Zendo, play by forum

[Proxima]

Good stuff, I like your thought processes

White Koans
ALPACA        ELPECE        LEMMING
ANIRACO       ELPPAENIP     LPC
BARACK        HI            MEL
BARRACK       HIT           MEND
BARRACKS      HTI           NEOLEMMIX
BERECK        HUMP          OCARINA
BOROCK        HUND          OLPOCO
BURUCK        HUNDRED       PARDY
BREAD         I             PINEAPPLE
CALAPA        IHT           POODLE
CHEESECAKE    II            PUMP
CHEESECOKE    III           STAPLE
D             INBOX         TELEVISION
DINNER        IO            THI
DISJOINTED    IOO           THION
DOLPHIN       IOOO          THOUSAND
DRED          ITH           TIH
ED            LAPACA        ULPUCU

Black Koans
BANANA        MILD
BIRICK        MILLION
GNIMMEL       MILON
GOAT          O
HUN           OO
HUNN          OOO
ILPICI        PARTY
LLAMA         THO
MELD          THOU

[Dullstar]

Variants of STAPLE:

STEPLE
STIPLE
STOPLE
STUPLE

STEPLA

[Proxima]

^ all white

[Proxima]

Simon asked for the answer, so here goes:

Spoiler

A koan has the buddha nature if it contains at least one of {I, V, X, L, C, D, M}, and all substrings containing only those letters are valid Roman numerals. For this rule, a valid Roman numeral is the unique representation of a number from 1 to 3888 using the standard rules, such as LIX = 59. Examples of invalid Roman numerals (thus causing all koans containing them to be black) are IL, IM, LL.

[Simon]

This sounds very hard. I feel the solution is appropriate. RIP Zendo thread, we had good fun.

-- Simon

[grams88]

That was a good one Proxima, probably would of took a long time to get that one.

[WillLem]

New rule for anyone who fancies playing. Inital examples as follows:

White Koan
MARY

Black Koan
POPPINS

[Proxima]

MAR
MA
M

[WillLem]

White Koans
MARY
MAR
MA
M

Black Koan
POPPINS

[Proxima]

PAR
POR
POP

[Simon]

Ten years it has been!

MOPPINS
POPINS
POINS
POPP
POIN
PO
P

-- Simon

[The64Watcher]

WILLLEM white koan
NAMIDA black koan

[namida]

GATOR
TOR
GAT
BUS
BAS
BUSY
BASY

WILLLEM white koan
NAMIDA black koan

Unless you're the host of a round (which you aren't; it's currently WillLem), you either need to try koans so that the host can tell you if they're black or white, or else you try to guess the rule (by actually saying what you think the rule is). Your goal is to figure out the rules that determine if a koan is black or white, not to figure out specifically which koans are which (and certianly not to just arbitrarily declare them as such).

[The64Watcher]

oops, well uhh im not that good at figuring out what cryptic message that was the intructions... sorry

[WillLem]

White Koans
MARY - MAR - MA - M - PAR - POR - POINS - POIN - PO - P
GATOR - TOR - GAT - BUS - BAS - BUSY - BASY

Black Koans
POPPINS - POP - MOPPINS - POPINS - POPP - WILLLEM - NAMIDA

oops, well uhh im not that good at figuring out what cryptic message that was the intructions... sorry

The idea of this game is to guess the secret rule.

All you need to do is guess some words. A white or black koan is then assigned to each of the words you've guessed. If assigned a white koan, the word fulfils the secret rule. If assigned a black koan, the word does not fulfil the secret rule.

By observing the white koan and black koan words, it should be possible to guess what the secret rule is - both koans are good, because between them they present all the information you need to determine the secret rule.