Academic Games


Academic Games is a competition in the U.S. in which players win by out-thinking each other in mathematics, language arts, and social studies. Formal tournaments are organized by local leagues, and on a national level by the Academic Games Leagues of America. Member leagues in eight states hold a national tournament every year, in which players in four divisions compete in eight different games covering math, English, and history. Some turn-based games require a kit consisting of a board and playing cubes, while other games have a central reader announcing questions or clues and each player answering individually.

History

Before the existence of AGLOA, tournaments were held by the National Academic Games Project founded by the creator of many of the games. The earliest tournaments, in the late 1960s, were held on or near the campus of Nova High School in Davie, Florida. Nova was the beta test site for the game "Propaganda" and others. Many AGLOA leaders were involved with NAGP. The new league was created partially because of personal conflict with Robert W. Allen. Allen later sued the AGLOA for copyright, trademark, and tradename infringement.
Academic Games Leagues of America was founded in 1991 to encourage the use of Academic Games as an educational tool and as a scholar competition. Many of the games used in tournaments, however, were created as early as in the 1960s and 1970s. Most of the games played at tournaments are available from Wff 'N Proof Learning Games. Brother Neal Golden of New Orleans is the current board president of AGLOA; Rod Beard of West Bloomfield, MI is the current vice-president. Other board members represent Academic Games leagues in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

Divisions

Academic Games players compete with other players in their own age group. These are the four age divisions in the league.
  1. Minor - Grades 3-4
  2. Elementary – Grades 5-6 or 6 and under
  3. Middle – Grades 7–8
  4. Junior – Grades 9–10
  5. Senior – Grades 11–12
However, there is no restriction against playing one of your players in a higher division. Several teams have won national championships in the senior division, even though half their players belonged, agewise, in the junior division.
Games become more challenging as a player progresses through the divisions. There are often two variations of the games: basic and adventurous. Basic games have no variations or special demands players can make on game solutions. Adventurous games have a series of variation possibilities that may apply and increase in difficulty as players age.

Games Played

Eight games are played in official AGLOA tournaments. Some local leagues also play other games such as On-Words.

Math Games

Two math games, Equations and On-Sets are played at AGLOA tournaments.

Equations

Equations is a mathematics game created in 1965 for 2–3 players. The game uses a playing mat with Forbidden, Permitted, and Required sections and 24 cubes, each labeled with numbers and mathematical operations. At the beginning of each "shake", one player uses up to six cubes to set a "goal." All players must use the remaining cubes to devise a solution that equals the goal or win by challenging an impossible board + goal situation.
Gameplay can become more complicated through the use of "variations" called on the game. Applicable variations differ by the player's age division. The game progresses with each player moving one cube on their turn, or alternatively challenging that they can create a solution with the cubes in play, that a solution was possible on the last turn and the player before had missed it, or challenging that it is impossible to create a solution with the cubes available. When a player calls a challenge, it is called against the player who most recently completed their move.
In a three player game, the indifferent player may choose who he sides with in the case of a challenge. A player who correctly challenges another player wins the game. The loser of a game gains two points, The winner six, and the sider gains four or two. Equations games become more intricate with the use of factorials, vulgar fractions, and even logarithms, in the Senior division.

On-Sets

is a board and cube game that teaches basic logic and set theory. This game also uses a deck of 16 cards that is used to make the "Universe". Each card contains a different combination of colored dots. The cubes contain numbers, colors and logic operators.
Players learn logic concepts such as union and intersection, and learn to use restrictions such as subset. Variations can also be used in On-Sets games. A player wins by using the cubes in resources to create a logical statement which equals the goal set using the numeral cubes. Challenges and multiplayer games work in a similar way to Equations game.

WFF 'N Proof

WFF 'N Proof is a board and cube game that was created by Professor Layman Allen in 1961 to teach the basics of symbolic logic.
It is played with 28 cubes that contain various letters, such as p, q, C, or N. The game board contains a forbidden section, a permitted section, and a required section. To win the game, you have to write a proof, using the cubes to create "WFFs". This game is now part of the AGLOA National Tournament, beginning in 2013.

Language Games

LinguiSHTIK

is a technical game that teaches language arts and linguistics. The game has a playing mat and 23 cubes which are imprinted with the 26 letters of the alphabet.
A player has to create a word using the letters available, and the word must be used in a sentence that matches the Demands called. A demand specifies something about the sentence or word, such as number of clauses, part of speech, number of letters, etc. Challenges in LinguiSHTIK work similarly as in the other cube games with the exception of a forceout, which is called when moving any cube would result in a Challenge Win. Some concepts taught in LinguiSHTIK include sentence patterns, clauses, grammar, and verbs.
The game has elements similar to the popular word game Scrabble but adds a different element of play through grammatical demands and the shared letter pool.

