MOSAIC LAB
An ongoing research program: how strategy, information, and deception emerge from the rules.
Every study below is self-played at scale: AI personas drawn from a pool of six (not language models — nothing here is trained), every game uniquely seeded and fully reproducible. The lab now spans both editions of Mosaic — Deception, the original hidden-goal game (a completed 8,000,000-game campaign), and Perception, the open-goals edition it inspired. Studies run automatically, one after another; reports go live as their data arrives.
Deception the original game
Every goal is secret, and goals rotate, trade, and change hands mid-game — a game of hidden minds played with the complete 21-action deck. The campaign below played it 8,000,000 times: every table size, with the Prism anchored at the centre, and once more as an open-start variant study with the anchor removed entirely.
These games were played with the tabletop rules exactly as designed — and you can play them the same way here.
The anchored block
Every table starts with the Prism at the centre — a wild tile that counts as every colour, so each player opens with a guaranteed connection waiting for them.
Five players · with the Prism
The baseline: a full table, no imaginary seats, the wild centre anchoring every opening.
Four players · with the Prism
One imaginary seat appears: the first table where a finished chain can sit orphaned.
Three players · with the Prism
Two imaginary seats hold goals they can never win — goal actions can steal games outright.
Two players · with the Prism
The duel, with three imaginary bystanders holding hidden goals.
The open-start variant study
A completed study of a variant (the shipping game always includes the Prism): the wild anchor absent, the first placement committing to a real colour. Locked-out turns are real here: across 4,000,000 open-start games so far, players have been forced to pass 1,727,760 times — a pass is only legal when nothing in hand can be placed.
Five players · open start
No Prism, no neutral anchor: openings commit to real colours immediately. Paired with study 1, deal for deal.
Four players · open start
Paired with study 2, deal for deal.
Three players · open start
Paired with study 3, deal for deal.
Two players · open start
Paired with study 4, deal for deal.
Cross-study reports
The prism block: one game, four table sizes
Four million games at five, four, three and two players — the persona ladder that table size cannot touch, and the eight metrics that slide with it.
Read the report →The open block: the same four tables, nothing at the centre
Four million games without the Prism — a persona ladder with not one rank change, a first-mover edge that is simply gone, and 1.7 million forced passes.
Read the report →One tile, two games: 4,000,000 paired deals
Every deal in the campaign, played twice — with and without the Prism. The winner changes in up to 77% of pairs, the Liar gains the most from the anchor's removal at every size, and the rule turns out to outweigh the deal.
Read the report →The win-cone: how many victories stay reachable
A new instrument: for every position, the minimum placements that could still win each color. The cone never closes — games end by arrival, not elimination — and even perfect geometry can't call the winner until the final stretch.
Read the report →Perception the open game
The second edition: every goal face up and immutable, only as many goals as players, nothing of a player's can ever be taken — and the Prism itself in play, movable, pocketable, replayable. Born from the Mensa Mind Games feedback; series A below is its first measurement (100,000 games per size to start, scaling to a million).
The digital game’s rules — the same open goals the studies below measured, playable here.
Five players · Perception
The open game at full strength: five goals face up, every color claimed, the Prism in play — movable, pocketable, replayable.
Four players · Perception
Four goals face up, one neutral color nobody owns — the first table with true mortar.
Three players · Perception
Three goals claimed, two colors neutral: build with mortar or hand a visible brick to a rival.
Two players · Perception
The open duel: two goals, three neutral colors, and a Prism either player can drag or pocket.
Five players · Perception · doubled actions
Series B: remove, move, and rotate at six copies each — does more board physics deepen the five-player sieges, or break them open?