How to Master Black Box
TLDR: A rule hides inside the box. You push inputs through it, read what comes out, and name the rule from the answer list. Every probe is evidence, and you never have to spend them all · the moment the examples can only mean one rule, answer. The game gets harder as you go because it gives you fewer probes, more answers to choose from, and more kinds of rule.
How a Round Works
One rule sits in the box. Press Insert and the machine takes the next input, thinks for a moment, and drops the result onto the belt. The pairs stay on screen, so the evidence builds up as you go.
You do not have to empty the queue. “Ready to answer” opens the answer list as soon as one output is on the belt. The reveal reports how many probes you spent and how long you took, because the point is to name the rule from as little as you can, not to use everything.
Pick Probes That Split the Field
A probe is only worth spending if it can rule something out. The best input is the one that makes the candidate rules disagree, and the worst is one they all agree on.
⚠️ Small numbers hide the answer. Push 2 through a box holding “double” and a box holding “square” and both give you 4. Push 1 through “increment” and “double” and both give you 2. A round can look ambiguous when it is not · you simply picked the one input that cannot tell the rules apart.
💡 Tip: Prefer a large input. 10 separates almost every number rule at a glance: increment gives 11, double gives 20, square gives 100. Three numbers of different sizes beat six similar ones.
Read the shape before the value. You often do not need the arithmetic. Did the output get longer or shorter? Is it a number where a word went in? Is it the same characters in another order? Shape alone usually cuts the answer list in half before you have worked anything out.
The Three Families of Rule
The box holds one of three kinds, and knowing which one you are in narrows the list immediately.
Numbers, words, pictures. A number rule does arithmetic. A word rule works on the letters · its length, its order, its case, its first character. A picture rule swaps one emoji for its partner: a gender, a species, a colour. The input you are handed tells you the family for free, so spend your reading on the rules inside it.
💡 Tip: On a word rule, look at the output type first. A number out of a word is “length”. The same letters backwards is “reverse”. One character is “first letter only”. That is three rules settled without a second probe.
Why It Gets Harder
Most games get harder by speeding up. This one gets harder by telling you less.
✅ The three levers, and they all move with depth. The probe queue gets SHORTER as your streak grows, from about seven down to three. The answer list grows from four to six. And more kinds of rule come into play, so a run that started on numbers alone will meet word and picture rules later on.
💡 Tip: Because the queue shrinks, the habit of probing everything stops working around the point it starts to matter. Build the other habit early: read after every probe and ask what is still possible.
A short queue is never an unfair one. The game checks every round before it shows it to you, and only ships a round where the examples on the belt can be explained by exactly one answer on the list. If two answers still fit what you can see, you have not spent your probes yet.
Black Box
Deduce the hidden rule by probing fixed inputs. Watch what comes out of the box to crack the logic
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