Scientists invent new board games to reveal how we tackle the unknown
Playing board games can be fun, challenging, infuriating and a great way to pass the time. They can also help scientists understand how we solve new problems.
In a study published in the journal Nature, researchers created brand-new strategy games to see how players reason before tackling games they have no experience with. The goal of this research was to see how people react when they are thrown into an unfamiliar situation.
Most previous studies focused on how experts master games they already know or how massive supercomputers calculate millions of moves. What was missing was how everyday people reason about a game before they play it, which could provide insights into how we make quick decisions about situations we've never encountered before.
Games bonanza
In this study, researchers designed 121 two-player strategy games. These were digital, grid-based games played on a computer and loosely based on games like tic-tac-toe. However, they featured different board sizes, rules and win conditions. For example, in some games, making a straight line meant you won, while in others, it meant you lost.
More than 1,000 participants took part and were split into different groups to test different skills. In the first group, volunteers looked at a blank board and a written list of rules and then, without playing, had to estimate how fair the game would be and whether it looked like fun.
Members of the second group then sat down and played the unfamiliar games. In the third group, participants watched beginners play and had to guess what moves they would make next.
To explain how the participants made their decisions, the research team built a computer model called the Intuitive Gamer. The program simulates how a person might think when tackling a game for the first time by testing a few possible moves and looking just one step ahead to see how to advance or block an opponent. When they compared the program's choices with those made by volunteers, they found it closely matched human decisions.
The big takeaway
The scientists learned that when we face the unknown, we do not become paralyzed or try to calculate every possible future. Instead, we run a handful of quick mental simulations to find a good-enough path forward. "People are systematic and adaptively rational in how they play a game for the first time or evaluate a game," the study authors commented in their paper.
In addition to understanding human psychology, the researchers believe the program they built could be useful for AI. By mimicking the mental shortcuts we take, engineers might be able to build systems that make smart decisions without relying on huge amounts of computing power.
"The Intuitive Gamer approach could inform the design of more efficient AI systems that make reasonable judgments in new multi-agent settings despite using much less compute than conventional expert-level models," said the researchers.
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Publication details
Katherine M. Collins et al, People use fast and flat simulation to reason about new games, Nature (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10722-1
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Citation: Scientists invent new board games to reveal how we tackle the unknown (2026, July 16) retrieved 16 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-playing-board-games-reveal-tackle.html
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