About
The game was created with the intent to teach players about the inner-workings of a court trial. Therefore, several of the game rules correspond to real life “court rules”. Prosecutor and Defendant In any court case, there are parties involved; however, the names that the parties are referred to differ across legal areas. For example, in family matters, the two parties are typically referred to as the Petitioner and the Respondent and in civil cases they are referred to as Plaintiff and Defendant. For the purposes of the game, I decided to default to how case parties are referred to in criminal court do to the fact that criminal cases are what people are most familiar with. Thus, the two parties of this game are called the Prosecutor and the Defendant. A player chooses their side at the beginning of the game and must remain on that side for the games entirety because just as in court, you would not be able to switch sides in the middle of trial. Trials and Appeals The entire game is meant to symbolize a case. In a case, there are a lot of moving parts and I wanted the game to illustrate that. It is typically uncertain of who will win a case and even if a case is won, there is potential for an appeal. At the start of the game, no one knows who is going to win: the prosecution or the defense. The individual aspect of the game is meant to symbolize how, while there can be multiple people working on a case, it may be one person who really leads the arguments or negotiations. The rounds are symbolic of the preparation and execution of trials. The taking of cards represents the trial prep and the matching to jury members represents the trial verdict. Since each round symbolizes trial prep and a trial, each one has a winner or “verdict” at the end. However, there are three rounds/“trials” because cases typically can go through appeals. An appeal occurs whenever a side is unhappy with a decision that was made. If a case makes it all the way to the highest court, it will typically have gone through two appeals, meaning that the trial at the highest court will be its third and final trial. The player with the highest score after all three rounds or “trials” is the ultimate winner because in a court case, once a decision has been made at the highest court, it is final. Exhibits and Witnesses Typically, throughout a court case, witnesses and exhibits are gathered and utilized in court proceedings. Exhibits are documents or other types of evidence that a party uses to support or prove their argument. Witnesses are individuals who can provide testimony pertaining to important details of the case. In this game, the action of taking witnesses and exhibits is symbolic of two things: i. The witnesses and exhibits that a player takes that are of their side’s color, symbolize the disclosure of witnesses and exhibits. This is because at this point, all players have seen these particular witnesses and exhibits before the “trial”. Just as in legal cases, each party is required to disclose their witnesses and exhibits in advance of trial for them to be admissible (required time in advance varies across legal areas). ii. The witnesses and exhibits that a player takes that are not of their side’s color are symbolic of the exclusion of witnesses and exhibits. Seeing as the cards are not of their color, they cannot use them for their argument because they do not help their case; however, they have just excluded them from evidence so that the opposing side cannot use them. Evidence can be excluded for a variety of different reasons. For example, it can be excluded if it perceived as irrelevant, it was not disclosed on time, it wasn’t delivered to the judge on time, or there were duplicate exhibits. The idea of only being allowed to use the card of your color is meant to represent how while you may have a lot of “evidence”/cards, sometimes only some of it is useful. Jury and Jury Research The jury deck is comprised of 12 cards because the maximum number of jury members is 12. The reason that only six cards are laid out is because six is the minimum number of jury members needed for trial. The jury research card is meant to illustrate how parties of a case are permitted to research jury members so long as no attempt at communication is made. However, often times it is unknown who jury members will be until the start a trial. But, in some circumstances each side can get a list of potential jury members in advance, which is where jury research would come into play. Judge Review and Change of Judge The judge card does not have to be played right away, just as in real life, judges are entitled to judge review. This means that the judge does not have to make a decision the day of trial. The judge notice rule is symbolic of real-life judge notices. When a case is assigned to a judge, and a party does not want their case heard before that particular judge, they can file a Notice of Change of Judge. This notice indicates that the party is exercising his/her right to a change of judge. However, you can only notice at the start of a hand because in real-life you can only notice a judge before any decisions have been made on the case. Moreover, each player is only permitted to one judge notice per round because the actual rule states that each party is only permitted to exercise the right one time in any given case. Courtroom Volley Often times in cards, when a person takes a hand they get to lead, but in this game the player to the left of the taker leads. This is because in a courtroom, it is a back and forth debate rather than one person having multiple turns in a row. Fun Facts Each playing card also has a fun fact about either famous cases or the court system in general. The facts gathered for the cards, are based off of research pertaining to what subjects of the law people are least familiar with and would find most interesting. The fun facts are meant to add an additional learning aspect in the game, but they are only for the players amusement and do not affect the game play. Should a player find a particular fun fact interesting, they can find the card on the game website and click on it to be redirected to a site that provides in depth information on the fact. |