Propaganda

In Propaganda, clues are read to all players by a central reader. Each player must decide, from a list, which persuasion technique that clue used, if any. There are several different sections of Propaganda techniques; the reader also specifies which section the persuasion technique is listed in.
Different leagues have different scoring methods, but the official AGLOA scoring involves a "bold" and "cautious" wager method. If you wager "bold", then you receive four points for a correct answer or lose two points for an incorrect answer. If you wager "cautious," then you receive two points for a correct answer; however, you lose nothing for an incorrect answer. A round consists of nine questions, so the highest score possible per round is 36 points, while the lowest is -18 points.
Most Propaganda clues involve statements that are likely to be heard in advertising or politics. There are six different Propaganda sections, but only four specific sections are used in each season. Sections A, B, D, and E are being used for the 2016–2017 season, and B, C, D, and F will be used for the 2017–2018 season. For 2018–2019, the sections will be A, C, D, and E. For 2019–2020, the sections will be A, B, C, and F. For 2020–2021, the sections will be B, C, D, and E. Here are all the Propaganda techniques, listed by section.
Propaganda Techniques
More complete definitions of the individual techniques can be found on agloa.org.
#Section ASection BSection CSection DSection ESection F
'Techniques of Self-Deception''Techniques of Language''Techniques of Irrelevance''Techniques of Exploitation''Techniques of Form''Techniques of Maneuver'
0No TechniqueNo TechniqueNo TechniqueNo TechniqueNo TechniqueNo Technique
1PrejudiceEmotional TermsAppearanceAppeal To PityConcurrencyDiversion
2Academic DetachmentMetaphor/SimileMannerAppeal to FlatteryPost HocDisproving a Minor Point
3Drawing the LineEmphasisDegrees and TitlesAppeal to RidiculeSelected InstancesAd Hominem
4Not Drawing the LineQuotation out of ContextNumbersAppeal to PrestigeHasty GeneralizationAppeal to Ignorance
5Conservatism, Radicalism, ModeratismAbstract TermsStatusAppeal to PrejudiceFaulty AnalogyLeading Question
6RationalizationVaguenessRepetitionBargain AppealCompositionComplex Question
7Wishful ThinkingAmbiguitySlogansFolksy AppealDivisionInconsequent Argument
8Tabloid ThinkingShift of MeaningTechnical JargonJoin the Bandwagon AppealNon-SequiturAttacking a Straw Man
9Causal Oversimplification—Sophistical FormulaAppeal to Practical Consequences—Victory By Definition
10Inconceivability—Passing from the Acceptable to the Dubious—Begging the Question

Social Studies Games

Presidents

A reader announces three clues about a particular U.S. President. Each player must individually write down which President the clue describes. Players who answer correctly on the earliest clue get more points than players that answer after more clues are given. The first clue is worth 6 points, the second is worth 4 points, and the third is worth 2 points. The 6 point clue is the hardest clue, while the 4 point and 2 point clues get progressively easier.
In the Elementary and Middle divisions, only a portion of presidents are used per season. For those divisions, ranges switch between presidents 1–17, 16-33, and 28–45 every year. In Junior and Senior divisions, however, two ranges of presidents are used every season. During a tournament, players are assisted by a gazetteer which has each president's name, birth date, birthplace, and other basic information.

World Events

This event was part of the national tournament through 2016, after which its two rounds, Current Events and Theme, were each made an independent game.
This game was originally known as “World Card.”

Current Events

This event concerns events from the past year, both foreign and domestic. It consists of a Wager Round, in which the players choose how many points they wish to wager, and a Lightning Round, in which the point values for each question are determined before the round.
In the Wager Round, players may wager two, four, or six points after being given a broad category. The player need not have any points to wager; thus, negative scores are possible. After the wager is made, the question is asked and the players answer. A correct answer earns as many points as were wagered, while an incorrect answer loses half that many.
In the Lightning Round, the questions are assigned point values by a panel of judges before the game starts. The questions are asked rapidly, and a correct answer earns its value; however, unlike the Wager Round, there is no penalty for answering incorrectly.

Theme

This event is very similar to its sister game, Current Events, which was once also a round of World Events. It is played and scored in the same fashion, with a Wager Round followed by a Lightning Round. The only notable difference is that this game concerns historical facts related to a theme chosen at the national tournament two years prior. Examples of past themes include the 1970s, the history of NASA, the Mesoamerican civilizations, World War I, and the American Civil War.
The theme of the 2017–2018 season was Greek and Roman Mythology, which was chosen by vote at the 2015–2016 tournament. The theme of the 2018–2019 season was “50 Women Who Changed the World,” which included Rosa Parks, Sacagawea, and Jane Addams The theme of the 2019 - 2020 season is "The Supreme Court: Now and Then".

Terminology

A spectator at an Academic Games tournament will hear a lot of jargon being thrown around that he or she may not be familiar with. Here are some of the most common AG-related words and their meanings.