How Town of Salem made a mechanic interesting

Town of Salem is a cool game. I just wanted to get it out of the way right now. It's free in browser, give it a shot, you'll have a good time. If you're at all interested in what I'm talking about here, I'm sure you'll have a good time.

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But it's also really interesting to look at what makes this seemingly simple game tick, and how something as simple as being immune to death at night adds layers upon layers of complexity. If you've ever played mafia, ToS is basically like that, but a bit more complex, taking advantage of it being digital, and having more roles.

Now, being night immune is a trait shared by several roles in the game, such as the serial killer and the godfather. If you haven't played or if your memory is fuzzy, it means you can't be killed at night through conventional means. That means no mafia killing you, no serial killer, and no vigilante. Let's take a closer look at what this means for the game as a whole:

It increases the value of certain roles

There are specific roles that can kill through night immunity. The Jailor, Veteran, Werewolf, and Arsonist all have the ability to ignore this attribute and just kill anyone they want at night. Obviously that's a powerful tool for whatever role has it, but it's not without downsides. The jailor is obscenely powerful, but to compensate they're always in the game and are the number one target for pretty much every killing role. The veteran can't actively kill, and can only react to other night immune roles coming to visit them. And of course the arsonist and werewolf are alone, and can't risk being found out or killed or else they lose.

When you give a role such a powerful tool, you're forced to give them downsides, and in doing so each role is just really interesting. You need to play more carefully as a jailor. It's common to try to bait people to visit you as veteran. This mechanic changes every role it applies to, and it makes the game much more interesting as a result.

It's a key strength AND weakness

Night immunity just sounds like a straight strength, no? It certainly is a necessary one for many of the independent roles. The neutral killing roles, for one, are a target of literally every other player in the game, and your "team" is made up of only yourself in this case. It'd be far too easy for you to automatically lose by a random killing if you didn't have night immunity in this case. The town can rely on their numbers, the mafia can afford a loss, vampires can make more of themselves, and so on. Every role has some sort of failsafe, and in the case of these solo roles their failsafe is just flat out being unable to be normally killed.

However, this isn't just a flat buff in these evil roles. Again, it makes the game more interesting, because the party that tried to attack you will know you're night immune. And that's pretty much always a bad thing. If you're neutral killing, mafia and town both want your blood and will out you the next day or in a death note. If you're the godfather, everyone but mafia wants you gone. In these cases, it means you've been put at a disadvantage but still have several options to get out of this mess, rather than just an instant failsafe.

And it's not as simple as "lynch the immune" for the town roles, either. The survivor and bodyguard both have the ability to assume temporary night immunity, so they can't just go about lynching everyone like this.

This is really, really good multiplayer design. I often see a lot of games stumble in providing interesting options on all sides. Take a sniper rifle in any FPS. Typically your options boil down to "get out of sight or die" and the sniper's options are "keep at range or die". It's just not as interesting when each weapon or mechanic gives a very binary state: play this way or fail. Town of Salem keeps it open, even when something bad or good happens to you. Getting found out as night immune isn't an immediate failure, and finding a night immune isn't an instant success. As a result of this it's also not a straight, boring buff to a class to help it work. It's a dynamic mechanic that helps them do their jobs.

It also works as an unknown

Night immunity is always going to be present in a typical game of ranked. The godfather and a neutral killing role will always be in there, so the killing roles will always have this mechanic to work with. That uncertainty means that night immunity is something every role will want to know about for different reasons.

The mafia will usually want to know who's immune so as to not waste nights to kill, and seeing as they're the only factions guaranteed to have someone able to confirm of someone is immune, it's often in their best interests to reveal who's immune through indirect means. It's a question of risk vs reward, typically. Is it in the mafia's best interest to leave roles that can usually kill them alive to see if they'll get the town first. That question doesn't have a clear answer and must be answered per game, and that's great.

On the other hand, every role with permanent night immunity is an enemy of the town, and a massive red flag that this is likely a bad person. It becomes a goal of leveraging every piece of info you get and then putting it into action, as town usually takes control of the lynchings. If it's not coming from the mouth of an investigative role or vigilante, however, it's typically suspect. This turns the simple act of trying to find the evils into a mad scramble to see who can be trusted and what info is good and it's just great.

The point I'm getting at here is that Town of Salem weaves this one gameplay mechanic through the entire game very well. So many multiplayer games keep mechanics isolated and single use. You can only use the grappling hook for mobility. This shotgun only has one use: close range combat. The mechanic of night immunity is not a one and done mechanic only applying to certain scenarios. It's used across the entire game and has repercussions far more than it appears at first. Not every game needs to do something like this, but it's certainly a valuable tool to keep in mind.

The problems with Ace Attorney

Okay. Let's do this.

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I want to preface this by saying I'm still a fan of Ace Attorney, and am really glad it's doing well. It's got great characters, an enjoyable plot, and a fun logic system. I'm about to talk a lot of crap about the series, however, so just keep this in mind... I love Ace Attorney, and still highly recommend all the games.

