Hello and welcome to Phoenix Wright: Ace Economist.
Briefly, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a series of games where you play as Phoenix Wright, an attorney, who defends his client and solves crimes. Using a free online application that lets you make your own trials, I’ve turned Phoenix Wright into an economist and unleashed him upon the world.
I’m posting it here just in case it interest anyone. The LessWrong crowd is smart and well-educated, and so I’d appreciate any feedback I can get from you fine folk.
Although I’m using Ace Attorney: Online as a medium of expression here, this is not a normal Phoenix Wright game. This trial is actually intended to explain in a more fun and friendly format the ideas contained in an academic paper I wrote about economics (a paper which has been read by the professional economist and top econ blogger Tyler Cowen, among other people). So while there’s testimonies and cross-examinations, you’re not really solving a crime here so much as reading a Socratic dialogue of sorts about economics. It’s been playtested for bugs, but let me know if you catch anything I missed.
Let it load. The first few frames are supposed to be just black with dialogue, but if they’re still that way after the green text with the date and time, just wait till it loads. Parts of the game might look weird because the background will be partially loaded.
Gameplay is simple. You click on the arrow to make the dialogue progress. Don’t press too fast or every now and then you’ll miss a piece of dialogue. A few times you’ll be asked questions. Pick the right answer. Sometimes you’ll have to pick the right evidence to present. Pick the correct evidence and click present.
During cross examinations (when the big arrow splits into a two smaller forward and backwards arrows), you can move backwards and forwards between the pieces of the testimony. Press “press” to ask a question. This is always a good idea. Occasionally you’ll need to present the right evidence at the right part of the testimony to advance, but be careful: present the wrong evidence at the wrong part of the testimony and you’ll incur a penalty. Too many penalties and you lose.
It’s still missing music (in my defense, my aged computer is not able to play sound right now, so I couldn’t select any music), but I hope that doesn’t prevent you from playing the game and learning something from the dialogue.
I don’t expect this to interest all of you, but if you find economics interesting give it a go. The worst that happens is that you waste half an hour of your life playing a game on the internet—like you’ve never done that before, amirite?
I would appreciate both any comments you have about improving the trial, gameplay, and writing, and what you think about the subject of the Socratic dialogue, both your own thoughts and your comments on the arguments presented in the trial. etc. I particularly need help steelmanning the prosecution.
This is part one of three. The other two parts are in progress. They are similar to the first part but advance and draw out the implications of the argument presented in part one.
Hello and welcome to Phoenix Wright: Ace Economist.
Briefly, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a series of games where you play as Phoenix Wright, an attorney, who defends his client and solves crimes. Using a free online application that lets you make your own trials, I’ve turned Phoenix Wright into an economist and unleashed him upon the world.
I’m posting it here just in case it interest anyone. The LessWrong crowd is smart and well-educated, and so I’d appreciate any feedback I can get from you fine folk.
Play it here (works best in Firefox):
http://aceattorney.sparklin.org/jeu.php?id_proces=49235
Although I’m using Ace Attorney: Online as a medium of expression here, this is not a normal Phoenix Wright game. This trial is actually intended to explain in a more fun and friendly format the ideas contained in an academic paper I wrote about economics (a paper which has been read by the professional economist and top econ blogger Tyler Cowen, among other people). So while there’s testimonies and cross-examinations, you’re not really solving a crime here so much as reading a Socratic dialogue of sorts about economics. It’s been playtested for bugs, but let me know if you catch anything I missed.
Let it load. The first few frames are supposed to be just black with dialogue, but if they’re still that way after the green text with the date and time, just wait till it loads. Parts of the game might look weird because the background will be partially loaded.
Gameplay is simple. You click on the arrow to make the dialogue progress. Don’t press too fast or every now and then you’ll miss a piece of dialogue. A few times you’ll be asked questions. Pick the right answer. Sometimes you’ll have to pick the right evidence to present. Pick the correct evidence and click present.
During cross examinations (when the big arrow splits into a two smaller forward and backwards arrows), you can move backwards and forwards between the pieces of the testimony. Press “press” to ask a question. This is always a good idea. Occasionally you’ll need to present the right evidence at the right part of the testimony to advance, but be careful: present the wrong evidence at the wrong part of the testimony and you’ll incur a penalty. Too many penalties and you lose.
It’s still missing music (in my defense, my aged computer is not able to play sound right now, so I couldn’t select any music), but I hope that doesn’t prevent you from playing the game and learning something from the dialogue.
I don’t expect this to interest all of you, but if you find economics interesting give it a go. The worst that happens is that you waste half an hour of your life playing a game on the internet—like you’ve never done that before, amirite?
I would appreciate both any comments you have about improving the trial, gameplay, and writing, and what you think about the subject of the Socratic dialogue, both your own thoughts and your comments on the arguments presented in the trial. etc. I particularly need help steelmanning the prosecution.
This is part one of three. The other two parts are in progress. They are similar to the first part but advance and draw out the implications of the argument presented in part one.
Enjoy.
Cool. I haven’t played the Ace Attorney games in a while, but I’ll check this out.