Courtroom Mysteries - An Investigate and Debate Card Game

Courtroom Mysteries is a competitive detective game made for 1-3 players to take on the role of investigating lawyers, with optional rules for extra players to be Jurors or Witnesses. Players draft clues by matching suits (♠♦♥) to the clue they want to pursue through rounds of simultaneous bidding. Reach different conclusions in a competitive 'Choose-Your-Own-Adventure' mystery as you follow divergent leads. 

You then choose a role: Prosecutor (if you know who did it), Defence (if the Prosecutor is wrong!) and Judge (If you're still not sure). With your role in hand, you go to court! The Prosecutor and the Defence reveal evidence and make arguments in order to persuade the Judge that they are right! Meanwhile, the Judge must try to figure out who has truly solved the case so they can deliver the correct verdict. With special rules for making plea deals and shouting 'Objection!' each trial is filled with drama!

The game takes place in the fictional Himitsu Republic, an island nation located between Japan and Hawai’i. The nation has a mixed Japanese/American population, and has had a difficult history. A consequence of this history is that members of the legal profession investigate all murder mysteries, and paranoid judges do everything they can to prevent a plea deal. 

The game is divided into an 'Investigation' and a 'Courtroom' phase. The investigation phase is designed like a competitive 'Choose-Your-Own-Adventure' story. Cards come from a case deck face-down three at a time, and will have a symbol and an action, like '♥ Search the Body'. 

Players draft clues by placing a prior piece of evidence with a matching suit into their case file, obscuring the evidence and only showing their rank and suit. Your 'bids' are revealed at the same time, before evidence is distributed based on who revealed the highest bid for a card, and losers choosing the remainder. Players then flip their card around to view the information on the other side. 

The different clues will cause you and your friends to arrive at contradictory conclusions. Based on what you've learned, you then draft a legal role: Prosecutor (if you think you know who's guilty), Defence (if you think the Prosecutor is wrong) and Judge (If you're still not sure). 

The Prosecutor will make an arrest, revealing their defendant. Once you have taken some time to prepare, you then go to court! You reveal your conflicting evidence in a courtroom battle where you convince your friends that you are right! The Prosecutor and Defence must try to persuade the court that they are right. In contrast, the Judge must solve the case while keeping the court divided, preventing any plea deals and thwarting a Jury consensus.

For those who are more shy you have the option of playing as a Juror, sitting back and voting at the end. For those that like to roleplay, you can instead play as a Witness, reading what your character knows before bluffing in a cross examination.

This game is great for fans of Law and Order, Ace Attorney and Detective: City of Angels. The base game will come with 5 cases. Each case comes with pre-written solutions and optional rules that add replayability. Future cases will be added in expansions if this Kickstarter campaign goes well. See you in court!

What's in the box?

The base game comes with:

• 5 Pre-packaged Case Decks
• A Judge’s Gavel and Sound Block
• 3 Case Books
• 3 Witness Books
• 10 “Innocent” Cards
• 10 “Guilty” Cards
• 3 Case Files

Deluxe Edition

The Deluxe Edition will come with everything in the base game plus at least the following:
1 X Hourglass
1 X Defendant Standee
1 X Premium Gavel and Soundboard

We may add more to the Deluxe Edition as the campaign progresses and we get enough funding! Why trust we will make an awesome Deluxe Edition? Well lets have a look at what our backers say about our previous deluxe editions!

How To Play Video

Delivery ETA

All the cases for the game are designed and ready to go! We just need to finish off the art and clean up the graphic design for the rulebook and other pages. We expect this to be finished in a month or two, and to give extra time in case of delays we estimate your copies to arrive just before the end of the year, around December 2026.

Rulebook

Our current rulebook is still a draft and needs to be prettied up a bit before release! But if you'd like to read it you can do so here!