Building a Custom Judges Pack: A Guide for Beginners

Introduction: Why Build Your Own Judges Pack?

The Choicer Voicer, the vocal-impression party game by developer YeahMaybe, is built almost entirely around player-made content. The base game ships with very little built-in material, so anyone who wants a full game show experience needs to create or download custom content packs. One of the most fun and visually rewarding packs to build is the Judges Pack — the panel of five characters who sit behind their podiums, react to your performances, and vote whether your impression earns a point. This guide walks total beginners through everything needed to build a working Judges Pack from scratch, using only free tools and a folder of images and sound clips.

What a Judges Pack Actually Controls

A Judges Pack governs the five-judge panel that appears in the standard single/local-multiplayer game show mode and in the Twitch panelist voting mode. Each judge is an independent slot with its own portrait, its own optional “approval” voice line, and a shared set of scoring sound effects that play across the whole panel. Judges Packs live in the packs_judges folder, which the game lets you open directly from its Customize menu, so you never have to hunt through hidden system directories to install one.

Before You Start: What You’ll Need

• Five character images — one per judge — ideally with transparent backgrounds (PNG).
• A simple image editor (GIMP, Photoshop, Krita, or even Paint.NET all work fine).
• Short audio clips for scoring sounds and, optionally, per-judge voice lines.
• A free audio editor such as Audacity for trimming and normalizing sound.
• Patience — a good pack is mostly about consistent naming and consistent sizing, not artistic skill.

Step 1: Plan Your Panel’s Theme

Before opening any software, decide on a concept. Successful community packs tend to share a strong, recognizable theme rather than five unrelated characters — think a panel of cartoon animals, a set of exaggerated celebrity caricatures (original art, not copyrighted likenesses, to stay safe legally), five silly emoji-style faces, or a group of your own friends drawn as characters for a private pack. A unified theme makes the pack feel like an actual game show and makes it easier to design consistent success graphics and voice lines later.

Step 2: Create the Judge Character Images

Each judge requires its own image file, and the naming convention is strict and non-negotiable: the files must be called judge1 through judge5. Getting these names wrong is the single most common reason a homemade pack “doesn’t show up” in-game.

• PNG is the recommended format because it supports transparency; JPG will show a solid background box behind your character.
• The game does not automatically scale your artwork. If your image is small, your judge will appear small on the podium; if it’s huge, the judge may tower over the studio. A useful starting size is roughly 500 pixels wide by 1000 pixels tall.
• The bottom edge of the image is treated as the “feet” — it’s pinned to the studio floor. If your character looks like it’s floating above the podium, add transparent empty space beneath its feet to push it down visually.
• Keep consistent proportions across all five judges so the panel doesn’t look mismatched — a common beginner mistake is drawing one judge much bigger or smaller than the rest.

Step 3: Design the Podium “Success” Graphics

When a judge votes in favor of a performance, their podium lights up with an image. By default, one shared image named success is used for every judge who approves a performance. This image uses a 2:1 aspect ratio, with 512 by 256 pixels being the standard default size.

For more personality, you can give individual judges their own unique approval graphic instead of the shared default. This is done by naming a file judgeX_success, replacing X with that judge’s number (for example, judge4_success for the fourth judge from the left). You don’t have to do this for every judge — any judge without a personal success image will simply fall back to the shared default file.

Step 4: Prepare Your Audio Files

Sound is what turns a static panel of pictures into a lively game show, and Judges Packs use two distinct categories of audio.

Score Blips

Score blips are short celebratory stingers that play whenever a judge votes in your favor. Importantly, these sounds are not tied to a specific judge’s identity — they play in a fixed sequence based on vote order. The first vote of the round always triggers scoreblip1, the second vote always triggers scoreblip2, and so on through scoreblip5, regardless of which of the five judges actually cast that vote.

Judge Voice Lines

Unlike score blips, judge voices are tied to the individual character. Each judge can have its own approval line that plays specifically when that judge votes yes. These files must follow the pattern judgeX_voice, so the audio clip for the second judge from the left would be named judge2_voice. This is where you can really inject character — a gruff judge might grunt approvingly, a chipper judge might squeal with delight, and so on.

File Naming Reference Table

Keep this table nearby while assembling your folder — nearly every reported “pack won’t load” problem traces back to a misspelled or mismatched filename.

Step 5: Install and Test the Pack

1. Open the Customize menu in the game and locate the shortcut to the packs_judges folder.
2. Create a new subfolder for your pack and give it a clear, descriptive name.
3. Drop all your correctly named image and audio files into that folder.
4. Return to the Customize menu, select your new Judges Pack, and run a quick round to confirm every judge appears at the right size and position.
5. Trigger a few votes and listen carefully — check that score blips play in the correct order and that each judge’s personal voice line fires only for that judge.

Common Beginner Mistakes

• Inconsistent image sizes. Since artwork isn’t auto-scaled, mismatched canvas sizes between judges create an awkward, uneven panel.
• Forgetting transparent padding. Characters that appear to “float” or “sink” into the podium usually just need extra transparent space added below their feet.
• Misnaming files. The naming scheme is case- and pattern-sensitive; a stray typo like judge_1 instead of judge1 will simply cause the game to ignore the file.
• Using JPG for characters with irregular silhouettes. JPG’s lack of transparency support means non-rectangular characters will show an ugly background box.
• Overly loud or unbalanced audio. Normalize your voice lines and score blips in an editor like Audacity so no single judge suddenly blasts louder than the rest.

Optional Advanced Tweak: Muting Score Blips

Some creators prefer a panel where only the judges’ personal voice lines play, without the generic score blip stingers layered underneath. This is possible through a small manual edit to the pack’s configuration JSON file: adding a key called play_voices_with_blips and setting it to false silences the score blips while leaving individual judge voices intact. This is an advanced option and isn’t required for a functional pack — most beginners can safely skip it on a first attempt.

Sharing Your Finished Pack

Once your panel is complete and tested, you can package the folder as a ZIP file and share it with friends or upload it for the wider community to try. Because the game explicitly treats content packs as a core, expected part of the experience, a well-made, clearly themed Judges Pack is one of the easiest ways to make your copy of The Choicer Voicer feel completely unique — and it’s a great first project for anyone new to modding or content creation in general.

Final Thoughts

Building a Judges Pack doesn’t require advanced art or audio skills — it requires consistency, correct file naming, and a bit of creative personality. Start small: sketch five simple characters, record a few silly one-word approval lines, and get the basic pack working before layering on extras like individual success screens. Once the fundamentals click, expanding into full custom Studio, Host, and Voice packs becomes a natural next step for turning The Choicer Voicer into your own personalized game show.