Local Government, Unexpectedly
A Playful Way Into the Town Code
The Bedford Town Code is 762 pages long. It covers everything from how bright a cabaret must be to how many swine require a Planning Board permit. It is, for the most part, not a lot of fun to read.
Code Red is a short trivia game built from that document. Each question gives you three options: two are invented, one is pulled directly from the Bedford Town Code. The challenge is figuring out whether the real rule is stranger than the fake ones.
You do not need to know anything about municipal law to play. That is more or less the point. The Bedford Town Code has been public for years, and most residents have never opened it. This is a small way to change that — one surprising sentence at a time.
Code Red: The Quiz
Can You Spot the Real Rule?
Each question gives you three options. One is real, pulled directly from the Bedford Town Code. Two are invented. Five questions. Answer each one to reveal the real rule and move to the next.
Five questions. One real rule each time.
Built from Bedford's 762-page Town Code.
Your Code Red result
— / 5 Questions correctYour score is not added to the public leaderboard unless you submit your initials and hamlet.
Just your initials and hamlet. No name, no email, no pressure.
You're on the board
— / 5Community Scores
Code Red Leaderboard
Ranked by score. How does Bedford know its own laws?
| # | Initials | Hamlet | Score | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loading leaderboard… | ||||
HOW THIS WAS BUILT
This Campaign Shows Its Work
This campaign is committed to showing its work, not just stating positions. When a tool or workflow helps clarify a local issue, it should be explained, shared, and made useful beyond the campaign. The instruction set used to make a long public document more likely to actually be read is published here in full.
1. Source Integrity Use the actual Bedford Town Code as the sole source of every "real" answer. The code is a 762-page public document that is legally available to anyone, but almost never read by ordinary residents. Ask AI to analyze the full document and identify provisions that are real, surprising, obscure, oddly specific, or genuinely hard to believe. Prioritize rules that would make a resident say, "Wait, that's actually in there?" Every "real" answer must be pulled directly from the code itself. Do not paraphrase in a way that changes legal meaning. For each real answer: - preserve the actual code language - include the code section or citation where possible - provide a short plain-English explanation that helps a normal resident understand what the rule means in practice The goal is not just trivia. The goal is to make a long public legal document legible and interesting. 2. AI Research Task The core AI job is not to invent jokes. It is to act like a curious civic researcher reading a very long municipal document that almost nobody has time to read. Prompt the AI to: - review the full Bedford Town Code - scan for unusual, unexpected, highly specific, or unintentionally delightful provisions - surface rules that feel surprising without being misleading - distinguish between rules that are merely technical and rules that are genuinely interesting to residents - extract the strongest candidates for a public-facing civic trivia experience The best material should be: - true - surprising - understandable - shareable - rooted in the actual document The AI should help residents discover what is already public, not create a fake version of local government. 3. Tone The tone should be curious, civic-minded, lightly amused, and respectful. These rules are real. The point is not to mock local government, the Town Code, or the people who wrote it. The point is to say: "This is public. This affects your town. And it's a lot stranger than most people realize." A raised eyebrow is welcome. Contempt is not. This should feel: - approachable - intelligent - honest - neighborly - lightly self-aware Never cynical. Never snarky for its own sake. 4. Question Design Each question should present: - 1 real provision pulled directly from the Bedford Town Code - 2 invented options written specifically for the game The invented options should be: - plausible enough to create uncertainty - similar in tone and specificity to real municipal code language - not so absurd that they are obviously fake - not so generic that they are easy to eliminate The real answer should be: - surprising enough to earn a reaction - legally accurate - interesting enough to justify inclusion Avoid: - giveaway wording - obvious joke answers - options that can be solved through tone mismatch alone This should feel like: "Which of these strange things is actually in the code?" —not— "Which of these is the joke?" 5. Game Mechanics Keep the experience simple and disciplined: - one question at a time - player selects one answer - player clicks Submit - immediate right/wrong feedback - reveal which option was real - reveal the actual Town Code language - reveal a short plain-English explanation of what it means - track score across the game - show final score at the end - allow leaderboard submission using initials only and hamlet only - no email - no name - no pressure The reveal matters. The educational value is not just in guessing correctly. It is in seeing the actual code after each question. 6. AI Transparency Be explicit that AI was used. The page should clearly explain that: - AI was asked to analyze a 762-page public Town Code PDF - AI helped identify the most surprising and resident-relevant provisions - a human reviewed the outputs before publication - the final game is built from real public material, not invented "gotcha" content This is not something to hide. It is part of the point. The game should show that AI can help residents: - navigate long public documents - find what matters - make local government more approachable - turn inaccessible civic material into something people will actually engage with Show the instruction set publicly. Make the process visible. 7. Design System Discipline Match the visual language of the UNCAMPAIGN site. Use: - the same palette - the same typography - the same spacing system - the same card treatment - the same restrained editorial tone - the same calm, civic feel This should look like civic infrastructure with personality. Not: - a game show - a novelty microsite - a meme page The design should make the unusual content feel credible. 8. Leaderboard Mirror the leaderboard architecture of the Bedford Typing Challenge. Use: - the same Google Apps Script endpoint - different action names specific to Code Red - the same fallback behavior if the endpoint is unavailable Requirements: - leaderboard submissions use initials + hamlet only - no personal information - seed the board with plausible community scores so it does not launch empty - preserve graceful degradation if the endpoint fails The leaderboard should feel like light civic competition, not surveillance.