A courtroom where the testimony is written live
You defend the accused by questioning witnesses in your own words. The crime and the evidence are fixed in code. What the witness says, what she admits, how the prosecution answers and what the judge rules are written live, and a second model checks every turn before it enters the record.
No right answer to find
Courtroom games are puzzles: the testimony is written in advance, and you win by pressing the right line and presenting the right exhibit at the right moment. Say anything else and you lose a life. We wanted the opposite. Ask whatever you think will help your client, the way a lawyer would, and have the court answer what you actually said.
The prototype is one case, The Gatewater Blackout: a defendant, a witness who saw a silhouette, a prosecutor and a judge. You start with a private interview with your client, then go to court. There's no required phrase, no pressure meter and no timer. A weak question doesn't cost you anything except a weaker case.
What's fixed, and what isn't
- Fixed
- The facts of the crime, the exhibits, and what each character actually knows. Game code checks that every turn only refers to evidence and facts that exist.
- Written live
- Every line of dialogue, what a witness chooses to disclose, the prosecution's arguments, the judge's rulings and the verdict.
- Checked
- A separate model reviews each proposed turn for continuity before it's committed: an admission can't be forgotten two turns later, and a private conversation can't leak into court unless you bring it up there. A rejected turn is retried without losing your place.
- Remembered
- The court keeps a ledger of the points before it, each open, disputed, conceded or resolved, with references to the record, so a concession still counts when the next person speaks.
The end of a trial
This is the end of a 113-turn test trial. The defense presses the judge to separate a missing alibi from actual proof, and the judge does. Speakers are shown by role, and character names are replaced in brackets.
- DefenseYour Honor, can we agree [the witness] cannot identify [my client]? What evidence actually places him there at 9:50? Please rule on the identification and distinguish missing alibi information from positive proof.
- JudgeThe court agrees with the defense. The record clearly establishes that [the witness] cannot visually identify the silhouette she saw as the defendant.
- JudgeA lack of an alibi does not substitute for affirmative proof. The prosecution's remaining link is the undated railing print alongside the 8:30 PM delivery.
- DefenseYields the floor.
- ProsecutorIf the defense refuses to speak, the State will summarize plainly: an undated print puts him at the scene, and he offers nothing but silence and excuses.
- JudgeThe State has failed to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and I hereby find the accused, [name], not guilty.
Turn numbers from the trial record. Written by Gemini 3.8 Flash; the defense lines were typed by the player.
| 113 | turns in the longest test trial, from first question to verdict |
|---|---|
| 7–10 s | per court turn, writing and continuity check included |
| 56 | automated tests, plus a recorded trial replayed through the live model |
What's next
The prototype runs inside a fan-made engine for the genre, with borrowed characters. Next is an original case and cast, more than one witness, places to investigate before the trial, and getting a turn well under the current seven seconds, with the same write-ahead tricks we used to give Façade's characters a live voice.