The Adventures of Dick Gumshoe

"I'm on the case, pal!"

Ah, Detective Dick Gumshoe. It's been so long since you've been in an Ace Attorney game. Why not come to Arkham? Plenty of homicides to investigate, for a start...

(The rest of this writeup will assume familiarity with the Ace Attorney series. If that isn't the case, but you're a fan of Visual Novels, court cases and murder mysteries, the original trilogy - which includes plenty of the good detective - should be available on most consoles.)

OK, so you wanted to bring Gumshoe into Arkham. Why Roland Banks?

The good Detective could reasonably be represented by either Roland Banks or Joe Diamond. Both represent the same kind of persona. But let's be honest - Gumshoe is far more a Guardian than a Seeker. He has a heart of gold and will protect the innocent, but he's, well... not all that bright.

Rude... but fair. Ok, why Parallel Roland Banks?

Halfway through building the deck, I realised I was mainly building into Guardian, only using the Seeker offclass for events. And Parallel Roland gets 5xp... perfect to buy a shiny Police Badge, which Gumshoe is rather proud of. (And The Fool, which he represents :P) Meanwhile, the Directives on the front of the card seem more thematically appropriate than gaining a clue for mishandling miscreants. I mean, that makes sense too in terms of patting them down, but... it seems a bit violent, you know?
(Yes, Evidence! does the same thing. Shh. I just cant get over the idea of Gumshoe punching someone to knock them out, patting them down, and yelling 'Evidence!' in a gleeful voice.)

Decent reasoning. Well, tell me about the deck.

A large part of this deck actually wrote itself. Cryptic Writings and Preposterous Sketches are exactly the kind of evidence that gets presented in court in the AA universe; Anatomical Diagrams is almost the same as an Autopsy Report (...right?); Evidence!, Scene of the Crime, Crack The Case, Police Badge, Handcuffs and Interrogate are all perfectly thematic (and Handcuffs and Interrogate nicely play into the Due Diligence directive); Trench Coat is his classic look... The (lovable) Fool perfectly suits his personality, and as an added bonus helps save resources once it's in play.

Daring, Guts and Take The Initiative may seem a bit 'trying to make this deck at least a bit useable', but I'd argue they match Dick's personality.

Guard Dog isn't perfect for its effect, but does nicely represent Missile the good K-9 hound. (I'm torn whether to replace Missile with Officer Meekins as a Beat Cop - but I guess Meekins can be Tommy ;-) ) And I can't remember if it ever came up, but it seems reasonable Gumshoe would carry a flashlight or two around with him.

I wasn't sure what Basic Weakness to include - maybe Amnesia? - until I saw Indebted. And oh hell does that fit. Dick Gumshoe, the detective who sees the most salary cuts on the force and often has to live on Instant Noodles... Indebted was just perfect.

I would've loved to add Heroic Rescue and maybe Stand Together, but this is also intended to be a True Solo deck to take out for a spin in a campaign... even if it does run a little light on resources. As a result those cards are only in the 'side deck' (along with some possible upgrades).

One second. Where are the weapons?

Let me counter. When was the last time you saw Detective Dick Gumshoe use a weapon on someone?
My memory isn't the best, so he might've used his gun once or twice to act the Big Damned Hero - but he's not the type to shoot first, ask questions later.
This deck intends to try to arrest or avoid problems, maybe punch them down, not kill them... unless he's forced to pull out his .38 Special.

For what it's worth, the upgrade path I imagine sees Gumshoe get a bit better at punching - but not too much.

... ok. Well, how does the deck actually perform?

Ahem... I don't know yet. A number of test draws suggest its poor resource generation will mean cards will need to be played carefully, and quite possibly pitched for their icons as often as played. However, with Due Diligence 'Gumshoe' effectively evades starting at a 4 (or fights at a 6) once per round, and Red Tape can save at least a few actions (for more punching or running away) per game. I just haven't had the spare time to dedicate to actually playing this deck to find all its faults... not that I can think of much more to amend the deck with at level 0.

But then again, even if I can't fix them, Detective Dick Gumshoe does have his faults, and everyone loves him anyway 0:-)


Did I miss any obvious picks? Would you have taken Joe Diamond instead? Or has this deck maybe inspired you to build other Ace Attorney characters like Maya Fey, Ema Skye, Franziska Von Karma, or even Nick, Edgeworth or the Judge? Let me know :D

(PS - to get in the mood when playing Arkham, why not listen to Gumshoe's theme on loop? :D )