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Block what the right forbids. Let through what it allows. Getting the second one wrong costs you just as much.
- Skill this builds
- Distinguish a government action the Constitution bars from one it permits, under time pressure, and identify the decided case that settles it.
- About
- About 9 minutes · Standards: C3, NCSS · Plays offline
Government actions fall from the top of the screen. Move your shield under an action to stop it, or move out of the way to let it pass. Stop the ones the right forbids. Let the ones it permits go through. Two meters are watching you: the right itself, and the rule of law. Damaging either one is losing.
This is civic education, not legal advice, and nothing here tells you what to do in a real encounter — Outpost cannot give legal advice and does not. Every action in this game is drawn from a real, decided Supreme Court case, and every one names it. Real cases turn on facts this game does not give you, doctrine changes, and lower courts disagree. If you have an actual legal problem, talk to an actual lawyer.
Playing as
Your Beacon
Keyboard: ← → or A / D to move along the line. Touch or mouse: drag anywhere on the board. Stopping a lawful act costs you exactly as much as letting an unlawful one through.
Why there are two meters
- The rightFalls when you let through something the Constitution forbids.A right nobody enforces is a sentence in a document.
- The rule of lawFalls when you block something the Constitution permits.A government that cannot act lawfully is not a free country either — it is a broken one. The Constitution authorises power as well as limiting it.
What can differ between runs
Two of these are drawn each round, and the HUD names them. They bend the arena — never a verdict: every case decides the same way every run, because the Court already decided it.
- A crowded docketActions arrive closer together this run. Less time to read each one before it reaches the line.
- A quiet termActions arrive farther apart this run. More time to read — the judgment is no easier.
- Events moving fastEvery action falls faster this run.
- Short-handedFewer hands on the shield: it covers less ground this run, so where you stand matters more.
- Practiced handsThe shield answers faster this run. Speed is not judgment — the reading is still on you.
- A late surgeThe pace climbs more steeply as the round goes on.
The point
The hard part was never the villain. Almost anybody can spot the search that obviously should not happen. What this game asks is the other half — whether you can recognise the warrant that is valid, the frisk that is justified, the permit requirement that is content-neutral, and let it work. A right that stopped everything would not be a right; it would be a wall, and we would not be able to live behind it. The Fourth Amendment does not forbid searching. It forbids UNREASONABLE searching, and the entire argument of American constitutional law is about where that line sits. You just spent nine minutes on the line.