Overview

Herman Hesse’s 1943 book, “The Glass Bead Game” tells the story of Joseph Knecht, the ‘Magister Ludi’ (Master of the Games). This Glass Bead Game is not fully described in the book but can be summarised as:

“An abstract synthesis of all arts and sciences. It proceeds by players making deep connections between seemingly unrelated topics”

Inspired by this idea, we created a real Glass Bead Game (GBG) that we believe captures the essence of Hesse’s concept.

Now it's your turn to play..

Creating a Game

A GBG is best described by an example:

Example: "Traverse from Miles Davis to Big Bang via Blade Runner."

The idea is that a player has to somehow connect these three concepts together in a meaningful way, using intermediate steps. Creating a game is as simple as providing the three words or phrases, but the art is in inspiring the solvers to attempt your challenge.

Note: Games with the most solutions are shown first

Creating a Solution

Let’s create an example of a solution to the game above.

  1. Miles Davis → Kind of Blue — A major album of Miles Davis.
  2. Kind of Blue → Deep Blue — The computer chess program that beat Garry Kasparov.
  3. Deep Blue → Artificial Intelligence — Deep Blue is an important example of A.I.
  4. Artificial Intelligence → Blade Runner — Based on the concept of artificial beings (replicants).
  5. Blade Runner → Off-world Colony — A reference to people leaving Earth in the story.
  6. Off-world Colony → Cosmos — Off-world implies space.
  7. Cosmos → Big Bang — The cosmos was started by the Big Bang.

So we now have a completed GBG:

Miles Davis → Kind of Blue → Deep Blue → A.I. → Blade Runner → Off-world Colony → Cosmos → Big Bang

The skill in the game comes from making interesting, intelligent connections and using as few terms as possible to maintain elegance.

Scoring a Solution

When players submit a solution, others may score it based on three criteria:

Solutions with the highest average score are featured first.

Note: