/clue-clone

Professor Blahblah's Ivory Tower (a clone of game Clue)

Professor Blahblah's Ivory Tower

You and your ragtag crew of everyday science geeks are stuck in Professor Blahblah's Ivory Tower! To escape, you must disprove Professor Blahblah's Last Thereom with actual scientific theories.

##Components

Ready

  • Gameboard (svg) (preview)
  • Rules (md, below)

@TODO

  • Cards (svg)
  • Gamepieces (svg)

Details

Characters

  • Asmara Alazar
    • Disaffected post-doctoral researcher slogging onward
  • Ulysses S. "Grant" Rider
    • Grant writer (courted by US Department of Defense)
  • Gabriela "Guerra" Gonzales
    • Hacker: sunk-eyed wide-grinned internet-addicted zombie
  • Data Watson Jr.
    • Cyborg, primarily human, but substantially robot.
  • Jacques Amateur
    • Dabbler: jack of all trades, master of none.
  • Victoria Vasser
    • Over-eager pre-med-school liberal arts undergraduate student.

Rooms

  1. War Room (Administrative Offices)
  • Doubles as trophy room.
  1. Library
  • Just a library.
  1. Server Closet
  • Doubles as a MOOC recording studio.
  1. Cocktail Terrace
  • Includes rooftop garden, VIP lounge, and helipad
  1. Gymnasium (Gym)
  • Just a gym.
  1. Chalkboard-padded Room
  • A lair to trap graduate students (a.k.a. indentured workers), doubles as dungeon.
  1. Lecture Hall
  • Home to every 101 course, doubles as nap lounge.
  1. Laboratory
  • Includes faraday cage, among other cages.
  1. Aramak (TM) Feeding Trough
  • Formerly the dining hall, now a full-service trough.

Theories (Tools)

  • Goëdel's Incompleteness Theroems
    • "[T]wo theorems of mathematical logic that establish inherent limitations of all but the most trivial axiomatic systems capable of doing arithmetic. [...] [W]idely, but not universally, interpreted as showing that Hilbert's program to find a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics is impossible, giving a negative answer to Hilbert's second problem."
    • Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems
  • Unified Field Theory (i.e. gravity++)
    • "[A] type of field theory that allows all that is usually thought of as fundamental forces and elementary particles to be written in terms of a single field. [...] There may be no a priori reason why the correct description of nature has to be a unified field theory. However, this goal has led to a great deal of progress in modern theoretical physics and continues to motivate research."
    • Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_field_theory
  • Conservation of Mass and Energy
  • Global Warming in the Anthropocene
  • Sub-Symbolic Artificial Intelligence
    • "[P]rogress in symbolic AI seemed to stall and many believed that symbolic systems would never be able to imitate all the processes of human cognition, especially perception, robotics, learning and pattern recognition. A number of researchers began to look into "sub-symbolic" approaches to specific AI problems[:] [b]ottom-up, embodied, situated, behavior-based or nouvelle AI, [...] [c]omputational intelligence [...] neural networks and "connectionism" [...] fuzzy systems and evolutionary computation"
    • Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence#Sub-symbolic
  • Theory of Evolution
    • "[T]he change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins."
    • Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution

Rules

Same as the game "Clue":

Object

Professor Blahblah was a cruel tenured professor who trapped you in his Ivory Tower. You can only leave once you disprove Professor Blahblah's Last Theorem! You must travel around the Ivory Tower trying to find the right combination that will solve this problem so you can escape.

The object of the game is to discover the answer to these three questions:

  1. Who? Which one of the characters will solve this problem?
  2. Where? What room will be the best environment?
  3. and with What theory (tool)? What real theorem will be used to disprove Professor Blahblah's Last Theorem?

The answer lies in the little envelope resting on the stairway marked X in the center of the board. The envelope contains 3 cards. One card tells who can do it, another card reveals the room in which it can all happen, and the third card discloses the theory (tool) used.

The player who, by the process of deduction and good plain common sense, first identifies the 3 solution cards hidden in the little envelope, wins the game. This is accomplished by players moving into the rooms and making "suggestions" of what they believe is the room, the person and the theory (tool) for the purpose of gaining information. This information may reveal which cards are in other players' hands and which cards are missing and must, therefore, be hidden in the little envelope.

"Identifying" a character and naming the theory and the room under interest is one of the most exciting features of this game.

Equipment

The game Board showing nine rooms of Professor Blahblah's Ivory Tower.

Six tokens representing the characters in the house.

  • Asmara Alazar
  • Ulysses S. "Grant" Rider
  • Gabriela "Guerra" Gonzales
  • Data Watson Jr.
  • Jacques Amateur
  • Victoria Vasser

Six theory (tool) tokens and one die.

The set of 21 illustrated cards includes a card for each of the 6 characters, one for each of the 6 theories, and one for each of the 9 rooms. There is also Scientist Lab Notebooks to aid the players in their investigations.

Preparation

  1. Place the character tokens on the starting squares on the edges of the gameboard. All 6 pieces are placed on the board regardless of the number of players.

  2. Place each of the theories in a different room using any of the rooms.

  3. Place the empty envelope marked "Solution" on the spot marked "X" in the center of the board.

  4. Sort the pack of cards into three groups--Room Cards, Theory Cards and Character Cards. Shuffle each of these three groups separately. Take the top card from each group and place it in the envelope. This should be done carefully so that no player knows any of the three cards (one room, one theory, and one character) placed in the envelope.

