Heap Court

“If one grain never makes the difference, how does anything ever become a heap?”

You are the newly appointed Commissioner of Borderline Cases at the Bureau of Vagueness, and the docket is exactly what it sounds like: is this many grains a heap? Is this man bald? Is that a long time to spend at an arcade? Rule however you like — but every ruling is binding precedent, opposing counsel is the number line itself, and the court's procedural engine will quietly narrow in on your exact thresholds and then ask you, on the record, what one single grain did.

This is the sorites paradox, a 2,400-year-old argument that has never been satisfactorily resolved, wearing a courtroom. Before the docket opens you'll declare a judicial philosophy — Epistemicist, Supervaluationist, or Degree Theorist, the three great real schools of vagueness — and it will determine which of your escapes are dignified and which are scandals.

Fair warning from the Bureau: this court shares a filing cabinet with the rest of the arcade. It has read your file, it may cite your other games against you, and for its final matter it reserves the right to subpoena how long you've been here.

Controls

Your progress

A session in progress is saved automatically on this device; a concluded session clears its docket. Your precedents, philosophy, and thresholds are entered into your local player record — the on-device one the whole arcade shares, which never leaves your browser. Before you start, you'll choose private or connected: connected adds only the philosophy you pick to an anonymous public tally, so the court can show you how everyone has ruled; private keeps even that on your device. You can switch anytime, and the game plays the same either way.

Accessibility

No sound, no timers — the court waits indefinitely for every ruling. Pure text and buttons; the transcript is a live region. With reduced motion preferred, stamps appear without animation.