secondary motion to the characters' hair models
Cross-examinations now return you to the last statement you were on after going through a "penalty" or alternate answer dialogue branch
A lot of audio polish and SFX work has been done, including a new sound for when the Objection prompt shows up
Fixed a lot of bugs and added more debugging features such as new console commands
Up until version 1.0.0, updates to the game were only listed in the changelog text file if they affected the demo content, but now every change to any part of the full game will be listed there. Future patch notes will be posted here in the Steam forums and I'll try to address any feedback and issues that are found now that it's in more hands, so keep an eye out here for updates!
So... What's Next?
Well first, I need to rest. To say this has been the most stressful development cycles I've ever been through would be an understatement. I feel as though I've taken proper breaks during the past two years, but it's kind of impossible to truly get the project off my brain until it's actually released and over with. A few things will keep me tied to it for a bit though, namely promotion of the game and patch updates. Feel free to submit any bugs you find over on the forums and I will take a look! As for promotion, if you enjoyed the game, it would really help a lot to spread the word and tell people about your experience; your support is what allows me to make projects like this in the first place!
So stepping back from the development of this game is a big goal for me. However, anyone who knows me knows that I can't ever seem to sit still for too long. I've already been formulating ideas for my next game and plan to dive right into that when I feel ready and motivated. I can't say anything about it now besides what I've probably already said over other channels: it will be a departure from the visual novel style games that I've focused on over the past few years. I'll hopefully have more to say when things are more concrete, but it won't all be silence either the next few months!
I'm hoping to create more YouTube videos for my channel now that I'll have a bit more time, and I'm excited to finally delve into gamedev tooling a bit to create reusuable components for my future titles. My goal is to streamline the development process even further so that I can create higher quality content in less time, and that starts with building the right tools for the job. It's been a while since I've actually had to code a lot in a game engine (the mechanics of Burden of Truth were finished at the beginning of the year) so I've been eager to get into that subject which I consider one of my biggest strengths.
Closing Thoughts
Thank you all so much for keeping up with development and checking out my humble story. It is a huge relief to finally have this behind me, and I'm so excited to see everyone's reactions and thoughts on this grand courtroom journey. One last time, I'd encourage you to go check out the Steam page for Burden of Truth and pick it up if you're interested in playing my latest creation!
If you'd like to keep up with my latest news and updates on this game and all of my projects, be sure to follow me on Bluesky or join my Discord server to chat about your experience with Burden of Truth! What a journey this has been to reach this point. There's so much more to say and I could ramble non-stop if you let me, so it's probably best I cut it off here. Also, I'm heckin' tired. Although this is the stopping point for the Burden of Proof series for now, be rest assured that I'm nowhere near done building games both within the BOP anthology and outside of it. I really want you all to enjoy this game and I sincerely hope to see you again as I move on to whatever comes next. Oh, and one more thing...
Thanks for playing!
- Matt