Ergo: A review of the non-collectible card game

Ergo is an attempt to make logic fun. I think one can see a problem right away with this concept, but let's roll with it.

RULES

The game includes a double sided rules page and various cards including four variables (A, B, C and D) that represent the 2 to 4 players in the game. There are also logical operators (Not, Or, And, If/Then) and parentheses cards, as well as some "wild cards", some "miss turn" cards, and the "end the round card" at which point scoring would commence.

Players takes turns adding up to two cards per turn to a shared "proof" of up to four lines, or premises. There are rules for what are legal additions that roughly follow the rules of sentential logic. I say roughly, because when parentheses are not defining what is the main connective of the line, then they use a rather brute force approach of "then" trumps "or" trumps "and". But I can appreciate the game requires such.

When scoring, a player gets points if "their" variable is proved to be true, and no points if "their" variable is not. But if a contradiction is contained in the proof, then no one gets any points that round (thus a player who fears that other players will get ahead this round might spike a proof with a contradiction).

It is at the scoring phase that the game runs into a brick wall. First of all, there is no provision of what to do in the absence of brackets if one has a premise that says "A Then B Then C". Which "then" takes priority? In general there is an absence of serious discussion of what Main Connective means, actually. That is kind of important if you are unfamiliar with logic.

Worse, while there are some rules of natural deduction on the back of the two sided rules page, they are incomplete. I mean, I know that Not-parenthesis-A-Then-B-Parenthesis will prove A to be true and B to be false, but I would not be able to prove it using only the rules given in the game (if that is intentional, then it will simply annoy logicians that play the game). Meanwhile, the rules include Absorption and Demorgan's laws, which are hideously complex for a non-logician. Also, the game seems to not allow the usual logician's conceit of forgetting about parentheses when using a double negation. Strangely purist, considering that the game is meant to be, well, a game.

But even if there was a complete set of rules given to score the game, the problem is that natural deduction proofs are hard. That is why students don't always get great marks in logic classes. Thus unless at least one player has already mastered them, there is no way that the players could figure out how to score the game, most of the time.

If one player did know logic and others didn't, then the game for the others would be about as much fun as, well, taking a college or university course in sentential logic. Or as fun as someone who knows all the rules of a game telling poor ignorant you whether you won or not.

So the audience for this game is limited to those that have taken and mastered a course in sentential logic. In which case they could do better to use the rules in their own logic textbooks, which would at least be complete.

Frankly the game would have been better off abandoning natural deduction proofs and using Truth-Trees to score. At least that method is mechanically guaranteed to eventually give your branches that will prove A or Not-A, which is the point of the game. Truth-Trees are designed to break down into variables and their negations, after all.

LAYOUT

As for lay-out of rules and such, well the cards are beautiful. The rules has serious mistakes in the graphics examples, however. In turn 10 (the scoring turn!) of the example of play, the wrong Not is taken away from the proof so the picture does not match the text description. In the all too short "order of operations" section an "ergo" card is placed in the middle of a line for absolutely no reason. This is frankly a really bad thing to have in a game based on logic. Logic required accuracy and a lack of ambiguity.

In addition, getting back to the game side of it all, it could be made more clear what discarding cards means. In one case it says "put this card on the bottom of the deck when used" but does that apply to most other cards, or does one discard to a 'face up' discard pile that is then re-shuffled if needed? A few cards are not to be used again in a round when used, but they are specified. Although again, the card that can remove a card from a proof could have been made more clear, since "obeying the rules" in this case implies it can only remove a negation or, in the sole case of a variable being the only card in a line, that variable. Why not just say that and eliminate some confusion?

As for the operator cards themselves, the game does not describe whether, for example, the "or" card is the exclusive or inclusive or, nor does it describe what "then" really means. This would be confusing to the non-logician.

So unfortunately I cannot recommend this game as a game for non-logicians. For logicians, it could work with a few "house rules" (like what takes priority between two "thens" when parentheses cards are not used in a line). As a teaching tool, I think it would be unlikely to help, but since I have not used it as such I could be wrong here.

This game is broken (in the "cannot score it" sense) and was not worth my money. I cannot recommend it.