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The "Other" Logic - Games that use Induction instead of Deduction (Please Add)
Peer Sylvester
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Most logic games are using deductive logic. In example: Cluedo is a deductive game because you know all possible cases and try to find out the special one (who dunnit?)
In Inductive you know examples and try to find out the broader principles after which these rules apply.

I hope i could make myself a bit understandble - its a bit difficult to express such complex things in english (which is not my mothertongue...)

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1. Board Game: Eleusis [Average Rating:7.45 Overall Rank:1794]
Peer Sylvester
Germany
Berlin
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You try to find the rules of the game by trying various combinations of cards.
THE Classic of inductive games
 
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2. Board Game: Code Breaker [Average Rating:5.56 Unranked]
Peer Sylvester
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Berlin
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A commercial variant of Eleusis. As stated on Abbots website, this was actually designed by Alex Randolph.
 
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3. Board Game: Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War [Average Rating:7.53 Overall Rank:536]
Peer Sylvester
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Berlin
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This one takes it even further: You have to find out the motions of your pieces and then use them to follow the game objective
 
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Valerie Putman
United States
Columbus
Ohio
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Having played this a number of times, I am going to have to argue that this uses deduction. You have a chart that shows all possible directions your pieces can move. When I try to move a piece, my opponent tells me yes or no. This allows me to eliminate some of the pieces that it could possibly be. Eventually, I have elliminated all but one possibility and have deduced which piece it must be. You can also used deduction to narrow down which piece is which because there are 5 that can move straight forward, 5 that can move diagonally forward, and 2 that can do both. Once I have identified 7 that can move straight forward, I can deduce that the remaining 5 must move diagonally forward.

This is a fabulous game--no matter which type of logic it falls under. And I must admit--I consider the line between what is inductive and what is deductive to be fuzzy sometimes. Often both are at work.
 
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  • Posted Wed Jul 20, 2005 1:58 pm
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A.N. Onymous


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Looks interesting! I have never seen this one before but I would like to try it. meeple
 
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  • Posted Wed Jul 20, 2005 2:53 pm
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Peer Sylvester
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Valerie - you are of course right. Although finding out general rules, it is a deduction game, because you know the options.
The feeling is induction, the game is deductive laugh

My fault... blush
 
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  • Posted Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:32 am
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4. Board Game: Zendo [Average Rating:7.31 Overall Rank:282]
lisa smith
United States
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The inventor, I thought, credited eleusis as part of the inspiration.

I think it works as a game much better than eleusis.
 
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Valerie Putman
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Columbus
Ohio
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Again, while this is considered a classic "induction" game, a good player will use both forms of logic.

Using induction, you try to discover all possible rules that could be correct. Using deduction, you test those "hypotheses" and eliminate them. You can often be efficient and eliminate several hypotheses at once with a good test.

Of course, many players do only use inductive logic. They think of one possible rule and get stuck on that option until they learn it is wrong. Then they use inductive reasoning to think of another one.
 
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  • Posted Wed Jul 20, 2005 2:08 pm
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Huzonfirst
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Manassas
Virginia
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For the second time in five years, the G-Men are Super Bowl champs! Woo hoo!!!!!
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True, Val, but I think you could say that about any game based on inductive reasoning. I'd say that both Eleusis and Zendo qualify as pure induction games.
 
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  • Posted Thu Jul 21, 2005 6:33 pm
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Valerie Putman
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Of course. But this is exactly why some students struggle when trying to understand the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. The fact that we often follow our induction with deduction makes it harder for students to distinguish the two. On the other hand, once students understand that it is okay to be confused because they overlap--and that their confusion is a sign that they are finally grasping the deeper concepts...well, they just throw their hands up in the air at that point.
 
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  • Posted Wed Aug 17, 2005 8:16 pm
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5. Board Game: Zendo [Average Rating:7.31 Overall Rank:282]
Scott Nicholson
United States
Cambridge
Massachusetts
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In this game, someone creates a rule using these Icehouse pyramids, which everyone tries to guess through creating examples which are marked as Correct or Incorrect.

Can be devilishly frustrating...
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Scott Nicholson
United States
Cambridge
Massachusetts
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Heh - Looks like you added your Zendo while I was typing mine. Well, it's twice as good as most other induction games, so...
 
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  • Posted Wed Jul 20, 2005 1:27 pm
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Chris
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I agree!
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  • Posted Wed Jul 20, 2005 2:01 pm
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6. Board Game: Mastermind [Average Rating:5.36 Overall Rank:7441]
J Knoerzer
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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This the game I thought of. I believe it is an inductive logic game. Starting with no infomation and using trial and error to find the correct pattern.
 
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Richard Irving
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Salinas
California
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Logically you are incorrect, it is a deductive logic game.

Induction is finding a general rule/property that is being followed. Specific to general.

Deduction is finding a specific property from a series of premises. General to specific.

In Mastermind, you are trying to determine a specific pattern through a series of guesses.
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  • Posted Wed Jul 20, 2005 2:44 pm
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Peer Sylvester
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Berlin
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Richard is right, its deductive.
It would be inductive if you know the correct pattern and would have to find out the rules for putting the white and black markers
 
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  • Posted Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:30 am
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7. Board Game: Coda [Average Rating:6.09 Overall Rank:1870]
Blake Crawford
United States
Richardson
Texas
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Paul Carmouche
United States
Ferndale
Michigan
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Clearly deductive.
 
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  • Posted Wed Jul 20, 2005 5:49 pm
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8. Board Game: Patterns II [Average Rating:7.50 Unranked]
Jeffrey McBeth
United States
Rochester
New York
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My favorite. I even have a webserver and scripts set up to play it with my friends. It can be found in the Gamut of Games.
 
