Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy

REASONING UNDER HIDDEN INFORMATION

A story read by Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy

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01 Opening
Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy beat 1 of 5

On rainy evenings, the whole BluffForge studio crowds around one big round table under a hanging lantern. On it sits a forty-piece board, the hardest game in the valley, with six brambles, eight runners and a single Moonstone hidden among them. Beside the board sits a tall stack of blank blueprints.

"Tonight," said Draftsy, "we play one game together, and everyone gets one job."

Draftsy went first. She laid out a setup nobody had seen before: the Moonstone in the middle of the back row, two brambles to one side of it, a decoy corner on the other. "New every time," she said.

02 Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy
Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy beat 2 of 5

Decoy took the decoy corner. He placed a 4 there with two brambles beside it, then sat back on his stool looking terribly important, which is his gift.

The game began. Almost at once, a Blue piece stormed forward and sent two of Red's pieces home, one after the other.

"It's their 10," said someone. "It has to be."

Quillby's quill stayed perfectly still. "Reason?"

03 Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy
Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy beat 3 of 5

"It's winning everything."

"It's beaten a 5 and a 6," said Quillby. "So it is at least a 7. That still leaves Blue's 7s, their 8s, their 9 and Ursa. That's all we actually know." He wrote it in the ledger: at least 7.

Pricetag picked up a 2, one of Red's eight runners. "Then let's buy the answer cheaply." He sent the runner straight at the mystery piece. The two met and turned over. The runner went home. The Blue piece was a 9.

Quillby crossed out the old line and wrote the new one. "Reason: we saw it."

04 Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy
Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy beat 4 of 5

Bluster marched one of Red's 6s forward as if it were the strongest piece on the board. Blue stepped back from it twice, and those two turns gave Red time on the left.

Then the two sides' 8s met in the centre and both went home. "Even trade," said Matchley, holding up her two acorns. "But look behind them. Ours had our 9 waiting. Theirs had nothing." With the middle empty, Red's 9 stepped in and held it.

Near the end, a Blue piece began to shuttle between two squares, back and forth, again and again.

"Three times," said Fairwell, raising a hoof. "Then it must go somewhere new." It did, straight into the square where Red's 9 was waiting.

05 Closing
Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy beat 5 of 5

Finally Red faced two still pieces in Blue's back row, one on the left and one on the right. Quillby read from the ledger. "Every time we've come near the left one, Blue has moved something to guard it. The right one, they've never protected."

Red went left. It was the Moonstone.

Nobody cheered loudest. Everyone had done one small, careful thing: a new plan, a fair decoy, an honest question mark, a cheap test, a bold walk, a trade with a look behind it, a rule kept, and a reason for the final guess.

That is the Blueprint table. You can never see a hidden army, but you can reason about it. Plan differently each game, set fair decoys, test with your cheapest piece, look behind every trade, let no chase stall the game, and keep only the beliefs you have a reason for.

Hear it as an audio drama

A short play starring Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy, from BluffForge. Different voices, same idea. Listen any time after you read.

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Read the drama script
  1. Narrator: From Spark and Anvil and BluffForge — this is Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy, in chapter 1 of the BluffForge cast.
  2. Narrator: This drama uses an AI-generated voice. Voiced via Gemini 2.5.
  3. Narrator: There is only one 9 in each army. This is the story of Blue's 9, in a forty-piece game around the Blueprint table.
  4. Blue Nine: I started the game by sending two Red pieces home. A 5, then a 6.
  5. Red Piece: It's their 10! It has to be!
  6. Quillby: Reason?
  7. Red Piece: It's winning everything.
  8. Quillby: It beat a 5 and a 6. So it's at least a 7. That's all we know. At least 7.
  9. Blue Nine: They didn't know what I was. I liked that.
  10. Pricetag: Then let's buy the answer cheaply.
  11. Narrator: A Red runner raced across and met the Blue 9. Both turned over. The runner went home.
  12. Blue Nine: And now they knew. A 9. Not the 10.
  13. Quillby: Reason: we saw it.
  14. Narrator: From then on, Red planned around the 9. They traded their 8s, kept their own 9 safe, and found Blue's Moonstone by reading which corner Blue kept guarding.
  15. Blue Nine: I was strong. But once everyone knew what I was, I was just a fact on the board.
  16. Narrator: A hidden piece is powerful because it is a question. Answer the questions cheaply, and the game opens up. That's the nine's story.
  17. Narrator: You've been listening to a Spark and Anvil chapter, written by the Spark and Anvil writing team for ages 9 to 14.
  18. Narrator: Apps stay free forever.
  19. Narrator: Curriculum aligned to Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.
  20. Narrator: Released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 for educational reuse. Visit Spark and Anvil for the full transcript.

The BluffForge ensemble

Pricetag, Decoy, Bluster, Matchley, Fairwell, Quillby, and Draftsy is one of the friends in BluffForge. Each friend shows you one idea by how they act; meet them all and you have the whole subject.