Lab · Do You Know Ball? · Game · web demo, iOS pending
Somebody who lives in your phone, disagrees with you about everything, and keeps score.
Drop a take. BanterBot counters. Your argument gets a transparent score from rules, not from a model's mood. In August 2026 the sports game and its general-argument sibling, Last Word, were merged into one product. The web demo still wears the older name.
How it plays
Three ways in, one honest score.
Read the floor: a seven-possession coverage read. Hot seat: a three-life pressure run against BanterBot. Build the case: a sourced evidence draft and a cross-examination. Deterministic rules own every point; a model may improve BanterBot's voice but never controls points, lives, evidence, or progression. No betting, no picks, not a sportsbook.
Why it's in the lab
Made the engine deterministic instead of generative.
“A scoring system you can't audit isn't a score, it's a vibe. If a player can't reconstruct why they lost, they stop caring about winning.”
Status
Uploaded, accepted by Apple. Verified 2026-09-10.
Public web demo. Apple's July 2026 upload responses prove iOS builds 26 and 27 were accepted; current processing, tester assignment and distribution are unverified.
- Current App Store Connect processing and tester assignment are unverified; no current receipt or beta-group record was available in the August 13 evidence refresh.
- A current public iOS release has not been verified here.
- No current external-tester or install record was available; do not infer either zero testers or successful distribution.
- The engine numbers I'd want to quote here — cohort win rates, tournament results — I can't currently point at an artifact for, so I'm not quoting them.
- The public web demo responds; native distribution remains unverifiedhttps://you-know-ball-orpin.vercel.app — HTTP 200, checked 2026-09-10. The Apple acceptance records below are explicitly July 2026 history, not current distribution receipts.
- Builds 26 and 27 were accepted by App Store ConnectApple's own 409 responses: the 2026-07-16 upload log reports previousBundleVersion 26, and the 2026-07-19 log reports 27 — Apple naming builds it had already accepted
- The public web demo is still liveHTTP 200 from https://you-know-ball-orpin.vercel.app, checked 2026-08-13
- Current Apple-side distribution state is unverifiedNo authenticated App Store Connect query, current processing receipt, beta-group record or tester record was available during the 2026-08-13 evidence refresh; do not infer zero testers
- Build 27 runs on my own phone with its save intactdevicectl reports 0.1.0 (27) installed; the pre-install container backup and post-install diff were byte-identical (2026-07-17 session record)
Next. Pick the public name, then decide whether the accepted iOS builds go to testers under it.