  5. Shuffle together the three piles of remaining cards. Then deal them face down clockwise around the table. It is important that no player shall see any of the cards while they are being shuffled and dealt. (It doesn't matter if some players receive more cards than others.) Secretly look at your own cards: Because they're in your hand, they can't be in the Solution - which means that none of your cards are involved in the solution.

  6. Take a Scientist's Lab Notebook sheet and, so that no one can see what you write, fold it in half. Check off the cards that are in your hand.

  7. Each player takes the colored token nearest to them on the board, and uses it throughout the game. The player who knows the most digits of π (pi) rolls the die and moves first. After this player has moved, the next player on the left rolls the die and moves. Each of the other players follow in turn.

Game Play

Moving your token

On each turn, try to reach a different room of the mansion. To start your turn, move your token either by rolling the die or, if you're in a corner room, using a Secret Passage.

There are three ways of entering a room:

  1. Throwing the die and moving your token along the squares entering through a doorway,
  2. Via the Secret Passages by leaping across the board, corner to corner, without using the die, and
  3. a player's token may be placed in a room by another player in the feature play known as "The Suggestion." If the space at the entrance to a room is occupied by the token of one player, no other player may move into that room, through that door.

Getting out of a room:

There are three ways of leaving a room:

  1. by throwing the die and moving out through a doorway onto the squares, heading toward another room of your choice,
  2. by using the Secret Passages and finally,
  3. by being transferred to a new room by some other player.

On the throw of the die, you may enter a Room by the doors only, but you cannot leave a room on the same turn. Entering the Room ends your move. It is not necessary to throw the exact number to enter a Room. That is, if you need 4 to get into a room and you have thrown a 6, ignore the last two units after entering the Room.

Players already in a room may leave it by any door using the die as usual and moving toward another room or, they may use a secret passage, if in a corner room. The doors of each room are not counted as a square.

Secret Passages: The Secret Passages shown in the corner rooms enable players to move between opposite corner rooms in one move. This can be done on a player's turn without throwing the die merely by moving their token to the opposite corner room and announcing they are using the Secret Passage. A Suggestion may be made after this move.

Making a Suggestion

As soon as you enter a room, make a Suggestion. By making Suggestions, you try to determine - by process of elimination -- which three cards are in the Solution envelope. To make a Suggestion, move a character and a theory into the Room that you just entered. Then suggest that the solution is possible to derive in that Room, by that Character, with that Theory.

Example: Let's say that you're Gabriela "Guerra" Gonzales and you enter the Laboratory. First move another character -- Ulysses S "Grant" Rider, for instance -- into the Lounge. Then move a theory into the Laboratory (the Theory of Evolution, perhaps) and say "I suggest that the theorem can be disproved in the Laboratory, by Gabriela "Guerra" Gonzales with the Theory of Evolution."

Remember two things:

  1. You must be in the Room that you mention in your Suggestion.
  2. Be sure to consider all tokens -- including spare characters and yourself! -- as falling under equal interest.

Proving the suggestion true or false:

As soon as you make a Suggestion, your opponents, in turn, try to prove it false. The first to try is the player to your immediate left. This player looks at their cards to see if one of the three cards you just named is there. If the player has one or more of these cards, they must show it to you and no one else. If the player has more than one of the cards named, they select just one to show you.

If that opponent does not have any of the three cards, then the next player at their left examines their cards and must show one of the three if they have it. Obviously, if any player has one or more of the 3 cards named in the Suggestion, it is proof that those particular cards are not in the envelope.

The opportunity to prove the Suggestion false passes to the left until some player has shown ONE card to the suggesting player, whose turn then ends, and play passes to the next player. If no one is able to prove your Suggestion false, you may either end your turn or make an Assertion now.

Special Notes about Suggestions

You may make only one Suggestion after entering a particular Room. To make your next Suggestion, you must either enter a different Room or sometime after your next turn, re-enter the Room that you most recently left. You may not forfeit a turn to remain in a particular Room.

If yours was the character moved into a room by a Suggestion, you may, on your next turn, make a Suggestion of your own for that room. If you decide to make a Suggestion, do not roll the die or move your token.

By making Suggestions and having them proved True or False players will eventually be able to identify the three cards in the envelope.

Tokens and theories transferred to a room as the result of a Suggestion are not returned to their original positions on the board. There is no limit to the number of character tokens or theories that may be in a Room at one time.

To leave a room in which your token has been placed by a Suggestion, either roll the die or, if you're in a corner room, you can use the Secret Passage.

Although there is no requirement or rule on how players should use the Scientist Lab Notebook it is suggested that the best and easiest way to play the game is to check off items on the Lab Not Book as they become known. Some players find it helpful to mark the initials of the player who showed the card.

Making an Assertion

When you think you've figured out which three cards are in the envelope, you may, on your turn, make an Assertion. First say "I assert (character) can solve Professor Blahblah's Last Theorem in (Room) with the (Theory)" Then, so that the other players do not see, look at the three cards in the envelope.

In a Suggestion, the Room you name must be the Room where your token is located. But in an Assertion, you may name any Room.

Winning the game

If the Assertion is completely correct, that is, if you find in the envelope, all 3 cards that you just named, lay the cards face up on the table and you are the winner.

If the Assertion is incorrect Secretly return the three cards to the envelope replace it on the board.

You may make no further moves in the game.

You remain as a player to contradict Suggestions made by other players.

If your token is blocking a door, move it into Room so that other players may enter.

Your opponents may continue to move your token into the various Rooms where they make Suggestions.