That being said. Over the course of the last 2 years or so I've finally worked my way through what's generally considered "The Big 3" visual novels, at least in western countries. Ace Attorney, Zero Escape, and Danganronpa. They're all brilliant games, and I enjoyed my time with each. However, after careful consideration, I have to come to a conclusion. Ace Attorney is definitely the weakest link.

I say this because after playing Danganronpa and Zero Escape, I've noticed things they do that were really clever, and then I look back at Ace Attorney, and it just feels... devoid of said elements. Oftentimes it's just a lot of small things, but those small things really, really add up over time. There's no better way to show this than by side-by-siding these games, so let's get right into it!

Yes this is the 2^nd article in a row where I compare AA to Danganronpa #noshame

So let's start with the gameplay differences, the more direct comparison. I've already outlined how Ace Attorney and Danganronpa do things differently. Let's talk about what Danganronpa just flat does better.

Primarily what Danganronpa does better is in the logical puzzles and challenges it lays out for the player. Ace Attorney's logic makes sense and is very well paced if you're following the order of deduction. However, if you get one too many steps ahead you're not able to skip to that, and must slog through the deductions you already solved.

This kills pacing completely. When the entire pace depends on your deduction skills, breaking away from it has the unfortunate effect of breaking the pace itself. You get brought to a screeching halt and have to bring the other characters up to speed, when realistically, you could just tell them.

Danganronpa is a lot more careful in its execution of working through arguments. The gameplay is the same, but it frames it in a much better way. This isn't a courtroom, where a logical argument will shut everyone up. You need to punch through the emotions and biases of the other characters, piece by piece, to get to the truth of the matter. You'll take part in minigames where characters won't listen to reason until you throw it right in their face. You'll have to frame answers in a manner that everyone can get.

It's not a matter of finding something that feels off, it's the matter of convincing everyone else it is off. You can push trials forward in Ace Attorney through vague ideas of not feeling right, which will often result in the characters hemming and hawing when you know exactly what's up. The other characters in Danagnronpa are active blocks at all times, so even if you know the answer there's a good, solid reason that feels right as to why you can't just out and say it.

Surrounding all this is the tone of the games. Now, Ace Attorney's tone isn't bad per se. It's a well established fact that it's a larger than life and goofy version of court, one with shouting and dramatic reveals. My question is, well, why?

Look, I get the tone doesn't need to be established, and I understand that consistency is what makes a world tick, not why it's that way. But after playing the other 2 games, Ace Attorney feels rather... empty in its tone. There's just no reason for it, and the craziness is just a thing that kinda.. exists in this world.

The other 2 games justify their tones quite nicely, on the other hand. Danganronpa's trials are tense and very volatile, much like Ace Attorney, but this is justified because, y'know. Murder school. There's a good reason for everyone to be shouting, a good reason for crazy theories to fly left and right, and a very good reason for things to be tense every step of the way.

Zero Escape's tone isn't quite as directly comparable, but for what it is it's done well. The atmosphere is oppressive and claustrophobic. Suspicion runs deep. Everything has this sense of danger and mistrust, and the deadly games played are the only reason the game needs. All the fear and suspicion flows naturally from that. The game knows damn well that it doesn't need to say why everyone's acting this way, because the backdrop has set that from square one. That's where Ace Attorney fails. The backdrop is a law procedural, and it just... is wacky, I guess.

Alright, there's one more point I want to bring up. Bringing continuity between games. This is by no means an aspect that Ace Attorney has failed at. It's more that it just gives it no thought. What I mean when I say that is a character or object from a previous game being brought into the new one. This can be a cool story point, or a fun callback, but it can just as easily be a lazy last minute addition.

I'm going to bring forward that by a lack of looking closely at the why, in and out of universe, Ace Attorney sometimes falls into this trap. Let's take Edgeworth's introduction in the last case. Why is he here? He's never been mentioned or important in this game before. This situation doesn't call for Edgeworth specifically. So why is he here? Outside of the game universe, it's not like Edgeworth achieves anything thematically or similar. There's nothing he does that another prosecutor couldn't do. So why does this situation call for this character from its mythology?

Massive Virtue's Last Reward Spoilers in next paragraphConversely, let's take a look at why Junpei was brought back for the sequel to 999. He, as a character, has a very clear motive: Akane. It was such a big deal for him in the last game, and it's not a surprise it'd continue to be a motivation here. Outside forces gave him this opportunity here, so it's not like it's random chance either. The thing is that here is that there's a clear and pointed reason for bringing a previous character back in Zero Escape, whereas Ace Attorney lacks that clarity much of the time when it does things like this.

It's not as though this is the worst thing in the world, and I'm not trying to say any of this stuff ruins Ace Attorney, not even close. Like I said, it's still great. And it's not like Zero Escape or Danganronpa are immune from their flaws, either. Zero Escape trips up in bringing back Clover from 999, and Danganronpa's character blocking approach backfires sometimes (I.E everything Yasuhiro "contributes" to the discussion).

What I am trying to bring up here is that Ace Attorney could learn a lot from these games. It's still got a strong base, great characters, awesome music, and fun trials. I just wish that it was all a little tighter.