When Zendo is not Zen!

Another day, another Blaugust post. I feel like I’m too exhausted but I told myself I would do it so here goes.

There’s this game that I play with people at EVAC occasionally. It goes by the name of Zendo. It’s a game of inductive logic where one person plays the role of “The Master” and creates a rule or “koan” that all structures must follow. They then build a structure that fits the koan and one that does not. We build these out of simple lego bricks. There are four colours (red, blue, yellow and white) and 3 brick dimensions (2x2, 2x3 and 2x4). They also build a structure that does not fit the koan. Each are labelled for the other players. The role of the other players is to guess what the koan is by making structures which are assessed by the Master.

You must build a structure if it is your turn and it can be assed by one of two ways. Firstly, the player could just ask the master to tell everyone if the structure fits the koan. The other option is to have every player guess whether or not the structure fits to koan or does not. This is done with voting tokens that are placed under each players hand then revealed all at once. Those players who guessed correctly get a koan guess token that they can spend after making a build to guess what the koan is. There is no limit to how many tokens a player can have. There is no limit to how  many times a player can guess the koan in their turn provided it is after they have built a structure and have enough tokens to do so. If a player makes a guess and they are incorrect then the master must build a structure that contradicts the koan guess. This is done either by building a structure that would fail the koan guess but passes the real koan or build a structure that would pass the koan guess but fail the real koan. The player to guess the koan correctly wins. Alternatively, if a counter example can not be built then the player wins. This could be done either by exhausting all options of the koan or a different wording of the koan that applies the same principal.

There are more rules that apply to the structure. For example, there can be no rules based on time which means a structure is assessed exactly the same regardless of when it is built, who built it or how long it took to build. The structure must also be assessed the same regardless of the location of the structure. This means if the structure is the same but facing a different direction then it is the same structure with the same assessment. Although we generally accept that the built does have multiple layers. The First layer is the one closest to the ground.

That’s the rules out of the way. Now for some examples. A simple koan would be that there is a red brick on the bottom layer of the structure. This is actually the first rule in the first game I ever players. Another example would be that There must be a 2x2 brick on the third layer. That would mean that all builds with out a 2x2 brick on the third layer (and by extension any structure with less than 3 layers) would fail the koan. Sometimes there are troll rules. One I did was that if only 3 three colours used in a structure then they cannot be red, blue and yellow. No Crows colours allowed in my koan!

It is a great game provided there is a great rule. The best ones are the simple rules. where it takes you about 15 minutes to guess. The problem is that the group I have been playing with has been playing this game for a while so the rules are getting complex. Which means they are getting hard to guess. We've done prime numbers, perfect numbers, and a square number of the exposed dots. But the worst rules and I mean the absolute WORST rules are the ones when there are two rules and both rules cannot exist together. This is what’s known in programming as the “exclusive or” statement or “XOR” for short. One really bad example that I had a week ago was “there must be 3 blue bricks or 4 white bricks in the structure but not 3 blue bricks and 4 white bricks” which was pretty bad as it is. But the person playing the games master was acting condescending. “As if you haven’t guessed it by now. You must all be pretty dense. It’s literally right in front of you. How long until you give up?” That kind of attitude can really suck the fun out of it. Then there are the observers who don’t play but peek at the rule. Sometimes they can have the same attitude if they share the same personality. I guess it just boils down to who you play with. It just can get pretty annoying when you have a rule you want to try but one of those people insists they do theirs. By the time the game is over nobody wants to play any more so you don’t get to try your rule which wasn’t anywhere near as inappropriate as that one that just happened.

Perhaps I'm over it. Or perhaps I need a break from the game. I still like it but I just need to be wary when certain individuals whom I know write bad rules comes up with one.

So that is Zendo and the frustrations that come with it.

So until Tomorrow,


Have Fun and Stay Sexy!