In 2017, Looney Labs released a spiffy new edition of Zendo, the classic inductive logic game first published back in 2001. That’s right, Zendo is a game of inductive logic. NOT deductive. What, you don’t know what an inductive logic game is? Don’t worry, neither did I (editor’s note: I still don’t), so allow me to attempt an explanation. Deductive logic games — which I’m sure you are familiar with — are games that present their players with a finite set of possibilities as systemically constrained by their design and tasks them with whittling said possibilities down to one. Some classic examples in this genre include Clue, Sleuth, and Mastermind. Inversely to these, Zendo, being all about that inductive life, presents its players with infinite possibilities and challenges them to find the microscopic needle in the cosmic haystack. Yikes, how could such a concept possibly manifest itself mechanically? The answer to that lies in Zendo‘s amazingly clever and creative design.
The goal of Zendo is to uncover a secret rule as decided by a moderator before the game begins. The purpose of this rule is to govern how cute little structures of plastic blocks should be built. These blocks come in three shapes (in the 2017 version, the original had three different sizes of pyramids) and three colors, so a rule might be that a structure must have exactly one block of each color, or that two different shapes must be touching in a certain way, something like that. The designers included a good selection of these rules for the moderator to choose from, but really it could be anything and the game would still work (as long as the moderator isn’t just trying to get off on being obtuse, that is). Also before the game, the moderator must build two structures: one that adheres to their own secretly decided rule and one that does not. The structure that adheres to the rule is marked with a white disc and the structure that does not with a black. These two structures are the only information the players have at the beginning the game. Doesn’t seem like enough? It’s not. The game begins anyways.
Zendo, in one of its few traditional aspects, is a game in which the players take turns. All turns start the same way, the active player builds a structure of their own, but after that comes a choice: they either ask the moderator for a “Tell” or a “Quiz”. Asking for a Tell prompts the moderator to immediately mark their structure with a white or black disc, depending on if it follows the secret rule. Ooh, information! On the other hand, if the player requests a Quiz this answer is not revealed right away. Instead, all players must vote on whether or not they think the new structure follows the rule by secretly selecting a white or black disc then simultaneously revealing them. Only then does the moderator mark the structure, and any player who voted correctly earns a guessing token. After the Tell or Quiz step has ended, if the active player possesses a guessing token they may choose to spend it for a shot at guessing what the rule is. After clarifying exactly what the player’s guess is (remember, we’re dealing with the infinite here), the moderator must then build a structure disproving it. They may accomplish this either by following the guessed rule but marking the structure incorrect, or by NOT following the guessed rule and marking it correct anyway. If the guess is exactly correct, the moderator will not be able to disprove it and the player wins. Interestingly enough, sometimes the player’s guess will not be technically correct, but close enough to the real answer that the moderator will still not be able to disprove it. In those cases, the player wins all the same.
Playing Zendo feels like forming order from chaos. It’s an immediately intriguing puzzle that activates a part of the brain no other game I’ve come across manages to hit. Smartly, its surrounding system is stripped down to the barest of essentials, allowing players to focus wholly on the unique task at hand. It doesn’t take many mechanisms to keep the table engaged when every player decision reveals new information to the entire group. New structures gets marked each turn, and incorrect guesses force the moderator to reveal even more by making them construct an actual example instead of merely responding yes or no. This perpetual march of information also creates a surprising amount of tension. How sure should you be before cashing in a guess? If you’re wrong it could reveal a crucial clue to the other players, and it has to make it all the way around the table before you get another chance. If you have an idea what the rule is, but you have no guessing tokens, should you build a purposefully incorrect structure and Quiz it? Or should you build something that will actually get you, and the rest of the table, useful information? It could be the last bit of information you need to get your answer exactly correct, and an easy Quiz is likely to earn everyone a guessing token. But this might be your last chance! Ugh! While these tactical decisions are certainly not the crux of Zendo — it will function as a casual experience for the vast majority of its players — that the system accommodates such considerations so well is a testament to the encompassing nature of its design.
Another area Zendo succeeds in, at least in its most recent form, is table presence. This is an eye-catching production, featuring over-sized plastic blocks and heavy player pieces made from high-quality resin. It also comes with two rule books: one for learning the game and one for diving deeper into its intricacies. I mention this only because this decision shows a keen foresight on behalf of the designers; they seem well aware some players may find it difficult to come to grips with Zendo’s oddball nature. We’re so used to games giving us rules to follow and using those rules to deduce the best courses of action. Zendo turns this seemingly inherent tenet of game design completely upside-down, challenging its players to follow a rule that they don’t even know. That idea alone is enough to make Zendo remarkable; it didn’t even need to be a proper game. But it is, and it’s a good one. Sure, its underlying structure is inevitably a bit undefined, and some will find the puzzle at its core to be more frustrating than fun, but this is the kind of game you can introduce to almost anyone and they will immediately understand its principles, even if they do find the experience grueling. A themeless design with an astronomically high skill ceiling that can be fully understood and competently played by people of any level of gaming experience? Sounds like all the great abstracts across history to me.
While most games of Zendo run a little under an hour, this amount of time can vary greatly depending on the players’ skill levels and the simplicity of the chosen rule. Anecdotally, I’ve won a game on my very first turn, which would be a problem in most games, but here it felt great! This ultra-quick win did not expose a design issue or compromise the integrity of Zendo‘s system in any way. The moderator simply chose a rule that was way too simple, and by the time it was my play the table had already exposed 90% of the necessary information to solve the puzzle. We’d created this atypical game experience ourselves. There are many, many ways for a game designer to go about giving their players agency, to artfully craft an experience where their choices really do matter. Malleable economies, dynamic pacing, combat systems that reward careful thematic planning, etc. Thousands of examples can be pulled from the great games we know and love, but Zendo takes it a step further. This is a game like very few others, a game that takes place entirely inside of a player choice. A choice that is not arbitrarily constrained by a design or system, no less. Indeed, the stark singularity of Zendo‘s design means it could realistically be played with anything: legos, skittles, the contents of your junk drawer, anything. And here’s the really crazy thing about that: it would still be the same game, and it would still be good. Zendo is an achievement that dwells in the realm of infinite possibilities — somehow funneling them into a quality game — and I find it nothing short of amazing that a mechanical representation of the infinite could come this close to actually capturing it.
Zendo gets a rating of FOUR out of FIVE, indicating it is RECOMMENDED.