The United States court system is inherently fascinating, although mightily complex to most onlookers. As such, it makes sense that there are not many games beyond the Phoenix Wright series out there seeking to simulate this facet of society. Enter law student Scott Goldsmith. He’s the name behind Judged, an upcoming court simulation title. It seeks to take players from the beginnings of a judge in traffic court all the way to a (hopefully) eventual State Supreme Court position. This is all played out via point and click/puzzle mechanics.
Interestingly, the developer has taken the stance of randomly generated cases as opposed to specifically tailoring a few. In this way he doesn’t have to worry about the game being too short. However, it could also be quite hard to implement randomization in a way that makes sense – particularly in a logic-focused game. According to this update, Goldsmith is definitely working out the best way to handle randomization (via swapping evidence), but we’ll have to see it in action before determining how well it works out.
Right now the art style of Judged is fairly simplistic pixel art. Although great modern games have been released with a similar aesthetic, a main goal of funding is to get an artist who can spruce up the visuals. As long as the sprites don’t suddenly turn into something wholly unfitting to the court theme it should be just fine! Another big chunk of the $2,000 funding goal is toward mobile ports. Right now the game is promised for Windows, Mac, and Linux on the PC front and Anroid, iOS, and Windows Phone for mobile. Here’s hoping this unique simulator will spur more creative (and non-parody) ones!
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