Induction to Inductive Games

This Induction to Inductive Games is an attempt to gather all games falling in the inductive category, sometimes also named Instructionless, Rule-discovery or Black box games.

Having grown from research notes for the unreleased game "Puzzle Type" (2021), this living document may now be useful to players looking for inductive game gems, perhaps curious about the origins of the genre, as well as to inductive game designers, for whom the final Design Considerations was written.

Hallmarks of inductive games include:

• one or more underlying rules to be discovered;
• progress equates with a deeper understanding of the rules;
• no instructions given, intentionally,

Those can be condensed in the following definition:

Inductive games are primarily about discovering a set of underlying rules, using inductive reasoning: prior examples or past interactions with the game world are used to construct hypotheses (possibly subconsciously), to be confronted with new examples and interactions, until they can no longer be disproven.

This definition excludes:

• Guessing or Concealed Information games, where a limited number of questions can be asked before trying to guess not an underlying rule, but a piece of information such as a code (Mastermind), pattern (Breaklock), word (Hangman, Wordle), concept (20 questions), movement sequence (the Inductive Game of Rubik's Cube), personality (Akinator), etc…
• Puzzlehunts, chiefly because they are an heterogeneous category, as individual puzzles may possess (or not) an inductive nature.
• games whose primary theme is not inductive even when occasional inductive elements are present (e.g Tunic, Fez)

With this in mind, a tentative classification of Inductive Games could start by dividing them in three major groups: Atomic, Closed and Open.

Atomic

Atomic Inductive Games comprise a single unexplained situation, usually presented as a single level-. Occasionally this situation may be spread across multiple levels (perhaps to clarify the idea or present more challenges) yet without adding new rules.

Closed

Closed inductive games tend to be self-contained, with the number of rules limited at the outset. Often, each of these rules is explored more deeply than those in Open Inductive Games, with particular emphasis on edge-cases and on their mutual interactions.

A common eureka moment occurs when rules previously tested in limited scenarios suddenly generalise to encompass a new situation.

As soon as all rules in a Closed game are fully understood (and subsequent game goals attained) the game is complete. As the rules never change, replaying the game, or playing it after watching someone else offers diminishing value.

At least two subtypes of Closed inductive games may be distinguished: Symbolic and Environmental.

Symbolic

In symbolic inductive games, particular rules are tied to particular symbols (or combinations thereof).

Environmental

Environmental inductive games do not restrict rules to particular symbols only, but tie them to physical objects in a simulated environment, akin to traditional escape room games (too many to list here).

These games add a focus on lateral thinking and attentive observation, because it may not be obvious what is a "symbol", where to look, and what can be interacted with — though some objects may be actual drawings of symbols, e.g. in a piece of paper.

Open

Open inductive games have no beginning nor end, because rules are derived on the fly for each new game. When relying on symbols or pieces, those need never be tied to particular rules, but may change meaning with every replay.

Nevertheless, some well-known open games may develop a "canon" of known good rules, usually aimed at beginners, plus, sometimes, a "uncanon" of unacceptable rules, infamous for frustrating players. As long as new interesting rules keep being devised by their players-creators, Open inductive games are intrinsically replayable.

Title	Author	Year	Interaction
Eleusis	Robert Abbott	1956	Determining why a card may or not be played
Mao (also Mau)	Unknown	???	(see Eleusis)
Bongard Problems	M. M. Bongard	1967	Finding the distinctive feature in two sets of 6 images
Queries 'n Theories	Layman E. Allen, Joan Ross and Peter Krugel	1970	Reconstructing a hidden language with a formal structure (basic sentences and replacement rules), by formulating questions (queries)
Petals around the rose	Unknown	1970s	Observing dice rolls and results, then trying to deduce a formula
Penultima Chess	Michael Greene and Adam Chalcraf	1994	Attempting to move a chess piece
Zendo	Kory Heath	1999	Asking the master whether a piece configuration follows the hidden rule
Eleusis Express	John Golden	2006	(see Eleusis)
Luminare	Clockwork Acorn	2015	Classifying new examples as black or white
Riddle Runes, formerly Sigils	Zithral	2016	???
White Pillars	Rosden Shadow	2018	Pushing blocks
Devil's Calculator	Cinqmarsmedia	2019	Typing (numbers)
Caterpillar logic	Michael Fuks	2020	Classifying new examples as valid or invalid
Send A Damned Message	Jeff Wu	2021	Typing
Exactly 7	Matrix67	2021	Increment or decrement a score counter by activating tiles, picking letters, etc…
Instructionless Grid	わんど (wand125)	2021	Paper puzzle drawing
The Name of the game	Lady Lambdadelta	2021	Variable rules, multiple question checks
h	Urbanblazgracar	2022	???
-vxv-	Kuchiwo Tsugumi (Competor)	2022	Drawing in a mysterious interface
House	Studio369	2022	Visual clues
VIX 1 puzzles: I,II,III , JackLance's IV ,V,VI, VII, VIII, IX	Jacobz.	2022	Placing Roman Numerals
Puzzle Type (unreleased)	Pedro	2021	Typing
Forgetting	Galactical	2024	Shading (tiles on a grid with symbols)
INTAO (direct link)	Niv	2024	Guessing a word based on visual clues (colour blocks)

