Trial by Vibe

Inspiration

We wanted to make a game that is quick to understand, funny to play, and easy to demo in one round. Courtroom games are naturally dramatic: there is a case, evidence, a witness, an argument, and a verdict. We took that structure and turned it into a game about defending ridiculous video game characters.

What it does

Patch Notes Court is a short courtroom game where players defend game characters accused of absurd crimes. Each round gives you a case, a defendant, evidence cards, a witness question, and a final closing argument.

At the end, the judge reviews your choices and gives a verdict with scores for logic, humor, evidence, and drama.

How we built it

We built the game in Rork as a mobile-first playable demo. The game flow is split into simple screens: case reveal, evidence selection, witness questioning, closing argument, and verdict.

We used OpenRouter for the judge verdict. The game sends the case details, selected evidence, question style, and player’s closing argument to the model, then gets back structured JSON for the scores, verdict, judge speech, and quote. We also added fallback verdicts so the game still works if the API fails.

Challenges we ran into

The main challenge was keeping the game small enough to finish while still making it feel complete. We had to avoid building too many cases, characters, or mechanics and focus on one strong playable loop.

Another challenge was making the judge response reliable. We needed the verdict to come back in a format the game could use, so we designed the prompt to return clean JSON and added fallback results for safety.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that the game has a full beginning, middle, and end. It is not just a concept: the player can start a case, make choices, argue their defense, and receive a final score.

We are also proud of the tone. The game is simple, weird, and replayable without needing a huge world or complicated controls.

What we learned

We learned that a good hackathon game does not need to be huge. It needs a clear loop, a strong moment, and a demo that people understand immediately.

We also learned how useful it is to keep the model’s role focused. Instead of using it everywhere, we used it for the one moment where it matters most: the verdict.

What's next for Trial by Vibe

Next, we would add more cases, character portraits, unlockable defendants, and a daily challenge mode. We would also add shareable verdict cards so players can post their funniest trial results.

Longer term, we want players to create their own cases and challenge friends to defend them.

Built With

• rork