Ace Altro (Try Ace Altro)
An online crime
drama logic game, where the ultimate goal is to solve a mystery, 'Who done
it?'. A player/detective can evaluate statements of witnesses that are given in
everyday language describing what they know about the crime. Using symbolic
logic the player translates the statements into logical sentences and evaluates
the outcome against the collected evidence and the set of suspects. The complexity
of the statements, suspects' diversity and evidence varies depending on the
age/level of the player.
Witnesses may have speaking patterns (for example giving only 'or' or 'and'
statements) that can be noticed by going through different cases, so the long
term success of the detective depends on the development of a questioning
strategy and the ability to categorize the set of suspects.
This game supplements instructions in logic: false, true statements, truth
tables, logical inferences, operations on sets, categorization, conjecture
making, proofs, etc.
Instructions: To login and try the game, use the
login number “4” and the password “acelogic”.
Example. Introductory activity:
Who broke the window?
Suspects -
four boys with the following characterization:
Boy A
(blond hair, green shirt,
black pants)
Boy B
(blond hair, blue shirt,
brown pants)
Boy C
(black hair, white shirt,
black pants)
Boy D
(black hair, green shirt,
green pants)
First witness: I have seen the boy who broke the
window from far away. My eyes are not so good, but I am sure his shirt was not
blue.
Translation into logic:
p: The shirt was blue.
True statement:
Not p
Since this is True only for
boys A, C, D, we can eliminate B from the suspect pool.
Second witness: His hair
was not black or his pants were not black.
Translation into logic:
q: The hair was black.
r: The pants were black.
True statements by the
second witnesses:
Not
q or not r
True
for boys A and D, since C has black hair and black pants.
Do you need more
witnesses? Yes.
Third
witness: If his
hair was black, his pants were black.
q implies r
True only for boy
A, even though boy D has black hair his pants are not black (his pants are
green, so the implication is false).
Even in this
introductory scenario the student has built the logical structures, analyzed
them, and applied them to categorize and re-categorize elements of the set (of
suspects) into groups depending on consecutive testimonies. As the cases
become more complex the witness interviewing strategies play an important role
in reaching the solution.
Try Ace Altro - "Aces and Spades" (chapter one) Beta version online now. Give us constructive feedback and let us know additional cases that you would like us to include as future chapters.
Ace Altro "Aces and Spades" Game Design/Development
Team
Shahab Laskari
Jennifer Morrison
Cole Rieger