Black box (game)
| Black Box / Logo / Ordo | |
|---|---|
 Game situation (Waddington edition) |
|
| Game data | |
| author | Eric Solomon |
| publishing company |
Waddingtons , Parker Brothers , Clipper , Franjos |
| Publishing year | 1976, 1978, 1990 |
| Art | Deduction game |
| Teammates | 2 |
| Duration | 20 minutes |
| Age | from 10 years on |
Black Box is the name of logic , game by Eric Solomon . It was published in 1976 by the publisher Waddingtons and then by Parker Brothers as a black box . 1978 it was used by Parker Brothers in Germany Logo expelled, but was at the instigation of Lego in Ordo renamed. In the Netherlands it was distributed by Clipper as Ko-Code (Kogeltjes Code). In 1990 the game was released as a black box by the game publisher Franjos .
Other games with the same name, Black Box , are made by Milton Bradley and Jumbo .
Game description
One of the two players, the manager, has to hide the pieces and then only answer correctly. The other tries to ask as skilfully as possible and to determine the position of the hidden stones from the answers. What is fascinating about the game is how a supposedly safely inferred distribution of the stones can look completely different after uncovering the hidden stones, mostly with more complicated paths.
Just like with mastermind , every mistake in answering makes all subsequent efforts pointless, unnoticed until uncovered. Therefore a computer is preferable for the role of the administrator, with a random number generator for the initial situation (which is the administrator's only option). Only the other player has an interesting task to solve. Therefore this game is more like a game for one than two players (similar to solitaire ).
The game board has eight columns and eight rows, i.e. 8 × 8 fields. There are two copies, one copy is common to both players, the administrator has another, invisible to the seeker. The administrator places five (or four for beginners) identical game pieces on randomly chosen places on his face-down copy ; they stay there during a game.
Each move consists of a question and an answer:
- The seeker can place, relocate and remove stones on the common game board at assumed places. Then, as a question on one of the four edges of the game board , he indicates to the manager one of the eight spaces on the outside as the entry point of a path in the game board. (So there are exactly 32 possible questions, namely the 32 outer edges of the 28 fields on the edge of the game board.)
- The steward answers (depending on the pieces on the face-down game board) on the shared game board, where the requested path starts at the edge of the game board or how it ends on the inside. Such an answer can strengthen or refute the seeker's assumptions, sometimes even confirm them.
The hidden stones determine the possible paths on the board as follows:
- If the next field is straight ahead and its right and left neighboring fields are free, then the path leads straight ahead to the next field. If he comes across the edge of the game board there (straight ahead), the manager marks this edge of the field as the answer. (This means that both ends of a path are known; its direction is irrelevant.)
- If a path meets a stone, the caretaker reports a hit (T) and the path ends there.
- If the next place is free, but exactly one of the two neighboring places is occupied, the path bends away from the stone just before it reaches the height of the stone. (See picture "Example of a distraction".)
- If the next space straight ahead is free, but both neighboring spaces are occupied, the manager reports an accident (U) and the path ends. The same message comes when the first place of the possible path (at the edge) is free, but not both of its neighboring places.
A path that ends in the field costs one point. A continuous path clears two questions at once and costs two points. Each stone that is wrongly guessed at the end costs five points. The aim of the game is to determine the position of the stones with the lowest possible total cost. (Sometimes it is beneficial to guess the last stone.)
After a few answers, the player will put a few stones on the board as a test. The manager shows all previous answers on the open board with test pieces. (If he is a computer, he can mark those answers with exclamation marks that are incompatible with the stones placed in the test.)
If the player is satisfied with his test placement, he can submit it as a tip; this is always his last move. In response, the administrator shows the position of the hidden stones and adds five points to the cost of the answers for each incorrectly guessed stone. (If the tip is not correct, the manager can ask beforehand whether the searcher still wants to submit it.)
Examples
Example 1: Only continuous routes are shown
(a) How the paths run:
1 1 2 2 (Rund ums Feld stehen die Antworten.)
Bisher 12 Punkte
. └─────┘ · └──┘ ·
● · · · ● · · ●
· ┌─────┐ · ┌──┐ ·
3 ───┼─────┼─────┼──┼─── 3 (Weg 3 geht geradeaus, aber
4 ───┘ · └─────┼──┼─── 4 … Weg 4 nur scheinbar.)
· · ● · · │ │ · (Weg 5 knickt nur einmal, aber
5 ───┐ · · · └──┼──- 6 … Weg 6 knickt dreimal.)
· │ · · ● · │ ·
5 6
(b) What the seeker sees of it:
1 1 2 2
· · · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · ·
3 · · · · · · · · 3
4 · · · · · · · · 4
· · · · · · · ·
5 · · · · · · · · 6
· · · · · · · ·
5 6
and the stones he set on a trial basis.
Example 2: All paths shown end in the playing field
T U T U T T
Bisher 24 Punkte
T ┼──── ● ────┼─────┼─── T
│ · · ┌──┼─────┼─── U
│ · · │ │ · │ ·
T ┼──── ● · ● ────┼─── T
│ · │ │ │ ┌──┼─── T
U │ · │ │ │ │ │ ·
T ● ────┼──┼──┼──┘ │ ·
U │ ┌──┼──┼──┼──── ● ── T
(Alle Treffer und Unfälle
T T T U T U T U sind eingetragen.)
Rating
Hits and accidents each cost one point. Every other path comes out somewhere, provides answers to two possible questions and therefore costs two points. So a question can cost a point or two. Each wrong guessed stone costs five points.
You can check the displayed number of points at any time as follows: Each answer note in the margin costs one point, and when the game is over, five points are added for each incorrectly placed stone. If too few or too many stones have been placed, either the number of stones found in the wrong place or the number of stones not found counts, whichever of the two is greater. If one cannot or does not want to localize all stones, one therefore advises the last stones; you save nothing if you place fewer stones than there are to be looked for.
With experience and a lot of care, an average of 16 points can be achieved with five stones. In the best case, the position of all five stones is fixed with five answer points; in the worst case, the fifth stone can hide in one of six or perhaps more places so that no question reaches it.
Implementations
An executable computer program for use in English is offered under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
A source program for BS2000 exists in the ALGOL- like programming language ELAN .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Black Box (MB) in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English)
- ^ Black Box (Jumbo) in the Luding game database
- ↑ Black Box at the KDE Games Center
- ↑ A computer program for the game in the ALGOL -like programming language ELAN with ASCII graphics
Web links
- Logo in the Luding games database
- Ordo in the Luding games database
- Black Box (Franjos) in the Luding games database