Do you like mind-bending brain burning board games?
They are not everyone’s cup-of-tea as they say since many play board games for near mindless fun (Monopoly anyone).
For those that want to think, well dig out the Looney Pyramids and try Zendo.
“Zendo is a game of inductive logic in which the Master creates a rule and the Students attempt to discover it by building and studying arrangements of Looney Pyramids. The first student to state the rule correctly wins,” explains www.koryheath.com. Kory Heath created Zendo back in 2001, so it makes sense to mine his site for information on Zendo.
To play you will need four Looney Pyramid stashes, a handful of beads in three colours, two of those probably should be black and white as those colours are referenced in the rules.
“Choose someone to be the Master. The other players are the Students. Give each Student a black and a white stone, to serve as “answering stones”. The remaining black and white stones are “marking stones”, and the stones of the third color are “guessing stones”. Put all of the marking stones and guessing stones in front of the Master, and put all of the pyramids into a global stash within reach of all the Students,” denotes the website.
“The Master must choose a rule, create two initial ‘koans’, and pick someone to go first.”
You may note a theme in Looney Pyramid games, such as Icehouse reviewed last week, and now Zendo, they have something of a ‘New Age’ feel to them. You get the feeling many of the games were creating in an Arts college dorm in California. That is not a bad thing, merely an observance.
But back to Zendo.
You are likely already wondering what a ‘koan’ is?
“Over the course of the game, players will create different arrangements of one or more pyramids on the table. Each arrangement is referred to as a ‘koan’, pronounced “KO-ahn”. Koans can be set up in any fashion, as long as they don’t touch other objects or other koans,” details the rules.
Next; “when you are selected to be the Master, your first task is to devise a secret rule that will be used during this game of Zendo.
According to your rule, some koans will “have the Buddha-nature”, and others will not. For the Students, the object of the game is to try to figure out what your secret rule is. As the Master, your job is to act as facilitator; you are not actually a player, and you are not in competition with any of the players.”
As examples:
• A Simple Rule: A koan has the Buddha-nature if and only if it contains one or more green pieces.
• A Very Difficult Rule: A koan has the Buddha-nature if and only if it contains an odd number of pieces pointing at other pieces.
• A “Negative” Rule: A koan does not have the Buddha-nature if it contains exactly three pieces touching the table; otherwise it does.
At this point you may gather it is up to the student to decipher what the secret koan is, and as the game progresses additional koans will be created to be found out.
Players get to build koans and eventually guess at what the Master’s secret is. Those getting it right are awarded ‘guessing stones’ (the third colour ones), which they can then spend to ask the Master questions to help decipher the ‘koan puzzle’.
“As the Master, start the game off by building two koans in the middle of the playing field. One should have the Buddha-nature according to your rule; place a white stone next to it. The other should not; place a black stone next to it. You will be marking all of the koans in this way throughout the game. Starting koans need not be complicated, even with experienced players,” details the site.
Students become involved in the next phase.
On their turn they create a new koan using one or more pyramids from the global stash.
The student then has two choices; to say ‘Master’ or ‘Mondo’
• Master: The Master will immediately mark the new koan with a black or white stone.
• Mondo: All Students must guess if the new koan has the Buddha-nature or not. Pick up your own answering stones and hide your answer (black or white) in one fist. Hold that fist out over the playing field, and wait for all of the other Students to do the same. When everyone is ready, reveal your guess. The Master will mark the koan with the correct answer, and will award a guessing stone to each player who answered the Mondo correctly.
Then if you have any guessing stones, you may choose to spend one or more of them to try to guess the Master’s rule. Give a guessing stone to the Master and then state your guess as clearly as you can.
If Zendo sounds drawn from Eastern philosophies you are right.
This game is one of thought and more thought. It will take players to a place most games do not, but those loving deduction should give this one a try.