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Peer Sylvester
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Berlin
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How could I forget this one!
A true gem...
 
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  • Posted Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:27 am
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9. Board Game: Genius Rules [Average Rating:6.18 Overall Rank:4858]
Richard Irving
United States
Salinas
California
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This is commercial form of Eleusis with special cards with famous people on them. This allows a lot of properties to base the rule of God on--living/dead, female/male, different fields of expertise, shape of portrait, etc.
 
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10. Board Game: Poker [Average Rating:6.77 Overall Rank:471]
Matt Ruff
United States
Seattle
Washington
Poker is a classic example of an inductive reasoning game. Until the final showdown, you can never know with certainty what cards your opponents are holding, but by observing what they do, and how they react to what you do, you try to form a good enough hypothesis to gamble on.
 
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Matt Ruff
United States
Seattle
Washington
I should add that there's a strong deductive side to the game, too. Even if you have no clue what your opponents are holding, it's possible to know that you've got the best hand, or to calculate your odds of drawing the best hand. But even when you know you're going to win the pot, it's very useful to have a sense of what your opponents have, and what they think you have, so you can decide how best to lure them into making the pot bigger.
 
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  • Posted Wed Jul 20, 2005 7:46 pm
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Huzonfirst
United States
Manassas
Virginia
designer
For the second time in five years, the G-Men are Super Bowl champs! Woo hoo!!!!!
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Poker certainly isn't inductive, as there's no accurate way of testing hypotheses. I really don't think it's deductive, either, since opponents can "lie" (i.e., bluff) when responding to your "tests" (i.e., your bets). Whether reading tells or other skills can be considered deduction is a tenuous question at best. I certainly feel safe in saying that Poker doesn't meet the "classical" definition of a deduction game.
 
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  • Posted Thu Jul 21, 2005 6:38 pm
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11. Board Game: Mao [Average Rating:5.58 Overall Rank:6041]
Ray
United States
Carpentersville
Illinois
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Mao

IMHO most of the games on this list are deduction games (because they ultimately are solved with certainty). Here's a genuine inductive logic game (because the rules that you thought were true can reverse themselves thus adding the "likelihood-but-not-certainty element" for all elements)
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12. Board Game: Jewels in the Sand [Average Rating:6.36 Unranked]
Peer Sylvester
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Berlin
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Here you create and guess rules for words. A very good game with an interesting playning premise. Woth checking out (on the creators homepage)
 
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Dylan Shakespeare
United States

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I've known the designer for years. He lives close by my house.
 
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  • Posted Thu Jan 8, 2009 9:56 pm
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13. Board Game: Black Box [Average Rating:6.34 Overall Rank:1527]
Didier Anglada
Canada
Saint Augustin de Desmaures
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A good and difficult game where you need several attemps to valid your intution and get the right configuration.
 
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Richard Irving
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Salinas
California
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Again not inductive, Black Box is deductive. Findine specific from general information.

The only negative of the game is that it can be impossible to find all of the hidden marbles if there 5 or more--it is possible the marbles form "shadows" so the final position is impossible to find:

Example--The final ball can be hidden anywhere where there is a ?:
........
..O..O..
...??...
...O..O.
........
........

 
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  • Posted Thu Jul 21, 2005 4:11 pm
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Harald Korneliussen
Norway

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But it can be turned into an inductive game, I think! If instead of firing rays, the searching player can suggest a configuration, and then the hiding player fires a ray!
Of course, it becomes by necessity finite induction, and that means it's similar to deduction... I suppose you could argue that it's deductive, but I think it's not. If the game ends not when the correct pattern is found, but when the guesser has proposed a rule (marble placement) that the hider can't disprove, then it's inductive, right?
 
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  • Posted Tue Nov 13, 2007 7:57 am
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14. Board Game: Queries 'n Theories [Average Rating:8.19 Unranked]
lisa smith
United States
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This is an older game that I believe uses induction.
 
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15. Board Game: El Club de los Martes [Average Rating:7.59 Overall Rank:2180]
Pelayo Rey
Spain
Madrid
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Well, i think this game fits in this geeklist. It's a game where the armchair detectives must use inductive logic to solve the crime.
 
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16. Board Game: Professor Pünschge [Average Rating:6.30 Overall Rank:4144]
Daniel Danzer
Germany
Stuttgart
southwest
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The professor (one player) is following his path by a simple rule connected to several qualities of the spaces. The other players (co-op or competitive) try to find out the principle rules.
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17. Board Game: The 3 Commandments [Average Rating:5.76 Overall Rank:4226]
Daniel Danzer
Germany
Stuttgart
southwest
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One player the "high Priestess") sets the rules, the other ones score points or not (and they don`t know exactly, why!) trying to find out the reason for the priestess`reaction.

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Valerie Putman
United States
Columbus
Ohio
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Great list! I love logic games!!! I also use them in my research methods class to give students practice at using logic.
 
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  • Posted Wed Jul 20, 2005 2:00 pm
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Peer Sylvester
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www.invisible-city.com offers a game called "Dinner Chess" which also is an inductive game - creating a rule to apply on household objects during dinnertime. Quite fun, but not geeklisted (yet)

I thought about removing the wrong entrys, but i decided against it - it perhaps shows the difference between inductive an d deductive.
 
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  • Posted Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:39 am
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Michael Van Biesbrouck
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Mountain View
California
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Previously done:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist.php3?action=view&listi...
 
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  • Posted Thu Jul 21, 2005 6:54 pm
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