Social games where players keep providing words or objects as examples until they find a hidden rule, such as Umbrella, Green Glass Door, Black Magic, Music Box, Scissors and Triangle Mind could be seen together as components of a larger open game. However, as the supply of such hidden rules seems relatively limited, it seems more appropriate to call them a collection of games.

Design considerations

Designing inductive games requires additional considerations from those that apply to standard puzzle games. Here are a few that site.author deems important, earned from analysis and first-hand experience.

Blind vs Kind

In a blind game, you are playing blindly, attempting things without any feedback, except a final "yes or no" — only after understanding absolutely everything can you win the current situation.

In contrast, a kind game, you receive some feedback after every action, which reduces frustration because you can gauge your own understanding.

When making Inductive games, it is of utmost importance to make them kind.

In paper-based / physical media, designers should be aware of the medium's feedback limitations, and think creatively on how to overcome them. Whereas in digital media, the abundance of feedback options should easily nudge designers towards making inductive games kind.

Auto vs Controlled

As players interact with an inductive game with partial understanding, every so often they produce an action with unexpected results. They may even wish to explore randomly to see what happens.

Thus there is an unavoidable chance that players "win" without fully understanding the system. Some games enforce a manual "win check" to prevent this, but this actively slows down players, creating friction. Much better to provide them them more control, by letting them go back and forth in their actions, "unwin" or pause anytime.

Complicated vs Complex

The complexity of an underlying rule relates to how many test cases that need to be checked by players so they are convinced they understand the rule, as well as to the cognitive effort of each individual check.

Rules in inductive games should be complex enough to feel interesting but not overly complicated, such that they feel longwinded (too many unrelated checks) or burdensome (each check is hard or slow to reason about).

Forgetful vs Recorded

As the number of past interactions grow, a point will be reached where players will find it hard to keep all past information in their mind. Whereas in paper-based inductives players can be expected to take notes, players may expect digital inductive games to take notes for them.

Digital inductives should at the very least allow players to replay any particular situation, thus discouraging forgetfulness. At their very best, they'll provide a handy, concise record of past interactions that serve as handy test cases (without revealing the underlying rule) for players evaluating new hypotheses.

Fictional vs Real

Since a deeprer understanding is the result of finishing an inductive game, it is natural to ask: what was understood? By playing a fictional game, you gain a deeper understanding of the game's fantasy world; but in an real game, you are rewarded with a new understanding of (some aspect of) the real world.

References

The following game lists partially overlap with those in this article:

Acknowledgments and Changes

2021-04-14 A rough first draft incorporating feedback from the Thinky Community: thanks AndreaGilbert, Zaratusra, JosephMansfield, Portponky, LeSlo, ClementSparrow, Kirraluan, TJM, MysticSailboat, TheQwertiest, JoelFox, Jcgyo and JackLance for all the suggestions and resources!

2022-12-05 Thanks to knexator for super-early-bird feedback on this list!

2023-02-05 Thanks to AdamGashlin for reaching out with additional suggestions!

2024-02-21 Thanks to MartinEnder for sending a missing entry and ChaoticIak, axcaea, Genteelman and KusaneHexaku for additional feedback that led to some clarifications!

2024-12-02 Added a recent entry to the table

2025-07-17 Added INTAO by niv (2024) to the open inductive game list